Feinstein widens asbestos trust bill

Oakland Tribune ^ | 4/30/05 | Ian Hoffman

[NormsRevenge]

Endorsed by President Bush, manufacturers, big labor and veterans groups, a $140 billion trust fund for workplace asbestos victims was on a fast track for approval by the Senate Judiciary Committee, leaving Californians exposed to asbestos in the environment on uncertain legal ground.

But in the final bill rewrite, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California persuaded colleagues to make compensation available to people sickened by asbestos outside the workplace and set aside $40 million for federal agencies to study the problem of "naturally occurring asbestos."

Her amendment to the trust-fund bill marks the first federal legislation to grapple with a problem that geologists suspect exists in at least 44 of 58 counties in California where asbestos minerals coexist with the staterock — serpentine — or other minerals and are being disturbed by rapid development.

"A new threat is emerging in California from naturally occurring asbestos," Feinstein said in a statement. "I have been hearing from individuals and public officials who are trying to ensure the safety of their communities."

The California language is a tiny piece of a highly controversial, 313-page bill designed to end a flood of asbestos litigation that manufacturers and insurers say is bankrupting companies and slowing the economy. The bill would compensate workers and military personnel deemed ill from exposure to asbestos, though many victims' advocates say the fund is not large enough for the number of claims and the huge medical bills for treating asbestos-related disease.

Feinstein's support of the bill as a leading Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee was considered crucial to its passage, and stocks of companies with asbestos liability soared on news of her backing for the legislation.

With the $40 million amendment, federal agencies would study standards and regulations for natural asbestos in soil and air, begin aerial mapping of likely asbestos deposits and offer grants for removing or sealing up natural asbestos in public places such as schools, parks and gravel roads.

In study after study over two decades, scientists have found mounting evidence that builders and gravel quarries are digging into natural asbestos veins, and that Californians are breathing asbestos fibers in the course of daily living.

The problem is especially acute in the Sierra foothills, where wildfire growth is churning up types of asbestos that many scientists believe are 10 to hundreds of times more carcinogenic than the asbestos commonly used in construction, insulation and brake pad manufacture.

Up to $3 million in the Feinstein amendment would pay for the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to study the lungs of Californians living in fast-developing areas rich in asbestos and look for abnormal changes in the lung lining, or pleura, that usually are a harbinger of disease.

California began regulating quarrying, construction and road-building involving asbestos-containing rock in 1990 and tightened the rules five years ago. But federal, state and local governments have drawn the line at prohibiting development or disturbance of asbestos-containing rock and have made meager progress in mapping asbestos deposits statewide.

Critics of state and federal handling of the natural asbestos issue suspect the $40 million — including at least $10 million for EPA cleanup grants — will be insufficient. But they credited the senator for stepping into the issue.

[LegendHasIt]

Just another welfare program for ambulance chasing Lawyers.

85% of the health problems ascribed to asbestos are bogus or misdiagnosed.

[concentric circles]

This opens a real can of worms. Naturally occuring asbestos is found all over California. In general it is found where there is faulting and uplift, LOL! More specifically, it is found associated with Serpentinite, you know, the state rock, found all over the place, though not so much south of Santa Barbara.

More information and maps:
A general map in html format here.
A California Geological Survey page on asbestos here.
A more detailed map in PDF format here, use the zoom tool to enlarge to 100%.

[SubMareener]

Lucky for the rest of us, this will soon be underwater as California slips into the sea. ;-)

[KeyWest]

-85% of the health problems ascribed to asbestos are bogus or misdiagnosed.-

Most asbestos disease is with smokers. Only a small percentage are non-smokers. There are villages in Turkey where the huts are made from asbestos laden mud, but the incidence of Asbestos disease is almost zero.

I was in the USN and worked on board ships that had the asbestos removed the old fashioned way, just ripped out with fibers all over the place. No problems even 40 years later- but I do not smoke.

I agree. It is a disease in search of a lawyer.