The Proposed U.S. Asbestos-Litigation Trust Fund

Asbestos Lobbying: Everyone's Doing It

The U.S. Senate's "long war over the proposed asbestos-litigation trust fund has given the lobbying industry its biggest contracts and busiest revolving door, bringing a virtual army of ex-leadership aides back to their former bosses' doorsteps." Fortune 500 companies with "more than $75 million in liability to injured workers" have retained 20 firms to promote the bill, in addition to their in-house lobbyists and the National Association of Manufacturers. 

The Asbestos Study Group, a business coalition, has a $23 million contract with the Democratic lobbying firm Swidler Berlin (and also worked with the now-defunct Republican firm Alexander Strategy Group). Mark Tipps, "former chief of staff and longtime adviser to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist," is lobbying for the bill at Akin Gump. Lobbying against the bill are Patton Boggs, for the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, and Fleishman-Hillard, for the Coalition for Asbestos Reform, "a group of smaller businesses."