Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency (FACT) Act of 2013

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 403 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield 30 minutes to my friend from Florida (Mr. Hastings), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I also ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I think back to a time when I was a teenager and I came into the gallery, and I am convinced that I came in during a rule because the reading clerk was standing there, reading line after line after line of material I didn't understand at all, and I thought, Why in the world is line by line by line the legislation being read? Haven't the Members already looked at that legislation? Haven't they already had time to study it?

What I know now, Mr. Speaker, 3 years with the voting card of the people of the Seventh District of Georgia, is that the rule is the only piece of legislation in this entire body that has to be read word for word here on the floor of the House.

My colleague from Florida and I spend a lot of hours up there in the Rules Committee sorting those things out, but the rules matter. The process matters.

I will be able to confess to you, Mr. Speaker--and I think sometimes we get that process done a little better, sometimes we get that process not done quite so well, but today we have a rule that brings two very important pieces of legislation to the floor. This structured rule provides for H.R. 982, which is the Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency Act, the FACT Act; and it brings a closed rule for H.R. 2655, the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act of 2013.

I want to say, Mr. Speaker, I was just talking with a group about what the Rules Committee does, and I have talked about the importance of an open process and how closed rules don't give folks as much opportunity to express their views on the floor.

It is going to be a closed rule on the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act, H.R. 2655, because for 11 days, Mr. Speaker, the Rules Committee solicited amendments from the entire body. It asked anyone who had any ideas about how to improve this legislation to submit those amendments so that we could consider them in the Rules Committee, and over that period of 11 days, Mr. Speaker, not one Member of this body offered any ideas about how to improve this bill. We would have liked to have made amendments in order for this bill, but none were submitted. So while we say this is a closed rule on H.R. 2655, it is only because no amendments were submitted to improve upon it.

Now on H.R. 982, the FACT Act, Mr. Speaker, we had five amendments submitted, all Democrat amendments. One was withdrawn. So there were only four that were in order for our meeting last night. One was confessed to actually just try to eliminate the effectiveness of the bill altogether. So we excluded that one because if folks don't like the bill, they can just vote ``no.'' They don't have to destroy the bill from within; they can just vote ``no'' on final passage. But all of the other amendments that were submitted we made in order. Now these are not amendments that I intend to support on the floor, Mr. Speaker, but I do think it is important that people's voices be heard.

So, again, three amendments are made in order. That is 75 percent of all the amendments that were submitted, and they are all amendments offered by my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle. The Rules Committee thought it was important to make those amendments in order.

Now we will talk a lot, Mr. Speaker, in the debate that comes after the rule about the content of these bills. One deals with frivolous litigation and whether or not judges will be required to allow folks who had to defend against frivolous lawsuits to recover the costs of those suits.

Today, Mr. Speaker, if someone files a frivolous lawsuit against you, you can have that lawsuit tossed out, but you have to go back to the court a second time to recover all of the costs that it took you to have the frivolous lawsuit tossed out. It is a tremendous burden on small businesses in our Nation. This bill seeks to solve that.

The FACT Act, our asbestos litigation act, aims to provide some transparency to the asbestos trust funds. I don't know if you are familiar, Mr. Speaker, but when it was discovered all of the health damage done by asbestos, the lawsuits began immediately and would have driven every one of those companies that either used asbestos or produced asbestos into bankruptcy, leaving no money at all for victims who had health problems that they then sought compensation for.

So federally we created, within Federal bankruptcy courts, these asbestos trust funds that allowed these companies, these manufacturers of asbestos, these folks who utilized processes that included asbestos, to deposit money into a trust fund and not go out of business but to provide certainty that victims would be able to recover from those funds in the future.

There is some concern, Mr. Speaker, that the process, as it exists today, does not allow for folks to see who is getting those dollars and whether or not the victims who have the most urgent needs are receiving those dollars first. Our great concern, Mr. Speaker, is that when those trust funds are depleted, they are gone forever. As you know, asbestos- related illnesses often don't present themselves for years down the road, so we have a stewardship obligation to these trust funds to keep them protected for future claimants.

This bill requires a degree of transparency, a quarterly report from the trustees of these trust funds to see who is making claims on these funds, who is receiving claims out of these funds, again, just so we can be good stewards of those trust funds and ensure they are available for future years.

I don't sit on the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Speaker, but I heard from the ranking member of the Constitution Subcommittee last night. I heard from the chairman of the full committee last night in the Rules Committee as we held a hearing on both of these bills. I am glad that we are able to bring them to the floor today, Mr. Speaker. Two bills, a structured rule. One rule is closed because no amendments were provided. The other bill is receiving 75 percent of all of the amendments that were submitted. Just one amendment was excluded by that rule.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I say to my friend that I absolutely share his passion for privacy protection. In fact, I had to leave a hearing we were having in the Oversight and Government Reform Committee today, Mr. Speaker, where we were looking at the ObamaCare Web site and talking to the chief information officers and the chief technology officers about how this Web site had gone live without having been fully vetted for security protections; talking about how, even as we sit here today, we have not fully run through those security processes.

I share the gentleman's concern. The gentleman is an attorney as well. I remember when I was in law school and they gave you access to the LexisNexis database when you showed up to law school. You could dial up anybody in the country. It is giving you a credit report and showing you Social Security numbers.

We really do have to have a national conversation, Mr. Speaker, about where we are headed. Those last four digits that were once my private knowledge are out there all over the Internet today. My birthday is broadcast everywhere on the Internet. My mother's maiden name is out there. All of those things that folks used to ask me to protect me have now become part of the public domain. And what the gentleman says about a need to focus on that and protect folks is absolutely right, and we absolutely need to do that.

There was only one amendment last night that was offered to deal with privacy. It was going to give a unique identifier to folks, instead of listing names, so that we could have the transparency to see if folks were trying to game the system and take opportunities away from future victims. That amendment was withdrawn. We didn't have an opportunity to talk about that.

But my great hope is that this bill will pass the House today and that we will be able to have a similar bill come out of the Senate. If regular order has a chance to prevail on Capitol Hill, conference committees will give us another chance to take a bite at that apple.

I think the gentleman brings up very real concerns; and, again, we will have an opportunity to talk about those today.

The gentleman says, Mr. Speaker, there are some bills that are just so bad, nobody wants to fix them. I want to say to the gentleman that I am sympathetic to that sentiment. There are a few that I could rattle off right now that are so bad, I wonder if it is even possible to fix them.

But the bill the gentleman was talking about was the bill to eliminate frivolous lawsuits, Mr. Speaker. When we had these penalties in place back for 10 years between 1983 and 1993, more than 70 percent of judges said that they utilized this procedure and that they awarded damages in frivolous lawsuits. Seventy percent of judges, Mr. Speaker, utilize this provision that we are trying to bring back into being to punish filers of frivolous lawsuits.

This is not a bill for Big Business, Mr. Speaker. This is a bill that has been key voted by the National Federation of Independent Businesses. If you know NFIB--and I know most of my colleagues do--this is the trade association that represents the mom-and-pop shops, Mr. Speaker. These aren't the big, working-out-of-a-glass-building-downtown folks that you think are out to get the consumer. These are our friends and neighbors. These are folks who are employing our sons and daughters. These are folks who create most of the jobs in this country.

And they don't key vote a lot of bills, Mr. Speaker. You can go to their Web site--NFIB--and see the number of bills that they key vote. But they have picked this one out.

My colleague from Florida says that some people believe it is so bad that it can't be fixed. They have heard from lawyer association, after lawyer association, after lawyer association which says it doesn't like it, but we are hearing from the mom-and-pop shops which can't defend against it.

Understand, Mr. Speaker, that today, if a frivolous lawsuit is filed against you--and I don't mean ``frivolous'' because I think it is silly. There are lots of those out there. That is going to be a much higher number. I mean ``frivolous'' because the judge in the case says it has absolutely no merit on either the facts or the law. When the judge says it has no merit whatsoever, but you have had to pay to defend yourself against it, this bill says the fellow who filed it ought to make you whole.

Punitive damages are something we often hear about from the trial lawyer bar. This bill doesn't have punitive damages. This bill doesn't say, if you try to bankrupt the mom-and-pop company that is down the street from me, we are going to punish you. I think probably it should, but they didn't want to go that far. They said, if you are trying to destroy, with a frivolous lawsuit, the mom-and-pop company down the street, you have to make it whole. If a judge decides that your case has no merit--not a possibly of merit, but no merit--on either the facts or the law, the poor small business owner who is being harassed by that lawsuit should at least have the chance to be made whole at the end of that process. The National Federation of Independent Business-- small mom-and-pop shops--is who cares about this legislation.

Again, folks are going to vote ``yes,'' and folks are going to vote ``no,'' but I

think it is important that we say, Mr. Speaker, that this is the purview, those things that are important. The gentleman from Florida says, hey, there are more important things we could be working on. I happen to agree with him. There really are important things that we need to have on the floor of this House, but if you are the small business owner who is about to lose your entire lifetime of work because someone has filed a frivolous lawsuit against you, I promise you there is no more important bill in your life than the one that is before us today.

I also have to say, Mr. Speaker, to my friend who talks about sequester that I think that is an important thing. I happen to be the Rules Committee designee to the Budget Committee, and I happen to be the chairman of the Republican Study Committee Budget and Spending Task Force. In fact, we are having a meeting with Maya MacGuineas on the Fix the Debt campaign next Monday afternoon to talk about what those options are for dealing with long-term problems. The Budget Committee right now is in conference with the Senate, trying to find a way to restore funding to discretionary spending programs that we all believe have been ham-handedly reduced. Instead, they are trying to find savings on which we can agree on those long-term mandatory spending programs that rarely, Mr. Speaker, have an opportunity to see aggressive oversight, to see the things that can improve them, to see the things that can preserve their long-term fiscal viability.

I would say, finally, Mr. Speaker, to my friend from Florida that, as the designee to the Budget Committee and as the chairman of the Budget and Spending Task Force, I don't believe it is the failure to raise the debt ceiling that threatens America's credit rating. I think it is out- of-control spending that threatens America's credit rating. It only takes a stroke of a pen here for us to raise the credit limit to infinity, but I promise you that that is not in the best interests of the American economy.

We all know we have spending challenges in this country. We all know that we have made promises to veterans, to seniors, to the infirm, to the poor that we don't have the money to keep. I think that is immoral. If you don't want to help somebody, then say you don't want to help somebody, but do not promise someone that you will be there for him in his time of need and pull the rug out from under him when he needs the promise to be fulfilled the most. We can do better. This body has done better.

In 1983, Republicans and Democrats came together and extended the fiscal lifetime of Social Security by not doing things that hurt seniors in that day but by doing things that raised the retirement age for me--I was 13 at the time--from 65 to 67. That is a pretty modest step that made a big impact in the life of the Social Security trust fund.

There are big issues that we need to discuss here on the floor. I hope we will bring those issues to the floor. Our committees in the House moved things in a responsible way, step by step, throughout the summer. We could use a little partnership from the other side of the Hill, but I hope we will focus on what we have before us here today, Mr. Speaker--an opportunity to make a difference for future victims who are applying to the trust fund and an opportunity to make a difference today for small businesses which are being victimized by frivolous litigation.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say to my colleague that I very much appreciate her concern about the family members of veterans.

So often, we craft a one-size-fits-all solution in this body, and if you want to care for your loved one at home, there is very little help for you. Now, if you want to institutionalize your loved one--if you want to dump your loved one off on the State--then we have a program for you, but if you want to nurture your loved one but you just need a little help, if you want to keep your loved one by your side but you just can't do it alone, there are very few opportunities that you have within our Federal system today. One exception to that is the PACE program, which was championed by Bob Dole back in the day, that allows you to bridge some of the different Federal programs that are available to you and to utilize those within your home, within your family, rather than having to institutionalize your loved one.

I don't think there is a man or a woman in this body, Mr. Speaker, who does not both have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for our veterans but who also feels a debt of service to our veterans. I will point out that we always talk about the hyperpartisan U.S. House of Representatives. We moved our Veterans Affairs' spending bill in this House back on June 4. On June 4, we passed it in this House with only four Members voting ``no.'' Talk about things that bring you together, Mr. Speaker, as opposed to divide you. That is the kind of commitment that this institution has to our veterans.

I can't tell you why we haven't been able to get that signed into law. I know the Senate has not yet acted on that bill. I think it would be something that would bring them together, too, and I would recommend that to them, but of the 435 Members of this body, only four Members voted ``no'' on our bill to try to fulfill that commitment in order to make sure our veterans--our returning men and women--have the kinds of resources that not just they deserve but that we have committed to them.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I am prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say to this body there are actually more that my friend from Florida and I agree on than what we disagree on. I might not say that at a townhall meeting back home, but I will say that to you here, because at its core we all share a vision of what this Nation can be, what this Nation should be; but we do get mired in the rhetoric.

It is interesting that we have a bill today that those folks who represent mom-and-pop businesses say is so important to them they are going to make sure that every single Member of this House knows that they are keeping score on this and they want a ``yes'' vote on that legislation. Yet we have other bills here that the trial lawyers are saying are so important to them that they are going to write letter after letter after letter saying this is not in the best interest of the country, we should move in a different direction.

I will tell you, those are exactly the kinds of bills that we ought to be working on. Now, are there bigger-picture bills out there? Absolutely there are. I would like to see a bill that solves Social Security forever, where we end this business about Social Security is going to go bankrupt, and once and for all we solve that issue so no senior is ever concerned about that again.

We don't have that bill on the floor today. We have an opportunity to stop frivolous lawsuits.

I would like to see a bill on the floor that balances the Federal budget. I am old fashioned that way, Mr. Speaker. I think if you want to spend it, you ought to raise it. If you don't want to raise it, then don't spend it.

But we don't have that bill on the floor today. We have a bill to make sure that trust funds intended to protect victims of a horrible, horrible perpetration by industry have an opportunity to collect what little money there is left from those businesses that perpetrated those harms. I think we should support that bill today.

Mr. Speaker, one step at a time we really can make a difference. I have been reading with great dismay that some of the colleagues that I was elected with 3 years ago have decided they

are not going to run for reelection. They have been here 3 years, and they have found that while they came here to make America a better place, while they came here to serve the men and women back home, while they came here to make sure their children grew up with the same freedoms and opportunities that they grew up with, they have decided that it might not be happening.

We can and we must do better. In fact, we had a committee hearing last night. My colleague from Florida (Mr. Webster) said, I think ``comprehensive'' ought to be a dirty word. Comprehensive ought to be a dirty word, because when I hear ``comprehensive,'' Mr. Speaker, what I hear is we are throwing everything in, and the kitchen sink, and I want you to pass all or nothing on the House floor.

It doesn't have to be that way. I promise you if you put together a 2,000-page bill, Mr. Speaker, there are going to be parts of it that my constituency does not believe are in the best interest of America. But if we pass bills 10 pages at a time, 20 pages at a time, maybe even 30 pages at a time, Mr. Speaker, if we move one idea at a time, we get a ``yes'' or ``no'' vote from both sides of the aisle, we send it to the Senate, we pass it in the Senate, and the President puts a signature on it, we can make a difference.

I believe that that momentum matters. I hope we get a ``yes'' vote on the rule. I hope we get a ``yes'' vote on these underlying bills. I hope we get bills coming out of the farm bill conference. I hope we get bills coming out of the budget conference. I hope we get bills coming out of the Water Resources and Reform Development Act conference. I hope we move these things before we begin to build that momentum.

We are at a stumbling place, Mr. Speaker. There is an impediment in our way. I read some White House sources this week that said they recognize that we have not come through on the promise of ``if you like your insurance, you can keep it.'' They were looking for solutions, but they weren't going to come to Congress to look for solutions. They were going to look for administrative solutions, and they were going to try to fix it on their own.

As we have heard on this floor many times, the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land; ObamaCare is the law of the land. An administrative branch shouldn't just be able to unilaterally change the law of the land. The Constitution gives that responsibility to us. We have got to step up and take responsibility for those things that the Constitution invests in us, and article III courts are one of those things. We are taking that responsibility up today.

Mr. Speaker, we have an opportunity not to be Republicans and Democrats, but to be representatives of Americans in the greatest body in this entire land, the closest to the American people--the U.S. House of Representatives. We have a chance to announce our position, the House position, and move that to the Senate and then, lo and bold, we have an opportunity to work with the Senate not to adopt a Republican position or a Democrat position, but a congressional opinion, an article I constitutional opinion that we then march down Pennsylvania Avenue and say to the Executive, be he or she a Republican or a Democrat, this is what the people have to say; we need your signature on that. They can say ``yes'' or ``no.''

We have set up these roadblocks, Mr. Speaker, where it is not House and Senate; it is Republican and Democrat. It does not serve this institution well. It does not serve America well.

I hope we are going to have bipartisan votes on these two bills today, Mr. Speaker. We are exercising a constitutional responsibility to direct the courts. We can vote ``yes,'' we can vote ``no,'' but it is not something that is peripheral to what we are about. It is something that is essential to the responsibilities that the Constitution has placed with us.

I promise my colleagues this institution will be a better institution if we pull out that rule book called the United States Constitution more often and start with those priorities that it has invested in us, not the priorities that some interest group has invested in us, not the priorities that the news media has invested in us, not the priorities that a Republican Party or a Democratic Party have invested in us, but the priorities the United States Constitution invests in us, we will restore the faith of the American people in this institution.

These two bills do that, Mr. Speaker. I encourage a strong ``yes'' vote on the rule that has made in order all of the amendments that were offered, save one. Let this body work its will. Support this rule. Support the underlying bill. Vote your conscience on the amendments to make the bills better if you want to, but let's get our constitutional responsibilities done.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on H.R. 982, currently under consideration.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise today in support of a bill that will help those asbestos victims that must look to the bankruptcy process to seek redress for their or their loved ones' injuries. Unfortunately, on too frequent an occasion, by the time asbestos victims assert their claims for compensation, the bankruptcy trusts formed for their benefit have been diluted by fraudulent claims, leaving these victims without their entitled recovery.

The reason that fraud is allowed to exist within the asbestos trust system is the excessive lack of transparency created by plaintiffs' firms. Due to a provision in the Bankruptcy Code, plaintiffs' firms are essentially granted a statutory veto right over a debtor's chapter 11 plan that seeks to restructure asbestos liabilities. Plaintiffs' firms have exploited this leverage to prevent information contained within the asbestos trusts from seeing the light of day.

The predictable result from this reduced transparency has been a growing wave of claims and reports of fraud. The increase in claims has caused many asbestos trusts to reduce the recoveries paid to asbestos victims who emerge following the formation of the trusts. For example, the T.H. Agriculture and Nutrition asbestos trust cut its recovery rate from 100 percent to 70 percent, and the Owens Corning trust sliced its recovery rate from 40 percent to 10 percent.

In addition, instances of fraud within the asbestos trust system have been documented in news reports, State court cases, and testimony before the Judiciary Committee. The Wall Street Journal conducted an investigation into asbestos trusts where it found, among other things, that hundreds of plaintiffs filed claims against asbestos trusts asserting one injury while simultaneously asserting a completely different injury before the State courts.

Reports directly from many State courts are uncovering similar conduct. For example, in Ohio, one judge described a plaintiff's case as ``lies upon lies upon lies'' after discovering that the plaintiff received hundreds of thousands of dollars from various asbestos bankruptcy trusts while alleging in court that a single product caused his illness. In Virginia, a judge stated that a similar case over which he presided was the ``worst deception'' he had seen in his 22-year career.

The FACT Act, introduced by Congressman Farenthold, will combat this fraud by introducing long-needed transparency into the asbestos bankruptcy trust system. The FACT Act increases transparency through two simple measures. First, it requires the asbestos trusts to file quarterly reports on their public bankruptcy dockets. These reports will contain very basic information about demands to the trusts and payments made by the trusts to claimants. Second, the FACT Act requires asbestos trusts to respond to information requests about claims asserted against and payments made by the asbestos trusts.

These measures were carefully designed to increase transparency while providing claimants with sufficient privacy protection. To accomplish this goal, the bill leverages the privacy protections contained in the Bankruptcy Code and includes additional safeguards to preserve claimants' privacy.

A State court judge with 29 years of bench experience described the privacy protections within the FACT Act as far stronger than those afforded in State court, where asbestos plaintiffs often pursue parallel claims. The FACT Act also was deliberately structured to minimize the administrative impact on asbestos trusts. Indeed, according to testimony before the Judiciary Committee from an expert on asbestos litigation and the asbestos trusts, preparing the quarterly disclosure requirements would be ``very simple'' and would ``take minutes.''

The FACT Act strikes the appropriate balance between achieving the transparency necessary to reduce fraud in an efficient manner and providing claimants with sufficient privacy protections. We cannot allow fraud to continue reducing recoveries for future asbestos victims. The FACT Act is a simple, narrow measure that will shed much- needed sunshine on a shadowy system.

I thank Mr. Farenthold for introducing this legislation and urge all of my colleagues to vote for the FACT Act.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, it is my pleasure to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus), the chairman of the Regulatory Reform Subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, it is my pleasure to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Farenthold), the author of the legislation.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask how much time is remaining on both sides.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume to respond to the mischaracterization of this legislation as it is somehow imposing burdens on the victims of asbestos. In fact, it is quite the opposite.

First of all, the information disclosed under the FACT Act is very basic and is less information than would be disclosed during the normal course of a State court lawsuit, in which many asbestos bankruptcy claimants pursue simultaneous claims, but they don't tell the bankruptcy courts about that, so these trusts need to tell them that.

Secondly, the FACT Act includes strong privacy protections, including prohibiting the disclosure of confidential medical records and full Social Security numbers. To be clear, the FACT Act does not require asbestos trusts to require or to disclose asbestos victims' Social Security numbers.

The FACT Act also leverages existing privacy protections in the Bankruptcy Code to give the presiding bankruptcy judge broad discretion to prevent the disclosure of information that would result in identity theft or in any other unlawful activity. Indeed, a judge with 29 years of bench experience testified before the Judiciary Committee that the FACT Act provides more protection in terms of the confidentiality of asbestos claimants' records than the legal system is able to do.

By requiring the disclosure of basic information regarding claims submitted to the asbestos trusts, the FACT Act will facilitate a reduction in fraud that will allow future asbestos victims to maximize their recovery, but they will not be able to do that if we continue to have money taken from these trusts for duplicative claims, fraudulent claims, and claims without merit.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, at this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Farenthold).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume to respond to the mischaracterization of the process followed in the Judiciary Committee.

The FACT Act and the problems it addresses have been the subject of three separate hearings: one before the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution on September 9, 2011, on the issue generally, and two legislative hearings before the Judiciary Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law--one during the 112th Congress and another this year on March 13.

The minority used these opportunities to call witnesses who were representatives from the asbestos plaintiffs' trial bar to voice their concerns with the bill. In fact, the minority called the same witness for two out of the three hearings. Now they claim that asbestos victims were never provided an opportunity to testify. The Judiciary Committee provided ample opportunities to include asbestos victims' views on the legislation on the record, and there are many letters and statements from asbestos victims in the record as a result. Additionally, the committee offered a special procedure to asbestos victims in order to provide an occasion for the victims to personally inform Members and staff of their views, which they refused.

It has become necessary to act with expediency and move this important legislation forward. Each day that passes is a day on which fraudulent claims can be prosecuted against the asbestos trusts, thereby reducing the recovery to legitimate asbestos victims. This legislation will benefit victims by reducing fraudulent claims and by ensuring that asbestos trusts provide the maximum recovery to future asbestos claimants.

I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee.

In reclaiming my time, that is not accurate. The claimants were offered a process by which they could come and speak to the members of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I have the time.

The minority had the opportunity to have an asbestos victim testify if they wished to do so and chose instead to have a plaintiff's attorney who had already testified in a previous hearing do so.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to myself to respond to the allegation that fraud has not been documented.

Fraud has been documented in news reports, State court cases, and testimony before the Judiciary Committee. The Wall Street Journal conducted an investigation that found thousands of disparately filed claims. Court documents in many States, including Delaware, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Virginia, attest to widespread fraud.

Additionally, the Judiciary Committee heard testimony over the course of three hearings during which witnesses repeatedly testified that fraud existed within the asbestos trust bankruptcy system. Keep in mind that the fraud reported to date has been in spite of the lack of disclosure that currently pervades this system. The increased transparency the FACT Act introduces will go a long way in uncovering previously undetected fraud and preserving assets for future asbestos victims.

Mr. Chairman, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, we are prepared to close. If the gentleman from Michigan is prepared to close as well, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, a lot of assertions have been made by the other side of the aisle with regard to the FACT Act. Let's make clear what we are talking about here.

This is a bill that in its totality doesn't cover two full pages of double-spaced type in legislative language. It simply requires that trusts that have been established to preserve the assets of companies that have gone bankrupt and have paid funds into these trusts, that future claims, future real, legitimate claims, will have resources available to them when it is a known fact and established by testimony before the Judiciary Committee and by investigations in a number of publications, including The Wall Street Journal, and by reports from various State courts in more than a half-dozen States, of fraud, duplicative claims.

These are what we are concerned about, and this is simply good legislative reform for protection of these assets for future availability. Otherwise, these trusts, which are already reducing the amount that they can pay to legitimate asbestos victims, will run out of money altogether before all of the legitimate claims have been addressed.

That's what the purpose of this legislation is. The opponents of the FACT Act have offered creative and far-ranging allegations against a measure that only seeks to introduce a modest amount of transparency into an opaque system. We know these allegations to be unfounded. The allegation that it hurts asbestos victims is unfounded. We know this because by increasing transparency and deterring fraud, the FACT Act helps asbestos victims by protecting trust funds for future claimants.

The allegation there is no widespread fraud is unfounded. We know this because there has been fraud documented in news reports, State court cases, and before the Judiciary Committee.

I urge my colleagues to reject the unfounded allegations offered today by critics of the FACT Act, and vote in support of this simple transparency measure.

I might add, this does not in any way delay the claim of anyone with a legitimate claim, either in State courts or in the bankruptcy courts. What it will do is it will root out those who are making duplicative claims, who are trying to double dip at the same time there are people with legitimate claims that will not have any money available to them because, as we know, and as was mentioned by many of the speakers here today, asbestos is a problem that has affected many, many Americans, and it is something that can be latent for a long period of time. We want to make sure that those victims who come along at the end of this process, who discover late in their lives that they also suffer from mesothelioma and related cancers, and other diseases caused by asbestos, have the opportunity to recover, not just those who want to abuse this system by hiding their claims and not allowing proper discovery of duplicative claims and fraudulent claims.

I urge my colleagues to support this well founded, good legal reform.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would exclude asbestos trusts that have in place internal audit systems from the requirements of the FACT Act.

There has not been any evidence presented to establish that trusts with internal reporting systems are free from fraud. On the contrary, a GAO report found that trust audit processes are designed to ensure compliance with internal trust procedures, not to remedy the fraud that the bill seeks to address. Simply put, internal audits will not be able to detect whether disparate claims are filed among several asbestos trusts or in the State courts.

Excluding certain asbestos trusts from the FACT Act would eliminate critical sources of information that can facilitate the reduction of fraud. Furthermore, the amendment would not address the problem presented by plaintiffs who assert inconsistent allegations between the State court tort system and the asbestos trusts. I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Farenthold), the chief sponsor of the legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I simply would reiterate that the fact of the matter is that when you don't know who future victims are going to be and you make a claim that somehow this is going to enrich businesses when, in fact, the businesses are bankrupt and they paid their money into a fund, that this is in the interest of determining what people who have not yet made claims have and in the interest of justice in making sure that people who have false claims or duplicative claims and are making claims to more than one trust for different claims about the same illness or claims in State court, as well as in the bankruptcy court, need to be uncovered. That is what this seeks to do. If some victims are doing that, that is not a defense to this legislation, to say we shouldn't have transparency in the providing of benefits to people who have truly been harmed.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment and support the underlying bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, one of the principal issues discussed over the course of three separate hearings before the Judiciary Committee was the existing impediments to information contained in the asbestos trusts.

In particular, these impediments include obstacles that asbestos trusts institute against the prosecution of valid State court subpoenas for trust information.

The FACT Act addresses these issues by requiring affirmative, minimal disclosures from asbestos trusts and allowing for access to additional information at the cost of the requesting party. The amendment does not address these underlying problems and instead places broad additional burdens on defendants seeking to prosecute discovery requests in State courts. Specifically, it requires defendants potentially to comply with a host of unrelated requests from unknown parties. These defendants include small businesses that played a very minor role, if any, in asbestos manufacturing, but are the last wave of companies in the plaintiffs' firms never-ending search for a solvent defendant.

The burden this amendment imposes on a defendant is highly atypical, unnecessary, and would unduly impair a party's ability to assert a defense. The FACT Act, by contrast, provides transparency where previously it did not and provides defendants with the same access to information as plaintiffs. The legislation merely levels the playing field so all parties, including other asbestos trusts and State court judges, have access to the same information.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

The FACT Act does not impose burdens on the victims of asbestos. It imposes a minimal disclosure requirement upon the trust, a disclosure requirement that will benefit both plaintiffs and defendants in various courts litigating asbestos claims.

Therefore, these new burdens that would be imposed by the defendant, which are substantial and onerous burdens, not the minimal informational disclosure that would help to identify duplicative claims in various courts, is a massive additional burden added to this legislation.

For that reason, I oppose the legislation, oppose the amendment, and urge my colleagues to join me opposing the amendment and supporting the underlying legislation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, the FACT Act addresses a number of issues, including State court litigants' inability to obtain information from federally-supervised asbestos trusts and the general lack of disclosure that is allowing fraud to be committed against these trusts. The FACT Act addresses these problems by introducing transparency into the asbestos bankruptcy trust system.

The amendment dramatically undercuts the transparency provided under the bill by completely eliminating the quarterly reporting requirements. This removes an important and efficient disclosure component provided by the FACT Act and would eliminate sister asbestos trusts' access to information that is critical for the defense against fraudulent claims. Additionally, the amendment would place disclosure requirements on the State court party requesting information from the asbestos trusts. These disclosure requirements are unnecessary, unusual, and would severely constrain a party's availability to defend itself in State court litigation.

Plaintiffs and plaintiffs' firms already have the ability to gain access to the defendant's information through the traditional discovery process; however, it is the defendant's inability to gain access to information submitted to the asbestos trusts that has created an environment that is conducive to fraud. The FACT Act merely levels the playing field so all parties, including other asbestos trusts, State court litigants, and State court judges have access to this information and the same information.

I would point out that, when one brings a lawsuit seeking damages from another entity that they make a party to that lawsuit, they are not entitled to anonymity in doing so. The purpose of the complaint, the initial pleading filed in the lawsuit, is to disclose who it is that is seeking the damages and what damages they are seeking.

All we are asking for in this legislation is that trusts that have been entrusted with funds that are to be made available for the exclusive purpose of helping the victims of asbestos problems have the opportunity to have information that they would have if it were a normal plaintiff's filing in a lawsuit. That is what we seek to have disclosed.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment and to support the underlying bill.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time in opposition to the amendment.

I just have to say that this amendment goes well beyond the scope of this legislation in terms of what it would do in terms of discovery in State courts and gathering various types of information that is already readily and easily discoverable in those proceedings, including, if necessary, in the bankruptcy court.

What it doesn't get at, and the FACT Act does, is information that is not otherwise available to all of the parties to all of those proceedings to determine whether there are duplicative claims, whether there are fraudulent claims, whether there are claims where one party is claiming to have the same disease caused by two different places of employment or having claimed the same disease caused by two different instrumentalities in two different places. That is what we need to know. That is why the FACT Act is necessary.

I oppose the amendment, urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Let me thank the ranking member for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, with all of the protests, I think there is nothing more that we can say other than that it is a

very cruel decision to move forward this particular legislation. It really implodes and violates the process of litigation between plaintiffs and defendants, petitioners and those who are in opposition, because we have an infrastructure of a court system that allows those who participate in that court system to guide the evidence that is being presented under the representation of their counsel.

The Sixth Amendment provides for individuals to have a right to counsel, and what this legislation is trying to do is implode that relationship and ask for information that could be given in the regular order of a court process.

This is intrusive legislation under the false guise of transparency and, in actuality, would invade the privacy of asbestos victims by requiring the posting of personal exposure and medical information online and erect new barriers to victims receiving compensation for their asbestos diseases.

This cancer-driven disease, this asbestos-driven disease, is a silent killer. For a long time, the victims don't even know that they are being impacted by asbestos that is causing cancer.

We have witnessed decades of uncontrolled use of asbestos; and even after its hazards became widely known, disease and death still persist because people work in it and they do not know. And so they have been forced to hire counsel merely to provide for their families or themselves in the waning hours and days of their life.

Hundreds of thousands of workers and family members have been exposed, suffered, or died of asbestos-related cancers and lung disease; and the toll continues. And yet we have legislation like this that wants to clearly undermine the legal system, the justice system, which means I go into a court, I have a lawyer, there is someone opposed to my position, they have a lawyer, and we submit information under the basis of that litigation or that settlement or that negotiation.

Why do Americans have to be subjected to another abuse while they are suffering and dying?

This is an abuse. H.R. 982 is asking for information that can already be gotten. As I indicated, these individuals have been exposed, suffered, or died from asbestos-related cancer. It is estimated that, each year, 10,000 people in the United States are expected to die from asbestos-related diseases. How much more of an outrage do we have to place on their families--and burdens--to ask them to give information about their sicknesses and other issues that are squarely within the realm of their counsel? Call up their lawyers and ask for it. This is an outrage that they have to deal with this onerous provision.

Time and again, asbestos victims have faced huge obstacles, inconvenient barriers, and veiled but persistent resistance to receiving compensation for their diseases. That is why they organized in the manner that they did. It is because they were dying, dying, dying, and there was no response.

It is particularly galling that many of the major asbestos producers refuse to accept responsibility and that most declared bankruptcy in an attempt to limit their future liability.

I ask my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this legislation. How much more can we put on these poor victims? If you want information, go to their counsel. Go into the courthouse. They will provide it. Let's give them relief. I oppose this legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to H.R. 982, the F.A.C.T. Act. This intrusive legislation which misuses the word ``transparency,'' would invade the privacy of asbestos victims by requiring the posting of personal exposure and medical information online and erect new barriers to victims receiving compensation for their asbestos diseases.

We have witnessed decades of uncontrolled use of asbestos, and, even after its hazards became widely known, disease and death still persist.

Hundreds of thousands of workers and family members have been exposed to, suffered or died of asbestos-related cancers and lung disease, and the toll continues. It is estimated that each year 10,000 people in the United States are expected to die from asbestos related diseases. This is an outrage--and to add to their misery--they have to deal with the onerous provisions of H.R. 982.

Time and time again, asbestos victims have faced huge obstacles, inconvenient barriers, and veiled but persistent resistance to receiving compensation for their diseases and it is important to note that asbestos litigation is the longest-running mass tort litigation in the United States.

It is particularly galling that many of the major asbestos producers refused to accept responsibility and most declared bankruptcy in an attempt to limit their future liability. In 1994 Congress passed reasonably balanced special legislation that allowed the asbestos companies to set up bankruptcy trusts to compensate asbestos victims and reorganize under the bankruptcy law.

But these trusts don't have adequate funding to provide just compensation, and according to a 2010 RAND study, the median payment across the trusts is only 25 percent of the claim's value. With compensation from these trusts so limited, asbestos victims have sought redress from the manufacturers of other asbestos products to which they were exposed--the original tortfeasors.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, better known as OSHA noted two decades ago that

``It was aware of no instance in which exposure to a toxic substance has more clearly demonstrated detrimental health effects on human than has asbestos exposure.''

We see the harm that asbestos causes when people become sick-- ordinary Americans who did extraordinary things to get this disease-- like go to work every day to support their families.

And although the proponents of this legislation assert that it is intended to protect asbestos victims, I have not heard of a single asbestos victim who has expressed support for the H.R. 982, the FACT Act.

As the widow of our former colleague Representative Bruce Vento (D- MN), who passed away from mesothelioma, stated H.R. 982 ``does not do a single thing'' to help asbestos victims and their families.

H.R. 982 does not help and actually disturbs a reasonably well- functioning asbestos victim compensation process. Entities facing overwhelming mass tort liability for causing asbestos injuries may, under certain circumstances, shed these liabilities and financially regain their stability in exchange for funding trusts established under Chapter II of the Bankruptcy Code to pay the claims of their victims, under certain circumstances.

H.R. 982, however, interferes with this longstanding process in two ways. The FACT Act would require these trusts to: (1) file a publicly available quarterly report with the bankruptcy court that would include personally identifying information about such claimants, including their names, exposure history, and basis for any payment made to them; and (2) provide any information related to payment from and demands for payment from such trust to any party to any action in law or equity concerning liability for asbestos exposure.

I urge my colleagues to vote against this utterly intrusive legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, we are here today for several reasons, and my friends on the other side of the aisle have their high calling and reasons of great merit that they argue, but I think we have a more devastating and prevailing reason that we are opposed to this legislation.

Frankly, as I indicated earlier in my remarks, there are thousands and thousands of asbestos victims who are suffering from lung disease or cancer. Many of them were diagnosed late. Many of them, unfortunately, have passed. Their families are still victims. They have lost everything that they have had in trying to treat them, and now we add what we are used to saying in the community: insult to injury.

We come with an enormously burdensome and unfair initiative. So today I rise to introduce an amendment that I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to consider because it is fair.

The amendment would apply the transparency rules that they are seeking from those victims who are barely receiving dollars out of a trust that is the final result of numbers of bankrupt companies. We are asking to equally apply these transparency rules to asbestos industry defendants by requiring asbestos companies to report information about the location of their asbestos-containing products; and the amendment, out of respect for trade secrets, will exempt that.

So today we are asking for transparency on both sides. H.R. 982 is one-sided in that it maintains the rights of asbestos defendants to demand confidentiality of settlements and protects an asbestos defendant's right to continue to hide the dangers of their asbestos products from asbestos victims and the American public. A typical asbestos defendant who settles a case in

the tort system demands the utmost confidentiality along with the right to file for bankruptcy as a condition of the settlement in order to ensure that other victims cannot learn how much they paid or for which asbestos products the defendant is paying compensation.

By no means do we want to help those who are hurting. We certainly don't want to give them a leg up by understanding what the process of compensation is.

These same defendants now, under this particular bill, want the victims to disclose specific settlement amounts with the trusts along with product exposure information and work history. How unfair is that? On my dying bed, I have to offer and find a basis of giving you a settlement, or my family has to give it to you in the midst of our crisis.

The asbestos health crisis is the result of a massive cover-up; therefore, we are asking today for simple fairness. If there is confidentiality on the defendant's part and they ask for information on those who are suffering, then I believe, minimally, defendants can give information about the location of the asbestos-containing products to ensure that our victims are not exposed any longer.

Furthermore, the trust information is already public, and I would ask why this bill is even necessary. And then the further point of controversy is that this bill seeks to override State law regarding discovery disclosure of information.

So I am asking my colleagues to be fair, to recognize the hurt and the pain, and to support the Jackson Lee amendment, which simply asks for those defendants, those companies, to give us the location of the asbestos-containing products.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Jackson Lee amendment which would require the Asbestos Industry to Report Information about Dangerous Asbestos Products.

What does the Amendment do?

The Amendment would apply the transparency rules in the bill equally to asbestos industry defendants by requiring asbestos companies to report information about the location of their asbestos-containing products. And the amendment includes a ``trade secrets'' exception.

Mr. Chairman, how much time is remaining?

And the gentleman from Virginia?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from

the great State of Michigan (Mr. Conyers).

I thank the distinguished gentleman for his important remarks.

Mr. Chairman, let me quickly say, Mr. Conyers, Mr. Ranking Member, you were superbly right. The plaintiffs in litigation have had their right of exchange of information. What our friends are trying to do on the other side of the aisle is to make the trusts, now, a courtroom where information is dragged out of the victim, but it is not asked for from the defendants, the ones who have filed for bankruptcy, the ones who have left the victims to suffer and to fend for themselves.

I ask my colleagues to make this fair and require the asbestos company to give us where the asbestos-remaining products are so that we can save lives. If there is transparency, if the FACT bill would be fair, they would then have information coming from both parties, not only the victims, the plaintiffs, but they would have it coming from the asbestos companies that have driven up the numbers of those suffering from lung disease and cancer.

I ask my colleagues to support the Jackson Lee amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial

Organizations,

Washington, DC, November 12, 2013.

Dear Representative: I am writing to express the strong

opposition of the AFL-CIO to H.R. 982, the ``Furthering

Asbestos Claim Transparency Act'' (FACT Act). This

legislation would invade the privacy of asbestos victims by

posting personal exposure and medical information online and

create new barriers to victims receiving compensation for

their asbestos diseases. The AFL-CIO urges you to oppose this

harmful bill.

Decades of uncontrolled use of asbestos, even after its

hazards were known, have resulted in a legacy of disease and

death. Hundreds of thousands of workers and family members

have suffered or died of asbestos-related cancers and lung

disease, and the toll continues. Each year an estimated

10,000 people in the United States are expected to die from

asbestos related diseases.

Asbestos victims have faced huge barriers and obstacles to

receiving compensation for their diseases. Major asbestos

producers refused to accept responsibility and most declared

bankruptcy in an attempt to limit their future liability. In

1994 Congress passed special legislation that allowed the

asbestos companies to set up bankruptcy trusts to compensate

asbestos victims and reorganize under the bankruptcy law. But

these trusts don't have adequate funding to provide just

compensation, and according to a 2010 RAND study, the median

payment across the trusts is only 25 percent of the claim's

value. With compensation from these trusts so limited,

asbestos victims have sought redress from the manufacturers

of other asbestos products to which they were exposed.

The AFL-CIO is well aware that the system for compensating

asbestos disease victims has had its share of problems, with

victims facing delays and inadequate compensation and too

much money being spent on defendant and plaintiff lawyers. We

have spent years of effort trying to seek solutions to make

the asbestos compensation system fairer and more effective.

But H.R. 982 does nothing to improve compensation for

asbestos victims and would in fact make the situation even

worse. In our view, the bill is simply an effort by asbestos

manufacturers who still are subject to asbestos lawsuits to

avoid liability for diseases caused by exposure to their

products.

H.R. 982 would require personally identifiable exposure

histories and disease information for each asbestos victim

filing a claim with an asbestos trust, and related payment

information, to be posted on a public docket. This public

posting is an extreme invasion of privacy. It would give

unfettered access to employers, insurance companies, workers

compensation carriers and others who could use this

information for any purpose including blacklisting workers

from employment and fighting compensation claims.

The bill would also require asbestos trusts to provide on

demand to asbestos defendants and litigants any information

related to payments made by and claims filed with the trusts.

This would place unnecessary and added burdens on the trusts,

delaying much-needed compensation for asbestos victims. Such

a provision allows asbestos defendants to bypass the

established rules of discovery in the civil justice system,

and provides broad, unrestricted access to personal

information with no limitations on its use.

Congress should be helping the hundreds of thousands of

individuals who are suffering from disabling and deadly

asbestos diseases, not further victimizing them by invading

their privacy and subjecting them to potential blacklisting

and discrimination. The AFL-CIO strongly urges you to oppose

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank my good friend from Georgia for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the gentleman, and he was very clear about, one, the process and, two, the basic substance of both measures that are on the floor today. To a relative degree, I agree with much of what he has said. I know that my friend from Georgia is an advocate of an open process, and with all due respect to him and the

committee, structured rules--whether Members have offered suggestions for change or not--are not open rules. However, in this particular case, he is correct that of the five amendments that were offered by Members of my party, three of them were made in order, and none were offered on the first of the two measures.

Mr. Speaker, with only 15 days left in this session of the 113th Congress, we are here yet again doing more of the same, which is nothing. It has been reported that some among my friends across the aisle have even joked that the House shouldn't be in session in December at all.

Instead of addressing our Nation's serious immigration needs--and I might add a footnote there. There is a substantial loss to our economic undertakings by virtue of us failing to do the things that we can and should do either comprehensively or step by step to deal with the immigration circumstances of this great Nation. We could be passing ENDA, as the Senate did last week, where we could end discrimination in the workplace.

Or we could do something that all of us know needs to be done: we could work on ending sequestration. I was at two meetings this morning, one dealing with homelessness and the other dealing with the need for food, and in each instance, the parties that were the experts cited how sequestration has impacted their nonprofit organizations in trying to assist the homeless and the needy as it pertains to food. So we could be working on trying to stop this meat-ax approach that is set in motion. Yet we find ourselves passing bills that won't do anything and aren't going to go anywhere.

In fact, H.R. 2655, as my colleague has pointed out, no Member offered any amendment to it. It is so bad that nobody even wanted to fix it. The bill is nothing more than a partisan solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

The American Bar Association, the preeminent bar association among lawyers in every category in the United States of America, wrote the following:

No serious problem has been brought to the Rules

Committee's attention. There is no need to reinstate the 1983

version of rule 11 that proved contentious and diverted so

much time and energy of the bar and bench.

The ABA continued that the bill ``is not based on an empirical foundation, and the proposed amendments ignore lessons learned.''

The proposed changes would ``impede the administration of justice by encouraging additional litigation and increasing court costs and delays.''

This bill not only prevents judges from calling balls and strikes; it forces members of the bench to call balks on every pitch before the ball can even reach the plate.

The Judicial Conference, the preeminent conference of the United States courts in this country that is the body responsible for proposing the necessary changes in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, asked Federal judges about these proposed changes. Eighty- seven percent of the judges asked prefer the existing rule 11 to the 1983 version; 85 percent of them support the safe harbor provisions; 91 percent oppose mandatory sanctions for every rule 11 violation; 84 percent think that attorneys' fees should not be awarded for every rule 11 violation. And here is the big one: 85 percent believe the amount of groundless litigation has not grown since promulgation of the 1993 rule.

These are men and women who face these issues on a daily basis. They know better than most--and almost anyone in this House of Representatives--and believe that rule 11 has plenty of teeth as is.

This bill would substitute the judgment of Congress for that of our judges. When the Judicial Conference of the United States opposes the changes in this bill, you would have to wonder who the bill is really benefiting.

It is not just the judges who oppose this bill. There is a long list of groups that include attorneys, consumer protection groups, civil rights organizations, and public interest advocates, all in opposition to this bill.

As late as this morning, I received an additional letter from the National Employment Lawyers Association. In sum and substance, they feel that they represent farms, fields, schools, factories, executive offices, military services, hospitals, and many others; and they feel that they are a unique voice in this category. They stand in opposition because they think it will proliferate the amount of litigation that is unnecessary in our overburdened courts as it is.

The court already has discretion to award sanctions, attorneys' fees, and expenses. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2655 will create more hurdles with which deep-pocketed businesses can drag out litigation that is already too expensive and time consuming.

My friends across the aisle have produced a number of anecdotes in support of this bill; but most of the cases cited are demand letters or State law cases, neither of which are subject to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Furthermore, lawsuits are too complicated to explain with a quip of carefully selected and characterized facts. Just because a particular fact pattern is entertaining or seemingly silly does not mean the case is without merit. Just because a case makes for a good headline doesn't mean that real people weren't really injured.

The most famous example that I can think of is the woman who sued McDonald's for her coffee being too hot. When you say it like that, it sounds like you want coffee to be hot when you get it. But what is skipped over when we say it that way is that the coffee caused third- degree burns, and the lady had to be hospitalized for 8 days, received skin grafts, and then 2 years of medical treatment. Well, that hot coffee doesn't sound so silly when you look at it from that standpoint.

Speaking of bills opposed by the people they supposedly help, the second portion of this rule, H.R. 982, the FACT Act, is ironically titled because it was drafted without regard to any of the facts. There is no evidence of systemic fraud or that systemic failures encourage fraud. The GAO in its study was unable to identify endemic and overt instances of fraud that would justify these kinds of changes.

Most of the information supporters seek is available through the standard discovery process.

This bill seriously compromises the privacy of victims in order to provide offenders with litigation shortcuts. Claims of wanting to increase transparency are really laughable, since the offenders involved in these suits are allowed to maintain their privacy. This bill further victimizes people who have already been through so much.

Human error is not fraud. Isolated incidents are troubling, but fraud prevention procedures are already in place and functioning adequately.

Asbestos victims oppose this bill. My friends across the aisle would have known, if they had provided victims an opportunity; but they did not provide that opportunity. I asked the chair of this committee last evening whether or not the victims had been afforded an opportunity to make a presentation. When I pointed out to him that staff had allowed that they could have a private meeting, but they did not have an opportunity to testify during the proceedings, he agreed with me.

That seems to be a favorite tactic of my Republican friends. They have done this to asbestos victims, and they have done it to judges.

When it came to shutting down the government, they ignored the overwhelming desire of hardworking and working-poor Americans. They continued to ignore economists and the downgrading of our credit rating over the debt ceiling. They disregard the science of climate change, despite erratic, catastrophic weather patterns and rising sea levels.

I am sure that all of us recognize the most recent typhoon that has devastated the Philippines. I am hopeful that we, along with others in the world, will hasten to the rescue. America is always to be commended for our efforts when tragedies strike other nations, and I would call on other nations who have not done so to become adherent to the kind of philosophy that we have. And I hope that we can help those in the Philippines to recover rapidly.

If my friends continue to ignore the world as it is in favor of the red-tinted paradise they believe it to be, they will have no one to blame but themselves when the country decides it is time to ignore them.

I wish to say one additional thing regarding the privacy concern.

Yesterday, I called Comcast Television. The Miami Heat, champions of basketball for the last 2 years, were playing last night. So I thought that I would order the NBA game last evening.

Well, lo and behold, last evening and this morning, before I left to attend meetings, the Comcast system is down and it is not working. I was told that I would get a phone call yesterday; and I didn't get any phone call. So I called this morning and I was told I would get a phone call today, but I missed the game last night. Incidentally, the Heat won. I did see that in the paper this morning.

But I am concerned about the privacy measures because when I called Comcast, after giving them my account number and after telling them who I was and what my address was--and this is through three different automatic systems--then the young man came over the telephone. And when he came over the telephone after doing all of this--the account, my name, where I live again--he then asked me for the last four digits of my Social Security number.

The wife of a former colleague of ours who died of mesothelioma, Bruce Vento, has written actively, along with others, for us to see how this identity problem might persist if we pursue this course.

This bill would make the private information of asbestos poisoning victims readily available on the Internet, and therein lies the difference. Different now is that any information anybody needs is already in the courthouse. And they can go to the courthouse and achieve that information. But this is part of what we mean when we say this bill ``re-victimizes'' asbestos victims all over again.

If an employer or identity thief wants to get the information in a regular lawsuit, they have to physically now go to every courthouse in the country and look through paper records. But with this bill, if Alcee Hastings applies for a job at X Corporation, the manager at X can search for my name on the Internet, learn that I got money from an asbestos trust, and then decide, if he or she wanted, not to hire me out of some misplaced fear that I am someone who just goes around suing their employer. Or they could refuse to hire me because they fear I will be sick a lot or drive up their group health insurance.

An identity thief could learn the last four digits of my Social Security number. That is the same piece of information that I gave to Comcast yesterday and that my bank and credit card companies use to verify my identity during customer service calls.

What part of that do you not understand that, if you put it on the Internet, then anybody can utilize it?

Risking employment discrimination and identity theft for asbestos poisoning victims just because my colleagues on the other side want to stick it to the trial lawyers seems awfully crass to me.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), my classmate, colleague, and good friend.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I am going to offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 3383, which is my good friend Representative Esty's measure, the Caregivers Expansion and Improvement Act of 2013.

To discuss her bill, I now yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. Esty).

Mr. Speaker, I would advise my colleague at this time that I have no further speakers and that I am prepared to close if he is prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I understand why we are here. I understand that my friends across the aisle evidently don't mind wasting this body's time, their resources, and money passing bills that are going to go nowhere.

In fact, later this week, I know we go to the Rules Committee on Thursday on a provision that is going to take its 46th vote to defund, delay, or repeal the Affordable Care Act and the patient protections and budget savings contained within it.

We have all got our roles to play. It is a shame, in my judgment, that my friends across the aisle would rather reenact some of the same tired political drama rather than actually accomplish something. We can do a great deal more here in the House to address the significant needs that our country has.

Let me tell you how this particular measure is going to play out. The rule is going to pass. It will be debated here on the House floor today, both measures having to do with asbestos and with so-called lawsuit measures. After they pass the House of Representatives, then it is bound over to the United States Senate where nothing is going to take place.

Now, I am not prescient--I don't have any way of predicting the future--but this particular methodology for legislation back and forth is just as much a problem when the House passes something that the Senate doesn't do anything about as when the Senate passes something that the House doesn't do anything about. I can calculate the numbers on both sides. I just personally think it is wrong for us not to let this process work its will on behalf of the American people.

Therefore, passing legislation just to have portions of either of our bases satisfied is not my idea of something to do. What we are doing here today is nothing other than wasting time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment to the resolution, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question. I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule and the underlying bills, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his leadership on so many issues.

Mr. Chairman, as you know, the debates that we have on the floor of the House affect millions of Americans: families, senior citizens, veterans, students, and children. We all bring stories of men and women and families from our districts--the challenges facing our neighbors, the urgent need to solve them.

Today, we address an issue that takes the lives of thousands of Americans each year: asbestos exposure. Yet we do not have to look back only to our districts on this scourge; we only need to look into the lives of some who have served in this body.

I am very honored today, as I know some of my colleagues are as well, that Susan Vento, wife of our former colleague Bruce Vento who served with such distinction in the Congress with some of us some years ago, is with us. Bruce Vento was affected by asbestos exposure. It took his life.

I wish to place in the Record Susan Vento's letter, Mr. Chairman, and just to say that in the letter Susan says:

During the consideration of this legislation in the

Judiciary Committee, two other women who have been affected

by the ravages of asbestos and I requested to have a chance

to testify about how the legislation would affect people like

us. Our request was denied. To date, not one victim of

asbestos exposure or an affected family member has been

allowed to be heard on this legislation. The only people who

would be directly affected by this bill have been completely

shut out of the process.

It goes on to say the so-called FACT Act--and this letter doesn't say ``the

so-called.'' That is my characterization. The letter says:

The FACT Act drastically erodes the decades of work Bruce

and so many of you have invested in helping those who could

not help themselves. If this bill passes, it will be a

serious setback for Americans who expect their elected

representatives to work on their behalf. Instead of helping

those who suffer from the diseases caused by asbestos, it

will reward those who have perpetuated the diseases.

I would also like to talk about another of our colleagues who is affected by this: Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy. Carolyn McCarthy serves in this Congress with us. She is a distinguished Congresswoman from the State of New York. Congresswoman McCarthy's father and brother were career boilermakers. Each night, they brought home asbestos fibers in their clothes. Over time, exposure to this asbestos affected Congresswoman McCarthy herself. Today, she is battling asbestos-related lung cancer.

Her story is like the stories of countless Americans across the country. It is up to us to strengthen the health of those suffering from exposure. It is up to us to act in their names, whether they suffer from cancer today or face the prospect of severe illness in the future.

Yet the Republican measure we consider today does not meet this challenge. Like far too many Republican bills in this Congress, this legislation only serves to make matters worse for the American people. The so-called--there it is again--the so-called FACT Act actually harms the American people--that is a fact--and hinders the ability of asbestos victims to obtain compensation.

How does it do this? This bill would deny cancer victims the assistance and simple justice they deserve. It would even delay compensation beyond the life of a person suffering from asbestos- related cancer and illnesses. It would invade the privacy of thousands of Americans, and it would pose a particularly detrimental impact on veterans of the United States Armed Forces who have been disproportionately affected by asbestos.

Contrary to the claims of the bill's proponents, there is no need for this bill. State laws provide for adequate disclosure. There is no evidence of systematic fraud in the asbestos trust system.

In short, this bill is unnecessary, it is mean-spirited and will never become the law of the land.

The Republican majority has little time left on the legislative calendar this year: just 13 days between now and December 31, according to the schedule they have given us. In that short window, the House should focus on the most pressing challenges--priorities like job creation, economic growth, comprehensive immigration reform, or deficit reduction. Instead, our Republican colleagues have chosen to waste time on another message bill to nowhere.

In the name of Bruce Vento and Congresswoman McCarthy, in the name of our friends, family members, and constituents facing the daily challenges of asbestos exposure, let's work together on steps to strengthen the health of the American people. Let's preserve the privacy and well-being of asbestos victims and all American families.

We can do this by voting ``no'' on this legislation.

Please Oppose H.R. 982, the Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency Act

(FACT Act)

November 11, 2013.

Dear Representative: My name is Susan Vent, and I'm writing

to express my strong opposition to H.R. 982, called the

Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency Act (FACT Act). My

husband was the late Congressman Bruce F. Vento who served

for almost 24 years in the House of Representatives

representing Minnesota's Fourth Congressional District. He

died from mesothelioma in 2000 within eight months of being

diagnosed.

Mesothelioma is an aggressive cancer caused by asbestos

exposure. Bruce was exposed through his work as a laborer

years before we met or became involved in public life. He

told his constituency about his diagnosis in early February

2000 when he announced why he would not run for re-election.

On February 14, he had his lung surgically removed and then

began an aggressive treatment regimen at the Mayo Clinic.

It was not enough. My husband died three days after his

60th birthday in October 2010, just eight and one-half months

after the diagnosis. With his death, our country lost a hard-

working and humble public servant years before his time.

Bruce's parents, children, grandchildren and I lost so much

more.

Bruce dedicated himself as a tireless and effective

advocate for the environment, for working people and for the

disadvantaged. During his time in Congress, he was well

respected by members of both parties. He served as ranking

member and chairman of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on

National Parks, Forests and Public Lands and also served on

the House Banking Committee.

During the consideration of this legislation in the

Judiciary Committee, two other women who have been affected

by the ravages of asbestos and I requested to have a chance

to testify about how the legislation would affect people like

us. Our request was denied. To date, not one victim of

asbestos exposure or an affected family member has been

allowed to be heard on the legislation. The only people who

would be directly affected by this bill have been completely

shut out of the process.

This legislation is premised on a myth that fraud is a

problem in asbestos-related litigation and that transparency

must be required of those suffering from asbestos-caused

diseases and their families. Such transparency would require

mesothelioma patients and their families and others suffering

from asbestos-related diseases to divulge personal

information on public websites, including portions of their

Social Security numbers, information about their personal

finances and information about their children. Extensive and

reputable research has disproved the fraud claims.

I find it highly ironic that the asbestos industry is

seeking transparency, of all things. If the companies that

are pushing this bill really cared about transparency, they

wouldn't have concealed what they knew regarding the lethal

nature of exposure to asbestos and hundreds of thousands of

Americans would not have died from such cruel diseases,

including my husband.

If Congress is striving to be transparent about asbestos,

please pass legislation to reduce exposure to asbestos in

work-settings, schools, hospitals, and other settings,

increase awareness of the risks of asbestos exposure

including secondary exposure, and significantly increase

federal funding for medical research to fund diagnoses and

treatments for mesothelioma, asbestosis and other asbestos-

related diseases.

The FACT Act drastically erodes the decades of work Bruce

and so many of you have invested in helping those who could

not help themselves. If this bill passes, it will be a

serious step back for Americans who expect their elected

representatives to work on their behalf. Instead of helping

those who suffer from the diseases caused by asbestos, it

will reward those who have perpetuated the diseases.

I thank you for your consideration. I hope you will stand

with me in support of Bruce's memory and in opposition to

this bill.

Sincerely,

Susan Vento.