U.S. asbestos fund could fall short-budget office (Reuters)

[Up2Late]

(Yes, this is ANOTHER Corporate Welfare Bill, written for V.P. Dick Cheney and his former and future Corporation Halliburton.)

U.S. asbestos fund could fall short-budget office

Fri Aug 26, 2005 01:37 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A $140 billion asbestos compensation fund being considered by Congress might be too small to cover all the claims of asbestos victims over the next 50 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The proposed fund would have to pay out between $120 billion and $150 billion in claims to people who were exposed to the mineral, said the CBO report dated August 25.

It was impossible to know for sure whether the fund would be adequate over the long term because of the uncertainty about the number of future claims and how many would be approved, the budget office said.

The legislation would take asbestos injury claims out of court and pay them from the fund financed by asbestos defendant companies and their insurers.

The CBO estimated that, in the first 10 years, the fund would have to borrow almost $8 billion to meet injury claims because more than half of all anticipated claims would come in that initial period, outstripping industry contributions. "The interest cost of this borrowing would add significantly to the long-term costs faced by the fund and contributes to the possibility that the fund might become insolvent," said the CBO.

<http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=9486486&src=rss/politicsNews>
(more at link above)