Washington, D.C. - Energy and Commerce Republican Leader Greg Walden (R-OR) and Environment and Climate Change Subcommittee Republican Leader John Shimkus (R-IL) released the following statement after Shimkus went to the House floor to request unanimous consent that the House of Representatives immediately consider the Committee-passed product. Unfortunately, Democrats rejected the request to bring the bill as adopted by committee to the House floor for consideration.
“Today Republicans tried, once again, to get a vote on the House floor on our bipartisan legislation to ban asbestos. And today, once again, House Democrats refused to help. They fully control what legislation comes to the floor. We have a bipartisan bill that passed out of the committee 47-1. It could pass the House today, had they not unilaterally snuck partisan changes into it without telling us. Democrats’ decision to go it alone is a huge blow to every advocate who has fought tirelessly to ban the use of asbestos; the only winners here today are the trial lawyers. We urge Democrats to keep their word, stop playing games, and immediately bring the committee-passed version of H.R. 1603 to the House floor," said Walden and Shimkus.
H.R. 1603, the Alan Reinstein Ban Asbestos Now Act passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Nov. 29, 2019 by a vote of 47 yeas and 1 nay. Every Democrat on the committee supported the legislation. Unfortunately, new and partisan language was added to the legislation on Friday, Sept. 25, 2020 at the demand of trial lawyers. This new language would unquestionably create uncertainty and pave the way for more litigation. Over the last week, Republicans have made multiple compromise counteroffers at both the staff- and member-level. Democrats accepted none.
Both members spoke on the floor this morning. Watch Walden and Shimkus speak here and here, respectively.
