S. 5 -- Product Liability Reform Act

The Product Liability Reform Act of 1997 overhauls an unfair and inefficient liability system for the benefit of American consumers and entrepreneurs.

Description

• This legislation is basically the conference report that was passed in both houses of Congress last year and vetoed by President Clinton.

• Product Sellers: Product sellers are held liable only for their own negligence or failure to comply with an express warranty unless the manufacturer cannot be brought into court or is unable to pay a judgement. This provision assures injured persons will always have an avenue available for recovery.

• Damages: Punitive damages up to two times compensatory damages or $250,000, whichever is greater, may be awarded if a plaintiff proves by "clear and convincing evidence" that the harm was caused by the defendant's "conscious, flagrant indifference to the safety of others." However, judges are permitted to award punitive damages beyond this limit in certain circumstances. Punitive damages assessed on small businesses are limited to $250,000. Compensatory damages are not limited in any way.

• Joint and Several Liability: Joint liability is abolished for noneconomic damages, such as pain and suffering. As to these damages, defendants are liable only in direct proportion to their responsibility for the claimant's harm.

• Biomaterials: The Biomaterials Access Assurance Act would allow suppliers of the raw materials used to make medical implants (biomaterials) to be dismissed, without extensive discovery or other legal costs, from certain tort suits where plaintiffs allege harm from a finished medical implant. The Act would not affect the ability of plaintiffs to sue manufacturers or sellers of medical implants.

Our Nation Needs a More Fair and Efficient System

• Enactment of product liability reforms would help protect small businesses from crippling legal fees and harassment suits. Nearly 90 percent of all companies in the United States can expect to become a defendant in a product liability case at least once. Consumers should not have a limit on the amount they may recover for full compensation for their real losses, including lost wages and medical expenses. That is why this bill will not in any way limit compensatory awards. Further, it allows large, even multimillion- dollar, punitive damage awards when the economic harm and noneconomic harm are correspondingly great.

• Reform would serve to strengthen the competitiveness of U.S. companies in the global marketplace and thereby save American jobs and create new ones. For example, product liability insurance is 15 times higher in the United States than in Japan and 20 times higher here than in Europe.

Consumers Will See Important Benefits

• This reform measure will create an incentive to increase expenditures on research and development. Money now earmarked for legal fees and liability claims could be used to improve product safety, innovation, and the availability of products consumers want.

• Perhaps most importantly, product liability reform will decrease product costs to consumers.

• The bill also marks an advancement for consumers because it expands the statute of limitations in product liability cases to two years after both the injury and its cause are discovered.

• This Act would help ensure that life-saving and life-enhancing medical devices will remain available to doctors and their patients without fear of frivolous lawsuits. A growing number of lawsuits has forced many biomaterial producers to stop production and sale of these materials, which has created shortages of important medical devices.

Current System Favors Lawyers Over Plaintiffs

• Injured parties receive less than half of the money spent in product liability actions -- more than half goes to lawyers. Trial lawyers oppose this bill: they're making millions off the current system, and this bill would hit their pocketbooks.

S. 6 -- Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act

To defend the sanctity of innocent human life, this bill would prohibit a heinous procedure known as partial-birth abortion.

Description

• This legislation is identical to the bill passed overwhelmingly in both the House and the Senate last year and vetoed by President Clinton.

• It would ban the use of one abortion procedure: a partial live-birth delivery, in which the abortionist stabs the baby's head with scissors and then vacuums out his or her brains.

Not a Rare Procedure

• Despite reports that this is a rare procedure, there is now ample documentary evidence, most of it provided by media investigations, that many thousands of these partial-birth abortions are performed every year.

Most in Second, Not Third, Trimester

• Some opponents of our bill want to ignore the incidence of partial-birth abortion in the second trimester of pregnancy, when it is far more common than in the last three months of pregnancy. Bill Clinton specifically refuses to accept a ban on partial-birth abortion in the second trimester.

"Health" Exception Would Gut Bill

• Some opponents also have proposed what they call a compromise regarding the health of the mother. Their amendment would gut the bill because of the expansive judicial interpretation of the word "health."

Includes Life of the Mother Exception

• Our bill provides criminal penalties for the performance of a partial-birth abortion, with an exception for those cases in which the mother's life would be endangered without it. Medical experts have testified that there are no such cases, but this exception language has been included in order to clear up any doubt about the matter.

No Penalties for Mothers

• Because we want to assist women who face crisis pregnancies, our bill does not provide any penalties for those who have an abortion by the partial-birth method.

S. 7 -- National Missile Defense Act

To protect the American people from limited, unauthorized, or accidental ballistic missile attacks, we must build a missile defense system by the year 2003. Today, the United States is defenseless against a real and growing threat of ballistic missile attack.

Description

• President Clinton, supported by Senate Democrats, has refused to defend the American people against the threat of missile attack. Last year, Democrats began a filibuster of the 1996 Defend America Act, never allowing a vote.

• Republicans have long been working toward defending the United States against ballistic missile attacks. The National Missile Defense Act of 1997 will guarantee that protection for all Americans.

• Our bill sets a clear policy to deploy a national missile defense (NMD) system for the United States, while allowing the Secretary of Defense the flexibility to decide the type of system to deploy.

• In addition, our bill urges the President to negotiate with Russia changes to the obsolete 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.

Why the National Missile Defense Act Is Needed

• Today, the United States could not defend itself against a ballistic missile attack. Most Americans think the United States could shoot down an incoming missile -- and are surprised and appalled to discover that we do not have that capability.

• More than 25 countries (including North Korea, Iran, Libya, Iraq, and Syria) currently possess or are seeking to acquire ballistic missiles that could carry nuclear, chemical, and biological warheads.

• Rogue nations with shorter-range ballistic missiles are seeking to acquire longer-range missiles.

• The United States cannot dismiss the possibility of a ballistic missile attack from a politically unstable Russia or a bellicose China.

• The Clinton Administration has failed to provide a policy to deploy a missile defense system to protect American citizens from ballistic missile attacks.

Transition From U.S./Russia ABM Treaty

• The 1972 ABM Treaty needs to be updated to account for threats of today and tomorrow. This is why our bill encourages a cooperative transition with Russia to deploy effective defenses, thereby allowing both countries to address real and growing proliferation threats.

• As such, it calls for the United States and Russia to amend the 1972 ABM Treaty, as provided for in the treaty itself.

S. 8 -- Superfund Cleanup Acceleration Act

This comprehensive Superfund reform measure corrects the root causes of the waste and delay in the current program. By making these comprehensive changes, this Act will help achieve the original vision of Superfund to protect human health and the environment through common-sense cleanup approaches, and quickly allow for the economic redevelopment of these blighted areas.

Description

• The bill ends the litigation paralysis, provides realistic cleanup standards, breaks the barriers to economic development of the sites, and ensures that individuals, small businesses, and municipalities are treated fairly.

• Increases State and Public Participation: The role of the states is enhanced by allowing them to take primary responsibility for conducting Superfund cleanups. Citizen participation is increased by setting up a Citizen Response Organization process to ensure that interested individuals, government officials, and scientists work together to provide input on the selection of cleanup remedies at Superfund sites.

• Accelerates Cleanup and Controls Costs: Protects public health and the environment by providing that federal and state cleanup standards are considered. Provides a common-sense approach to cleanup by taking the future use of the site into consideration when selecting the cleanup remedy. Creates an expedited process to cut in half the amount of time needed to clean up these sites. Encourages the use of innovative technologies to make available the most up-to-date cleanup options. Accelerates restoration of natural resources injured by toxic waste contamination by creating a common-sense claims process based on actual damages to the environment rather than hypothetical and unrealistic econometric theories. Promotes expedited settlements and restoration of injured natural resources by allowing phased payment of damage claims.

• Reduces Superfund Litigation: Reduces the bitter fighting over who pays the costs of cleaning up a Superfund site by creating a "fair-share allocation" process for multiparty sites, with the Superfund Trust Fund assuming the responsibility for waste from insolvent parties or that cannot be attributed to any viable party. Eliminates from liability small businesses, individuals that only disposed of household wastes, entities that conducted legitimate recycling activities, and parties that contributed extremely small amounts of hazardous waste. Creates a fair process to limit the liability of municipalities that owned or operated landfills and eliminates liability for those municipalities whose liability results only from generating or transporting municipal solid waste or sewage sludge.

• Encourages Economic Development: Enhances economic development of "brownfield" sites by providing funds for grants and loans to state and local authorities involved in cleaning up underutilized contaminated properties, including those in our nation's inner cities. Spurs private redevelopment by allowing liability protection to private parties that move ahead on their own accord under state cleanup laws.

Good Intentions Gone Awry

Superfund was created in 1980 to clean up abandoned hazardous waste sites. Begun with the best intentions, the program has performed miserably, costing over $30 billion, and resulting in only 125 sites being removed from the Superfund list over 16 years. Superfund is the perfect example of a federal program awash in red tape, litigation and wasteful spending.

The Liability Scheme Has Been A Disaster

Superfund allows the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to hold any potentially responsible party liable for the entire cleanup cost at a site. This is patently unfair and, not surprisingly, has resulted in litigation where 30-to-70 percent of every dollar spent in the program goes to lawyers. "Brownfields" in our nation's cities are, in great part, a direct result of the current law. Potential developers and companies do not invest in these sites for fear of Superfund liability and instead move to "greenfields" while the cities languish.

The Cleanup Standards Are Too Rigid

The current Superfund statute also sets out unrealistic cleanup goals which often are impossible to meet; and it ignores the future use of the site. Frequently, sites envisaged as future industrial parks or parking lots must be cleaned as if for school playgrounds.

EPA's New Rules Are Not Enough

EPA has recognized there are problems and has instituted administrative reforms of the program. While many of these reforms have incorporated policies long advocated by Republicans, and while they may address some concerns, it is clear that comprehensive legislation is necessary to correct Superfund's deeper problems.

S. 9 -- Paycheck Protection Act

Only with a worker's express consent should a corporation or labor union take that worker's money and use it for politics.

Description

• The bill forbids corporations and unions from taking money from employees and then using that money for political activities -- unless the employee first gives express, written consent for such political uses.

• The bill defines "political activities" to include carrying on propaganda, attempting to influence legislation, and intervening in any political campaign or political party. This definition is derived from 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

• Whenever an employee gives express, written consent for the political use of his or her money, that authorization will remain in effect until revoked but may be revoked at any time.

The Politics of Consent

• The Paycheck Protection Act is premised on the simple, all-American truth that money must not be taken from a person and put to political purposes unless that person gives consent. It was Thomas Jefferson who declared that "to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical."

• The Paycheck Protection Act does not "codify" the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Communication Workers of America v. Beck, 487 U.S. 735 (1988). The bill does address some of the issues that were raised in Beck, but the bill is a simple, necessary fence that keeps corporations and unions away from workers' pocketbooks -- unless the workers have given their consent.

• Current law can be difficult and confusing and reactionary. For example, many workers have money taken from them without their consent and then they must petition to get it back. This bill is a proactive, pro-worker initiative that will help individuals regain control of their own paychecks -- and of their own politics.

S. 10 -- Violent Juvenile Offenders Act

Juveniles must be held personally accountable for their violent crimes, and the Federal Government is going to offer additional help to the states to target youth gangs and other violent juvenile offenders.

Description

• Once, the term "juvenile crime" implied not much more than truancy and trouble making. Today, the term often means murder, rape, robbery, assault, and drug running. However, much of our "juvenile justice system" is still operating as if it were dealing with youthful troublemakers rather than murderers and rapists.

• The bill targets youth gangs by creating new federal penalties for offenses committed by criminal street gangs. Federal prosecutors will be able to charge gang leaders or members under the continuing criminal enterprise statute if they engage in two or more criminal gang offenses. The provision also makes it a crime to recruit someone into a gang or to solicit participation in a gang crime.

• The bill encourages states to try new, progressive responses to violent youth crime by eliminating federal mandates that have stifled innovative state efforts. For example, the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act currently imposes four mandates on states that accept federal funds for juvenile justice: (1) no confinement for status offenses, (2) no confinement of adults and juveniles in the same facilities, (3) no confinement of adults and juveniles in the same cell, and (4) mandatory steps to eradicate any differences in the percentage of minority youth confined. Republicans would lift three of these mandates, leaving only the requirement (in a modified form) that juvenile offenders not have regular physical contact with adults.

• The federal government will help provide funding for the fingerprinting of juvenile offenders, DNA tests for juveniles, and record-keeping and record-sharing. The states will have to meet certain conditions to receive additional funds. For example, a state will have to allow offenders 14 years of age and older who commit crimes of violence to be prosecuted as adults. States will have to collect and share data on juvenile offenders.

• The bill will help ensure that by the year 2000 there will be 2000 Boys & Girls Clubs in America. The bill provides $100 million to help fund the construction of clubs in public housing projects and economically depressed communities. Once constructed, the federal government will play no role in the operation of these clubs.

• The bill will enhance the penalty for transferring a firearm to a minor for use in a crime, and it will increase other penalties. For example, it will provide enhanced mandatory minimum penalties for use of a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence.

The New Juvenile Crime

• From 1985 through 1994, the homicide rate among juveniles increased 172 percent.

• Youth crime is growing at an alarming rate. In a recent four-year period, juvenile arrests for violent crime increased 47 percent while similar arrests for adults increased 19 percent.

• Senator Domenici recently reported on juvenile offenders in his state of New Mexico: 43 percent of those in correctional facilities had at least 10 prior referrals to the juvenile system; 75 percent had a history of violent crime; 80 percent had a history of gang involvement; 67 percent had been truant or expelled from school, or had dropped out; and 63 percent used drugs or alcohol weekly. The situation in most other states is similar.

• Senator Ashcroft recently spoke of a conversation he had with a sheriff in Missouri. The sheriff's biggest problem? -- juveniles coming into his county from out of state and trying to set up a drug operation. When the sheriff tries to get information on the participants in this criminal conspiracy, he finds their records sealed.