First hurdle cleared in asbestos bill in the senate.

Today the asbestos bill took it's first major step forward when senate minority leader Harry Reid,(NV), ended his objection to certain elements of the bill, and allowed it to move to a vote, 98-1, to open debate on this massively important piece of legislation.

You can read the initial press reports here.

I'll do a more in depth summary of the bill tomorrow morning. This is by no means a perfect bill, and there is a long way to go before it is even close to passage, but law makers on both sides of the isle are giving this a push so it's chance for success just got a little bit more plausible.

A more indepth discussion of the bill, it's backers and opponents, and the dynamics behind it appears today in the New York Times. It's a rare occurrence when you have AIG, Allstate and the Trial Lawyer Lobby all opposing a bill, as is happening here.  Over $8 million has been spent to date on lobbying both sides of this bill, and the big money is i'm sure about to roll out when and if it gets closer to passage. This bill is a very big deal for the settlement industry for a variety of reasons we will expand upon in the weeks ahead, so i'll continue to follow it closely.