"We must halt the harm asbestos creates, and ameliorate the harm it has already caused," said Leahy, D-Vt., the primary sponsor of the bill. "The industrial and insurer participants in the trust fund will gain the benefits of financial certainty and relief from the stresses of litigation in the tort system, and the victims will have a quicker and more efficient path to recovery."

But Cannon — and he believes he has the Republican majority in the House on his side — is opposed to the Senate bill because it establishes no medical criteria whereby "victims" must show actual harm. And they also see it as a windfall for trial attorneys.

Freedom Works has launched a print and radio campaign against the Senate bill and in favor of Cannon's legislation.

"Chris Cannon has prepared the right bill," Armey said.

Freedom Works is calling the Senate bill a $140 billion tax on small and medium-sized companies, which would have their insurance coverage stripped at the same time they would be required to pay into the trust fund.

For example, Hopeman Brothers shipbuilders in Virginia used asbestos in the wall and ceiling panels on the interior of ships it built over much of the past century. And they did it at the insistence of the U.S. Coast Guard.

Now the company is facing about 40,000 lawsuits, which are paid from the company's insurance coverage. Now it faces the prospect of paying $15 million to $25 million a year into the trust fund. And since the company has never made that much profit in a single year, it will go bankrupt under the Senate bill, said company CEO David Lascell, who appeared in support of Cannon's bill.

Armey predicted the Senate bill will fail "under its own weight" and that will leave Cannon's bill as the most viable option.

But it may come down to the Senate passing a trust fund bill and the House passing a medical criteria provisions bill, and then the two sides working out a compromise.

"In the end, this has to be about people," Cannon said. "It's not anti-trial lawyer; it's pro-sick people."

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E-mail: spang@desnews.com