Grace to pay record fine (Balto Sun) {$250M for asbestos}

[eppur_se_muova]

By Allison Connolly | Sun reporter
March 12, 2008

W.R. Grace & Co. has agreed to pay $250 million, the most in the history of the federal government's Superfund program, to clean up contamination from a Montana vermiculite mine that caused 1,200 residents and former mine workers to become ill or die from asbestos-related diseases.

The agreement was announced by the Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency late yesterday. If the deal is approved by the bankruptcy court overseeing Grace's reorganization, the Columbia-based specialty chemicals maker would be shielded from any additional cleanup claims and costs.

The settlement does not affect the criminal case pending in Missoula, Mont., in which the company and several of its former and current executives are accused of covering up the extent of the contamination and obstructing regulators from investigating. That trial was supposed to start in September 2005 but has been delayed by a series of legal appeals of pretrial rulings.

The settlement also does not cover personal injury claims against the company.
***
more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-te.bz.grace12mar12,0,1732727.story

[havocmom]

1. Grace appointed to watchdog post by Reagan - to watch Grace

Oh, and didn't cheney acquire Grace for Halliburton when he was at the helm of that company?

The workers really got hurt in this whole mess and it seems to have set the stage for letting the corporations damaging people be their own regulators. This is where American workers really started their modern decline at the hands of the mega-corps.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/uncivilaction/lib181.shtml

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1229-01.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/021100-01.htm

The modern genesis of what is going on now was during those Reagan years. Bush I and all that...

This is what we have to dismantle and it will take a long time to fix what they took so long to carefully set in place. NSA spying to protect us from terrorist? Not the way I see it. All is for protecting the super rich from us forcing them to take responsibility for the harm they do for their insatiable greed.

Grace. Remember the name and connect the dots.

Halliburton
cheney
the need for massive amounts of cash
the need for TOTAL AWARENESS so other pols can be totally controlled

People keep dying.

Grace
It infuriates me that such a lovely word was made so damned ugly

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Remember when Bu**sh** brought up asbestos lawsuits in the SOTU?

"To make our economy stronger and more competitive, America must reward, not punish, the efforts and dreams of entrepreneurs. Small business is the path of advancement, especially for women and minorities, so we must free small businesses from needless regulation and protect honest job-creators from junk lawsuits. (Applause.) Justice is distorted, and our economy is held back by irresponsible class-actions and frivolous asbestos claims -- and I urge Congress to pass legal reforms this year. (Applause.)"

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/02/20050202-11.html

At the time, a lot of people here on DU said "WTF? That's got to be Cheney talking!". Of course, it was -- though it was Dresser Industries, not Grace, that Cheney corralled for Halliburton:

"But the company and its shareholders have also suffered from the hidden costs from a deal that was, at the time, the high point of Mr. Cheney's five-year Halliburton career: his acquisition in 1998 of Dresser Industries. The deal, which Mr. Cheney hailed as a ''win-win'' merger, ended up saddling the company with the growing costs of legal claims from people who say they were injured by or are at risk from asbestos in products made by Dresser and a former Dresser subsidiary that was spun off in 1992.

Mr. Cheney's office said the Halliburton-Dresser deal was thoroughly vetted at the time. Halliburton said the degree of the asbestos problems could not have been anticipated at the time of the merger.

At issue now is whether Halliburton under Mr. Cheney was aggressive enough in investigating the asbestos liabilities it was taking on in acquiring Dresser, and whether it adequately informed shareholders of the risks at the time they were asked to approve the deal.

Previously undisclosed court documents show Dresser was notified a month before the merger that it might face greater asbestos liability from its former subsidiary than it had disclosed. Halliburton said it was kept in the dark by Dresser about the greater risks until after the merger was completed."

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D07E6D9163BF932A3575BC0A9649C8B63

Interestingly, I don't remember hearing the word "frivolous" in the actual speech -- that would have upped my blood pressure even more than I remember. I wonder if he dropped that in the speech? (Just because it's in the WH transcript doesn't mean $#!+.)

ETA: Only a Republic-CON would claim protection of small businesses as an excuse to shield bloated giants Grace and Halliburton.