The Daily Inter Lake

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., has introduced an amendment to a federal bankruptcy bill that would require W. R. Grace & Co. to set up a $250 million trust fund for Libby asbestos victims before the company can emerge from bankruptcy.

The fund would be used to help Libby residents and former Grace employees pay for health care to treat diseases associated with asbestos exposure caused by the company's vermiculite mining operations.

Baucus, who made his 16th trip to Libby last week on asbestos business, has pushed for several years to have a permanent trust fund set up to help people who are sick with asbestos disease.

"Projected health-care costs to treat all sick people in Libby run into the hundreds of millions of dollars," Baucus said in his comments on the Senate floor Friday. "They need our help. They are dying up there and they can't afford health care."

Grace - not Medicare, Medicaid or the state - should pay for the problems the company caused, he said.

Baucus has been working to secure a commitment from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to invest greater resources in Libby, specifically with more money for the Libby-based Center for Asbestos Related Diseases.

He also wants assurance that an asbestos bill moving in the Congress exempts Libby residents and provides them with compensation.