The measure would involve an insurer-bankrolled trust fund to pay claimants will illness from workplace asbestos exposure.

Should he be successful it would be a major success. Over the years prior attempts to move asbestos legislation have been and bottled up by Congress.

He voiced his optimism after a long hearing on the bill before the committee despite opposition by some of the largest stakeholders in the legislation, including organized labor and the vast majority of the insurance industry. Those groups have called the bill flawed and in need of major revisions to meet their needs.

And Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., surprisingly joined the negative chorus, even though the bill is bipartisan, and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., ranking minority member of the committee, supported it and helped draft it.

"We cannot allow what justice requires to be limited by what the wrongdoers are willing to pay," Sen. Kennedy said in a statement released at the hearing. "Unless substantial improvements are made to the legislation at the committee's markup, I intend to vote ?no' and I urge my colleagues to do the same."

One insurance industry lobbyist said he believed the bill will be reported out of the committee Thursday, but only as a courtesy to the chairman, and that afterward it will languish in the face of opposition from insurers, the AFL-CIO, some large defendants, and lawyers for several existing court-created trusts for injured workers.

Lawyers for the trusts said in a letter to a member of the committee last week that the bill represented an unconstitutional taking of assets from the trusts, and that they would file suit in federal court to block shifting of the trusts' assets if the bill is enacted by Congress.

Sen. Specter, in comments to reporters after the hearing, dismissed the threat. He said it would be "an insult to a red herring to call this a red herring."

During the hearing, Judge Edward Becker, former chief judge of the 3^rd U.S. Court of Appeals, said the bill should be supported, not criticized.

Judge Becker made his comments in discussing the bipartisan bill, the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act of 2005 (FAIR Act), S. 852.

Judge Becker lauded the bill as the opening witness. He said that among its improvements from earlier versions is that because of changes in who is eligible to win judgments under the bill, the trust fund that will be created "is more than adequate to pay claims." He said that under an estimate by analysts at Goldman Sachs, the fund has more than $5 billion in cushion to handle claims than before.

He said that under the claims criteria, the "most significant" is a decision not to pay claims to those exposed to asbestos or silica who have developed lung cancer because they are smokers and cannot prove the cancer is due to exposure to asbestos or silica.

Regarding language in the bill that doesn't require claimants to count against their awards amounts they received in workmen's compensation claims, Judge Becker dismissed the fact "a number of people are unhappy about that." He called it just a "tradeoff" necessary in crafting compromise legislation.

Judge Becker said complaints by trial lawyers that their fees are being cut, to 5 percent for normal claims and 10 percent for appeals, is "inappropriate, estimating that trial lawyers have won fees of more than $3 billion over the last 10 years for handling asbestos cases.

Speaking for the insurance industry, Craig A. Berrington, senior vice president and general counsel of the American Insurance Association (AIA), said that while the bill contains a few improvements over previous drafts, it still "falls significantly short" of meeting core goals that would earn it insurance industry support. Mr. Berrington also spoke on behalf of the the Reinsurance Association of America (RAA).

"A well constructed trust fund would provide not only an efficient and exclusive remedy for victims, but equity, certainty and finality for all stakeholders," Mr. Berrington said. "While S. 852 as introduced does contain important improvements over prior proposals, we believe it still falls significantly short of these laudable, core goals for reform."

Mr. Berrington added that "a national trust fund must provide an exclusive remedy for resolution of all asbestos claims. Otherwise, there is no real certainty or finality for insurers or other funding participants. In fact, we could find ourselves paying both substantial sums into the fund and in the tort system for claims permitted to ?leak' outside the fund."

Amongst the naysayers at the hearing was Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. He criticized Sen. Specter for failing to include any victims of asbestos exposure among the witnesses called to testify, referring to the proceedings as "bloodless" and "sterile."

"This is a hearing about money," he added.

Sen Specter responded that Sen. Durbin had been given the opportunity to call witnesses, that the three witnesses he had requested had been called and that none of those witnesses were the victims he noted in his opening statement.

The chairman also took issue with Durbin's comments suggesting that not enough time and energy had been expended on the asbestos issue, noting that approximately 40 hearings and meetings had been held on the issue and the asbestos reform bill. "This bill has not suffered from a lack of consideration," he said.

Sens. Durbin and Specter also argued over the transparency of the negotiations leading to the asbestos bill for other lawmakers, as Sen. Durbin suggested there was "not an open invitation to members of this committee" to participate in talks and Sen. Specter countering that other members had always been welcome.