Roundup: Business bills in progress
By Staff -- Purchasing, 3/9/2000 2:00:00 AM
As the 106th Congress heads into its final session in an election year, several bills affecting business are moving. Here's a status report on some of the major ones that have advanced far enough to have chance of passage before the end of session.
ENERGY
Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1999 (S.1287)
Sponsor: Senator Frank Murkowski (R-Ark.)
Purpose: to provide for temporary storage of nuclear waste at the former weapons testing site in Nevada and to give the Department of Energy necessary tools to complete the Yucca Mountain, Nevada permanent storage site.
Status: Passed the Senate 2/10/00 by a vote of 64 to 34. HR 45, with different provisions, is awaiting action on the House floor.
Main provisions: Establishes deadlines and procedures to develop a temporary repository for used nuclear fuel in Nevada and complete studies for the Yucca Mountain permanent storage site. The Energy Department is given specific authority to reach settlements with the utility companies that have filed lawsuits for DOE's failure to meet the congressionally mandated requirement to move used nuclear fuel. Provision is made for DOE to pay utilities' costs for storing used nuclear fuel at their reactor sites, provide storage casks to nuclear power companies for on-site storage. A provision to allow DOE to take title of used nuclear fuel before it is shipped to a permanent storage site was dropped.
Electricity Competition and Reliability Act of 1999 (HR 2944)
Sponsor: Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), chairman, Subcommittee on Energy and Power, House Commerce Committee.
Purpose: The purpose of this Act is to benefit American electric consumers through lower electric rates, higher quality services and a more robust United States economy by encouraging retail and wholesale competition in electric markets and to provide consumers with reliable electric service, and for other purposes.
Status: Approved with amendments by the Energy and Power subcommittee 10/17/99. Referred to other committees and for consideration by the full Commerce Committee.
Main provisions: The bill covers such matters as ensuring open transmission access, establishing an electric reliability organization governed by Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rules, requiring disclosure of prices and description of all charges by companies offering retail and wholesale power, promoting comp-etition by barring a local utility from denying access to its distribution facilities to competitors, and establishing an approval process for mergers.
PRODUCT LIABILITY
Small Business Liability Reform Act of 2000 (HR 2366)
Sponsor: Rep, James E. Rogan (R-Calif.)
Purpose: To provide small businesses certain protections from litigation excesses and to limit product liability of non-manufacturer (e.g., wholesaler distributors) product sellers.
Status: Passed the House Judiciary Committee 2/2/00.
Main provisions: Title I limits small businesses from punitive damage liability except for willful misconduct or conscious, flagrant indifference to the rights or safety of others. It also limits such punitive damages to the lesser of two times the amount awarded for economic and non-economic losses, or $250,000, and limits damages awarded when more than one business is sued to the percentage of responsibility set by the court. Title II mandates that, in any product liability action, a product seller other than a manufacturer shall be liable to a claimant only if such claimant establishes that: (1) the product that caused the harm was sold, rented or leased by the seller, the seller failed to exercise reasonable care with respect to the product, and such failure was the proximate cause of harm to the plaintiff; (2) the seller made an express warranty applicable to such product, the product failed to conform to the warranty, and such failure caused the harm to the plaintiff; or (3) the product seller engaged in intentional wrongdoing (as determined under applicable State law), and such wrongdoing caused the harm to the plaintiff.
Workplace Goods, Jobs Growth, and Competitiveness Act (HR 20050)
Sponsor: Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio).
Purpose: To eliminate litigation that seeks to hold manufacturers of durable goods liable for harms caused by machinery they have not controlled for almost two decades. Status: Passed House by 222 -194 on 2/2/00. Referred to Senate Commerce Committee.
Main provisions: Bars a suit against the manufacturer of such a product for incidents that occur 18 years after it was delivered to its first purchaser. The injured party must be eligible for worker's compensation for the statute to apply. The bill's scope is limited to workplace goods such as machine tools, printing presses, farm equipment and plastic molding systems--what economists refer to as "capital stock." It does not cover planes and automobiles for hire (e.g., rental cars). In addition, the measure does not apply to durable goods covered by express warranties that guarantee the safety or life expectancy of a product for more than 18 years.
Interstate Class Action Jurisdiction Act of 1999 (HR 1875)
Sponsors: Robert Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Rick/Boucher (D-Va.)
Purpose: In order to ensure that interstate class actions are adjudicated in a fair, consistent, and efficient manner and to correct unintended technical exclusion of such cases from the scope of Federal diversity jurisdiction, to allow more interstate class actions to be brought in or removed to Federal court.
Status: Passed the House 222-207 on 9/23/99. S 353, a similar bill pending in the Senate Judiciary Committee, would allow any party to request that a case be moved to federal court if it involves interstate or foreign plaintiffs and defendants, $1 million or more, and 100 or more plaintiffs.
Main provisions: A class action may be removed to a district court of the United States in accordance with this chapter, but without regard to whether any defendant is a citizen of the State in which the action is brought, except that such action may be removed (1) by any defendant without the consent of all defendants or (2) by any plaintiff class member who is not a named or representative class member of the action for which removal is sought, without the consent of all members of such class.
ERGONOMICS
Workplace Preservation Act (HR 987)
Sponsor: Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.)
Status: Passed the House 217-209 8/3/99 and referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. A similar bill (S 1070 sponsored by Senator Kitt Bond (R-Mo.) was introduced but not acted upon last year.
Purpose: To require the Secretary of Labor to wait for completion of a National Academy of Sciences study before promulgating a standard or guideline on ergonomics.
Main provision: Prohibits the Secretary of Labor from promulgating, through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, any standard or guideline on ergonomics until the National Academy of Sciences completes a study and submits a report to Congress.
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