The thorny issue of asbestos reform is set to be brought before Congress in the middle of April ? but no date has yet been scheduled for the more general problem of tort reform.

And Robert Hartwig chief economist at the Insurance Information Institute, said that he is "cautiously optimistic" that some kind of reform of the US system is possible, despite the huge gulf that exists between the two sides, the insurance world and the litigators and attorneys. "The situation is just as dire and just as grave as it was last year," Mr. Hartwig told . "I expect it is to be a hard fought over issue and you can only expect so much."

But he said that a big issue this year, an election year, was US jobs and it was clear that the asbestos had cost tens of thousands of jobs and if it could be seen as something that was good not just for the insurance industry, but for the workers of America, that there was hope of reform.

A Reuters report said yesterday that Senate staff were preparing a bill to reform the asbestos litigation system, and planned to bring it to the floor on April 19, according to an unidentified aide to Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist.

Supporters of the proposal hope the pressure of a deadline will prompt long-time doubters, including organised labour, to work towards agreement on outstanding issues, the aide told Reuters.

"We're going to the floor on April 19," the aide said, speaking on condition that he not be identified. "We want a bill that will actually pass."

A bill went before Congress last year, but neither side could come to any kind of compromise and eventually the issue was dropped.

But lawmakers promised to bring the issue to Senate again early this year ? and said that tort reform in general should come up in March some time ? but no dates have been set for any hearings.

The insurance industry has been long looking for tort and asbestos reform, which has seen huge awards handed out in class action lawsuits, much of which is taken up by administrative and legal costs of getting the battle through the courts.

And the costs have been passed on to insurance companies which keep having to increase reserves to be able to pay out the huge costs of insurance which covers things such as medical malpractice or say asbestos contamination.

The bill next month will be based on a proposal by Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch to end asbestos lawsuits and replace them with a victims' fund supported by asbestos companies and insurers, the aide told Reuters. He added it would probably incorporate $114 billion in funding that Frist worked out late last year.

But the Reuters report said a Senate Democratic aide was sceptical of the effort, saying it appeared the Republican majority were drafting a proposal on a very contentious issue with little or no Democratic input ? and warned this was unlikely to work in the closely divided Senate.

"This is not going to get done if they try to jam (force) folks by some date, with a bill no one has seen," the Democratic aide said.

The Hatch asbestos proposal was passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee last summer, but it stalled, and Frist has been trying to revive it. Organised labour liked neither the original Hatch bill nor the Frist funding deal, saying they were inadequate to pay claims of people who have been injured by the fire-proofing mineral.

Asbestos was widely used for fireproofing and insulation until the 1970s. Scientists say inhaled fibres are linked to cancer and other diseases. Last year Mr. Hartwig was called as an insurance industry witness before the senate judiciary committee, but he said that what they considered as a "reasonable proposal" was tens of billions of dollars apart from what trial lawyers had wanted.

And he said that they had continued to see more bankruptcy-related to asbestos, and they had to persuade legislators to see this as another way of helping with the job situation.

"Last year (asbestos-related) bankruptcies led to 60,000 cost jobs," said Mr. Hartwig. "And that is now close to 70,000. Also there are the companies that are not hiring people because they are financially impaired. And we are talking about tens of billions of dollars of pensions, of healthcare benefits. And in some cases these people are left as wards of the state ? bankrupt and destitute."

And he said that if there was a standardised way for determining who has been impaired by asbestos (with people not impaired, still retaining the right to file later but were out of the system) this would be a bid step.

He said that medical criteria and how impaired are you can allow payments to be made according to this formula ? and cut out the enormous proportion of the loss or outlays paid in attorneys fees and administration costs.

Liabilities under the bill run out to 2049 and he has been asked to try and estimate liability from 1940 to 2049. "That is 110 years, and we came up with a huge number that does not fit on a page, an enormous amount of money."

But he does not despair that the issue cannot be sorted out, adding: "I want to remain cautiously optimistic, but this debate has gone on for more than 40 years"