WASHINGTON – A White House conference on the economy turned into a forum for bashing trial lawyers Wednesday as President Bush and his allies demanded congressional action to limit lawsuits.

Surrounded by a panel of enthusiastic supporters, Bush said lawsuits against businesses and manufacturers were a drag on the economy and must be reined in. He called for a new system to deal with asbestos-related cases, and new limits on medical malpractice cases and class-action lawsuits involving groups of plaintiffs.

He chuckled and nodded as panelists at the two-day conference aired their contempt for trial lawyers.

“What you have today is business on one side, and you’ve got the trial lawyers on the other side. … You’ve got deep pockets colliding with shallow principles,” Robert Nardelli, the chief executive at Home Depot, said to laughter from the audience and the president.

Todd Smith, the president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, issued a statement saying in part:

“President Bush’s economic plan pretends that taking away the legal rights of American families will reduce health care costs. He unashamedly advocates legislation that would protect insurance industry profits and prohibit any punishment for the makers of dangerous drugs like Vioxx, while penalizing your mother for being abused in a nursing home or your daughter for having her baby killed by medical malpractice.

“That’s not an economic plan. It is yet another giveaway to the insurance, drug, HMO and nursing-home industries.”

The hourlong session on “the high costs of lawsuit abuse” was one of several panels examining various aspects of Bush’s second-term domestic agenda. With nary a word of dissent, the panelists – all of them selected by the White House – endorsed the president’s plans to partially privatize Social Security, permanently extend his first-term tax cuts and limit lawsuits.

“We’re tickled to death that your exodus was postponed for four years,” Nardelli told Bush, expressing a viewpoint widely shared at the gathering.

Nardelli was one of several Republican donors at the conference. The Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign spenders, found that conference participants donated nearly $195,000 to various Republican candidates or causes in recent years, including $40,000 to Bush.

Panelists included a Mississippi drugstore owner who said she was driven out of business by lawsuits, an Ohio gynecologist who stopped delivering babies to avoid the cost of malpractice insurance and one of the gynecologist’s pregnant patients, who said she was still looking for a backup doctor. All pointed the finger of blame at trial lawyers.

“I think we need to hold these people to a higher standard – the same standard that physicians are held to,” said gynecologist Barbara Coen of Norton, Ohio.

Carlton Carl, a spokesman for the trial lawyers’ group, dismissed the White House conference as political theater.

“It’s not government. It’s not seeking solutions,” Carl said. “The only people invited to attend and participate are campaign supporters and people who have been well-rehearsed.”

Turning the president’s agenda into law won’t be easy. A variety of powerful interest groups are gearing up to challenge his ambitious plans. Even some of his fellow Republican lawmakers aren’t sold on some issues. There’s no consensus plan to revise the federal tax system, and some Republican lawmakers remain wary of any major changes to Social Security.

Some of the president’s proposals to restrict lawsuits, including his plan to limit damages for “pain and suffering” in medical malpractice cases to $250,000, stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate in his first term.

Carl said Bush was “not even close” to legislative victory on medical malpractice changes, but might win congressional approval for his plan to limit class-action lawsuits to federal court. Legislation to forestall asbestos-related lawsuits by establishing a special fund to deal with injury claims has stalled over the size of the fund, tentatively pegged at about $140 billion.

Trial lawyers, consumer groups and labor unions say that isn’t nearly enough to compensate people who have cancers related to their exposure to asbestos, a substance that once was commonly used in insulation, flooring, ceiling tiles and other everyday products.

Bush signaled his determination to push the changes through Congress and promised to say more about them in his State of the Union address early next year.

“We expect the House and the Senate to pass meaningful liability reform on asbestos, on class action and medical liability,” he said. “I am passionate on the subject. … And I can assure you all that I intend to make this a priority issue.”