New York Times - House Passes Tobacco Bill

By Duff Wilson

WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives on Thursday passed by a wide margin legislation to give the Food and Drug Administration sweeping new powers over tobacco products, which kill an estimated 400,000 Americans each year.

Despite the 298-to-112 House vote, though, a closer battle is likely in the Senate between public health advocates and some tobacco industry supporters. Senator Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina, the nation’s leading tobacco producing state, has threatened a filibuster.

And while the cigarette leader Philip Morris supports the legislation, other big tobacco companies oppose it.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a prime sponsor in the Senate, plans to introduce a version of the House bill later this month after a two-week congressional recess. Mr. Kennedy will work for speedy passage, said his spokeswoman, Melissa Wagoner.

President Obama also strongly supports the legislation, the Office of Management and Budget said Wednesday, in the new administration’s first official statement on the issue.

“Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States and is a contributing factor to scores of diseases and conditions inflicting misery upon millions of our citizens,” the administration statement said. “Further, tobacco use is a major factor driving the increasing costs of health care in the U.S. and accounts for over a hundred billion dollars annually in financial costs to the economy.”

As passed by the House the legislation would set up a new F.D.A. office, financed by industry fees, with powers to restrict harmful chemicals in existing tobacco products — including nicotine and possibly, after further study, menthol. The F.D.A. would also be empowered to approve or reject new tobacco products and to expand marketing restrictions and warning labels.

Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California and a main sponsor of the legislation, said it had taken more than a decade to regulate tobacco, since the F.D.A. first sought that power and the Supreme Court ruled it needed congressional authority.

“We’ve come to what I hope will be an historic occasion, and that is finally doing something about the harm that tobacco does to thousands and thousands of Americans who die each year, and stopping the attempt to get our children to smoke,” Mr. Waxman said during a two-and-a-half hour House debate Wednesday evening. “It has taken us far too long to get to this point.”

Last year the Senate did not act on its version of the House bill. The Senate was facing the triple threats of a filibuster, a Bush White House veto and a time crunch, with only one month to act before adjourning for the election. But the Senate did have 60 sponsors last year, including Barack Obama, and now there are now at least seven more Democrats in the chamber.

“The House’s quick action gives the Senate plenty of time to act this year,” said Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the lead Washington advocacy group for the bill. The legislation is also supported by an additional 1,000 or so public health, medical, religious and other organizations.

John R. Seffrin, chief of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, said in a statement, “We’re in the best position we’ve ever been in to see this legislation pass and become law.”

In the Senate, Mr. Burr, who has threatened a filibuster on the measure patterned after the House bill, has introduced an alternative bill that would promote “reduced risk” tobacco products rather than cracking down on new and existing products. His home state, North Carolina, has an estimated 10,000 high-paying jobs in tobacco manufacturing and includes R.J. Reynolds Tobacco and Lorillard Tobacco, the nation’s second and third largest cigarette makers.

In the House debate Wednesday evening Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, attacked the legislation as “an unnecessary and expensive regulatory scheme at the expense of our rural farming communities, our small businesses and the American economy.”

The House rejected an amendment by Steve Buyer, Republican of Indiana, to set up a government office other than the F.D.A. to oversee tobacco and to promote smokeless tobacco products. Mr. Buyer argued that the Waxman legislation would make it difficult for the F.D.A. to approve new, smokeless products and help cigarette users reduce their risk of disease.

Mr. Waxman responded that new, supposedly safer products would be approved only if they were scientifically proven to reduce health risks to society as a whole. Rather than helping smokers quit, Mr. Waxman said, smokeless products might introduce tobacco to youth, promote nicotine addiction and discourage people from really quitting.

A memo to Democrats Thursday from the House majority leader, Steny Hoyer of Maryland, said the Buyer amendment “would gut the F.D.A. tobacco bill, strip F.D.A. of regulatory authority over tobacco, allow tobacco companies to target children, and exempt smokeless tobacco from regulation.”

Jared Polis, Democrat of Colorado, said during the House debate: “Tobacco use is the single largest cause of preventable death in our country. Yet it continues to receive less regulation than a head of lettuce.”

Mr. Polis was one of several members who shared personal stories. His partner’s mother died of cancer two years ago. “It was very painful,” he said, “and of course, her wish in her dying breath was that she never started smoking.”

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