[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 27 (Friday, March 11, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: March 11, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
FIRESAFE CIGARETTES?
(Mr. MOAKLEY asked and was given permission to address the House for
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks and include extraneous
material.)
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call your attention to the
Justice Department's investigation into the possibility of an agreement
amongst cigarette manufacturers to suppress product research and
development on firesafe cigarettes. I commend the Justice Department
for investigating whether the cigarette companies have had a
gentlemen's agreement not to put these cigarettes into the marketplace.
For 15 years I have been pushing for legislation calling for
cigarettes that are less likely to cause fires. My previous bills have
laid the groundwork for H.R. 3885, which requires the Consumer Product
Safety Commission to promulgate fire safety standards in 1 year and
requires cigarette manufacturers to comply within another year. We can
not afford further delays.
Since I started working on this issue more than 20,000 people have
been killed by cigarette-related fires and thousands more have been
seriously injured. Many of the victims are innocent children. How does
a mother tell a young boy he has to go through life seriously
disfigured because the guy in the apartment next door fell asleep with
a burning cigarette in his hand.
Fires caused by carelessly discarded cigarettes can be prevented. The
cigarette manufacturers are able to produce such cigarettes. In fact,
there are five of these cigarettes already in the marketplace. More
White Lights 120's. More 120's, Virginia Slims Superslims 100s, Capri
Lights 100s, and Eve Lights 120s, are proven to reduce fires. Each
company has a firesafe cigarette and they have a moral and legal
obligation to make all cigarettes firesafe.
We cannot afford further delays in calling for all cigarettes to be
firesafe. For every year that passes more than 1,200 people die and
thousands more are maimed or permanently disfigured. My legislation
will require that the cigarette manufacturers sell firesafe cigarettes.
Please join me in protecting our Nation's children from these insidious
fires.
I submit the Washington Post article for the Record:
Fire-Safe Cigarettes?
(By Michael J. Sniffen)
The Justice Department is investigating whether tobacco
companies illegally agreed not to produce or sell cigarettes
that are less likely to start fires.
Justice Department spokeswoman Gina Talamona said this week
that, ``the antitrust division is conducting an investigation
into the possibility of agreement among cigarette companies
to suppress product research and development regarding fire-
safe cigarettes.''
Vic Han, a spokesman for Philip Morris Cos., said there has
been ``absolutely no suppression'' of such products.
Talamona said the department has issued civil investigative
demands, which are the equivalent of subpoenas in the
division's civil antitrust investigations. But she would not
say what companies had received them or discuss details of
the investigation.
Andrew McGuire of the Trauma Foundation is San Francisco,
which lobbies for fire-safe cigarettes, said the
investigation appears to have begun about four months ago.
McGuire said fire-safe cigarettes are feasible but that
tobacco companies have resisted marketing them because ``they
don't want the fallout of product liability lawsuits over
burn deaths and burn injuries caused by their current
cigarettes.''
Peggy Carter of Reynolds Tobacco in Winston-Salem, N.C.,
said the company acknowledged existence of the Justice
Department investigation in a footnote to a recent stock
filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. She said
SEC rules prevented her from commenting further.
In New York, Han said, ``I can confirm that Philip Morris
USA has received a civil investigative demand from the
antitrust division . . . in an investigation of possible
joint activity among United States manufacturers in the
production and sale of cigarettes including possible joint
activities to limit new product development, specifically in
the area of reduced ignition propensity cigarettes.''
There were 1,220 deaths, 3,358 injuries and $400 million in
property damage from 44,000 cigarette-ignited fires in 1990,
the most recent year with complete data, according to the
Center for Fire Research of the government's National
Institute of Standards and Technology.
A campaign to persuade the tobacco companies to produce
fire-safe cigarettes was begun in 1978 by McGuire's Trauma
Foundation, which seeks to prevent injuries and injury-
related deaths. The trauma organization, which is supported
by foundation grants and funds from the federal Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, is located in San Francisco
General Hospital.
``There's no doubt the industry has known for a long time
how to make fire-safe cigarettes and hasn't done it,'' said
Northeastern University law professor Richard Daynard of the
Tobacco Projects Liability Project, ``because if a really
safe cigarette is available that would open the companies to
lawsuits over the ones that aren't safe.''
Asked to comment on the government's investigation and the
longstanding charges of suppression, Walker Merryman of the
Tobacco Institute, an industry group, said, ``Anything having
to do with litigation is something we never comment on.''
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