[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 45 (Wednesday, April 22, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H2125]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                CHILDREN NEED TOBACCO OUT OF THEIR LIVES

  (Mr. MILLER of California asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, our national effort to hold 
the tobacco companies responsible for their criminal behavior of the 
past, of intentional efforts to hook our children on tobacco and 
nicotine, was dealt a major setback when the Speaker of the House has 
indicated that it may be difficult for the House to pass tobacco 
legislation. It will only be difficult if the Speaker of the House does 
not schedule the bill.
  It is the Speaker of the House, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Newt 
Gingrich), who has the power to schedule the bill or not to schedule 
the bill, and then the House can address the outrageous behavior of the 
tobacco companies toward America's children.
  The Speaker spent the last 2 weeks traveling in America talking about 
lessons learned the hard way. Maybe the lesson learned the hard way is 
if they take their money, a million dollars of tobacco money, the 
Republicans cannot find it in their hearts to get America's children 
off of tobacco. If Members take a million dollars of tobacco companies' 
money, they try in the middle of the night, as the Speaker did last 
year, to put a $50 billion tax break for the tobacco companies in the 
Tax Code.
  Mr. Speaker, the lesson learned the hard way is that children need 
tobacco out of their lives.

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