[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 49 (Tuesday, April 28, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H2390-H2393]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TOBACCO REPORT ON TEENS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to address a number of issues 
tonight: first, a very important domestic issue, and that is the 
tobacco settlement and some recent information that has come out which 
supports, in my opinion, the need or the suggestion that many of us 
have made, that we need to move forward quickly and pass a tobacco bill 
that is very stringent in its effort to try to get after the problem of 
teen smoking in this country. That basically increases the Federal tax 
on cigarettes so that the money can be used for these tobacco 
prevention programs, particularly among young people.
  Then I would like to move on from there and talk about a couple 
foreign

[[Page H2391]]

policy issues. But I would like to begin with a report that just came 
out again on the issue of tobacco and teen smoking.
  Yesterday, the Surgeon General, David Satcher, released a report. It 
was prepared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is 
called Tobacco Use Among U.S. Racial/Ethnic Minority Groups. The report 
is the 24th in a series of tobacco reports that began 34 years ago. It 
has some very disturbing information in it.
  This report's release also, I might add, Mr. Speaker, could not be 
made more timely in light of what is going on in this House of 
Representatives on the issue of tobacco settlement.
  It is very unfortunate, and I have already said on the floor and I 
will say again, that Speaker Gingrich and the House Republican 
leadership has opposed tough tobacco legislation. Because of their 
opposition and because they are in the majority and control what 
happens on the floor of this House of Representatives, tobacco 
legislation and the tobacco settlement's future is essentially in 
doubt.
  It is not clear at all that we will be able to pass a tobacco bill 
this year. I want everyone to know, and I think everyone does already, 
that myself and other Democrats and the Democratic leadership and the 
Democratic caucus in general are very much in favor of a tobacco bill 
passing. Because if it does not pass this year, we are going to lose 
the opportunity to deal with the problem of teen smoking in the United 
States.
  Getting back to the report that was released yesterday by the Surgeon 
General, it makes a compelling case, I believe, for passing a tough 
tobacco bill.
  In a letter to Members of Congress that accompanied the report, the 
Surgeon General explained, and I quote, smoking is the leading cause of 
preventable death in the United States. Certain racial/ethnic minority 
populations remain at high risk for using tobacco and often bear a 
disproportionate share of the human and economic cost of tobacco use.
  Although some recent declines in lung cancer trends are encouraging, 
we have reason for great concern about reported increases and rates of 
smoking among African American and Hispanic high school students.
  That is in the letter that accompanied the report from the Surgeon 
General.
  The Surgeon General then continues that the report sounds an urgent 
alarm. If minority tobacco use continues to increase, we can expect 
severe health consequences to begin to be felt in the early part of the 
next century. We must use every tool at our disposal to reduce tobacco 
use amongst racial and ethnic minorities, especially amongst 
adolescents, and to reverse these frightening trends.
  I have to say, Mr. Speaker, if you look at this report, and I 
actually brought a copy of the report with me this evening, it is a 
rather thick report, it is a rather thick document, and there is an 
executive summary, but it does give us some very alarming information.
  It says that teen smoking rates grew among all ethnic groups in the 
1990s. So even though this is about ethnic minorities, the teen smoking 
rate grew amongst all ethnic groups in this decade. The smoking rate 
amongst African American teenagers grew a staggering 80 percent between 
1991 and 1997.

                              {time}  1930

  Approximately 20 percent of African American high school students 
smoke today, and that is one out of every five African American teens. 
The Surgeon General estimates that if this trend continues, 1.6 million 
African American children will become regular smokers and 500,000 of 
them will die as a result of that smoking habit.
  I think it is important to note that the increase in the 1990s 
amongst black children reverses the trend set in the '80s and '70s when 
smoking rates actually declined.
  Among Hispanic teens, the smoking rate rose by 34 percent over this 
same period. Approximately 33 percent, or one out of every three 
Hispanic teenagers smokes cigarettes.
  Amongst Asian American teens, the smoking rate rose 17 percent 
between 1990 and 1995; and the overall rate of teens who smoke in the 
Asian American community is estimated to be about 20 percent.
  The report also provides information with regard to Native American 
teens, the fourth ethnic group examined by the report; and the teen 
smoking rate rose by 26 percent amongst that group between 1990 and 
1995. Approximately 50 percent or one of every two Native American 
teens smokes.
  It is also estimated that about 40 percent of white high school 
students use cigarettes.
  Now, the unfortunate thing about all this is, and we have pointed 
this out, myself and other Democrats who have been concerned about this 
issue, is that the tobacco companies clearly see the need to increase 
smoking amongst teenagers because they are the smokers of the future. 
If the teen smoking rates decline, then in another 10, 20, or 30 years 
the amount of tobacco use in the country would significantly decline. 
So that is the particular reason why the industry targets teenagers. It 
is also the reason why we must stop them from continuing to do that 
targeting amongst young people.
  As numbers like these continue to roll out, in concert with the 
documents from the tobacco industry that detail their efforts to target 
children, I think Republican leaders in both the House and the Senate 
should not ignore reality and block progress and basically join with 
the Democrats and particularly with President Clinton in trying to move 
tobacco legislation in the few months that we have left in this 
Congress.
  Now, of course, we know that the opposite is, in fact, happening. 
Just last week, Speaker Newt Gingrich felt compelled to defend Joe 
Camel, among all things. He went out of his way to make it known in his 
opinion that Joe Camel is not the reason why teenagers smoke 
cigarettes.
  Now, we have document after document and report after report being 
released, many of those reports coming out of my own committee, the 
Committee on Commerce, and they show the havoc that tobacco has wreaked 
on our children in the past and the devastation it is causing today, 
and they clearly show that Joe Camel is part of this effort, that Joe 
Camel was an effort to essentially target young people. And here we 
have the Speaker of our House of Representatives defending Joe Camel.
  This, I should add, comes shortly after the Speaker picked up the 
mantle of the tobacco industry itself and blasted the bill authored by 
his fellow Republican, Senator John McCain of Arizona.
  I have said before that I admire Senator McCain for pushing a 
relatively tough piece of tobacco legislation. It does not go as far as 
I would have it go. I think it does not go far enough on the issue of 
liability for the tobacco companies and some of the issues that 
Democrats care about. But he is making a bipartisan effort to pass a 
tobacco bill that deals with the problem of teen smoking; and he should 
be commended for it, not condemned for it.
  Speaker Gingrich said that, in talking about Senator McCain, he said 
that those people who say that is not a Republican bill, he is talking 
about Senator McCain's bill, they are right. So I guess, from what the 
Speaker seems to be suggesting, any bill that does not win the tobacco 
industry's stamp of approval cannot be called the Republican bill. The 
reality is, it is sponsored by a Republican, and it was passed on a 
bipartisan basis, and I commend the Republicans who have been joining 
with the Democrats to try to move this legislation.
  This weekend, still more of Senator McCain's colleagues took to the 
airwaves to bash his bill. Again another Republican, Senator Orrin 
Hatch, appeared on Meet the Press this Sunday to make it known he, too, 
does not approve of the McCain bill.
  And at the same time that members of his own party continue to 
publicly squabble about tobacco legislation, the Republican majority 
leader, Senator Lott, ironically enough, continues to criticize the 
President for showing no leadership on the tobacco issue.
  I would suggest that Senator Lott needs to check his facts. The 
President and congressional Democrats are on the same page. We are all 
in agreement that the tobacco companies should not be left off the 
hook.
  In fact, President Clinton, when this report that I am making 
reference to today from the Surgeon General, it was

[[Page H2392]]

actually released at a press event with the President, where he stood 
with I think 30 teenagers from the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, and 
he noted the fact that the tobacco industry, in order to survive, has 
to attract these young people and how wrong it is for them to attract 
young people. And he has been pushing have very hard for tobacco 
legislation almost on a daily basis.
  To suggest that somehow the President is not supportive of efforts to 
move a tobacco bill is simply not true.
  What I think is going on here is that the Republican leadership is in 
the process of what I call a work slowdown. There are only about 40 
legislative days left in the year in which the Republicans basically 
have clearly projected their intention to do nothing, and the tobacco 
bill could very easily be a victim of that. If we do not move something 
quickly to the Senate floor, out of committee in the House of 
Representatives, there will not be an opportunity this year to pass a 
strong anti-tobacco legislation.
  With 3,000 kids a day getting hooked on cigarettes, Mr. Speaker, I 
think it is an awfully high price to pay. We need to move on tobacco 
legislation.
  I know that myself and other Democrats are going to continue to press 
this until the Republican leadership agrees to move anti-tobacco 
legislation to address the tobacco settlement and to try to make it 
possible for us to address the growing problem now of teenage smoking.


             No Excuse for Delay in Aid to Nagorno Karabagh

  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to now move to a couple of 
foreign policy issues that I consider very important.
  I often talk about Armenia and India because of my position as a 
cochairman, the Democratic chairman, of the India caucus and also the 
Armenia caucus; and there are two issues, one with regard to each 
country, that I would like to address.

  With regard to Armenia and the separate Republic of Nagorno Karabagh, 
which is next to Armenia, I would like to address the need to expedite 
humanitarian assistance that has already been appropriated to Nagorno 
Karabagh.
  Just by way of background, the Republic of Nagorno Karabagh is a 
region which has been populated by Armenians since ancient times and 
which is still an Armenian region known as Artsakh to the Armenian 
people, but which is claimed by the Republic of Azerbaijan as part of 
that country's territory.
  As I have mentioned in this House on several occasions, the people of 
Karabagh fought, and won, a war of independence against Azerbaijan. A 
cease-fire has been in place since 1994, but it has been shaky at best.
  The U.S. has been involved in the negotiations intended to pursue a 
just and lasting peace in this region but, unfortunately, the United 
States' position has sided with Azerbaijan's claim of so-called 
territorial integrity, despite the fact that this land has been 
Armenian land for centuries and the borders which gave the land to 
Azerbaijan were imposed by the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
  Despite the ongoing pressures on Nagorno Karabagh, the people of that 
mountainous land have built a viable, democratic society. In February, 
they celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Karabagh movement, the 
galvanizing moment in the long history of the Armenian people.
  But it has not been easy. The people of Karabagh are victims of a 
cruel and illegal blockade maintained by Azerbaijan. Karabagh's only 
connection to the outside world is via the Republic of Armenia, which 
is also the victim of blockades imposed by Azerbaijan and Turkey; and 
front-line Karabagh defense forces are constantly under attack from 
Azeri snipers violating the cease-fire, as I witnessed firsthand during 
my visit to the region just in January of this year.
  The humanitarian and infrastructure needs of this area are severe, 
and I also witnessed that firsthand.
  Now, last year, this Congress played an extremely positive and 
constructive role in helping the people of Karabagh. I want to praise 
the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related 
Programs of the Committee on Appropriations for providing for the first 
time direct aid to Karabagh in the amount of $12.5 million for 
humanitarian assistance.
  Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, none of that aid has yet been provided to 
Karabagh, and that is why I am addressing the House tonight on this 
issue. I am very concerned that some elements in the administration 
have misinterpreted the clear intent of Congress that the aid is 
destined for the people of Karabagh and, instead, are suggesting some 
of the funds should be diverted to Azerbaijan.
  I will be circulating a letter to Brian Atwood, the Administrator of 
USAID, the Agency for International Development, urging that the funds 
be provided immediately; and I am also demanding the entire $12.5 
million be provided to Karabagh as it was intended by Congress. I hope 
my colleagues will join me in this appeal as we go around and try to 
get co-signatures for this letter over the next few days.
  It is true that USAID did send a need assessment team to Nagorno 
Karabagh earlier this year pursuant to the language in the Foreign Ops 
bill. While the team has reported its findings to Congress, we are 
still waiting for the aid to be provided.
  Give us the aid. It needs to be provided. These people are hurting, 
and they need the help.
  USAID officials have suggested that humanitarian aid will be 
committed in the near future; but, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to emphasize 
this aid was appropriated by Congress last fall. So we are talking 6 
months for humanitarian assistance that is desperately needed, and 
there is no excuse for this delay.
  While working to get the aid that has already been appropriated to 
its intended recipients in Karabagh, I am also urging the Subcommittee 
on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs this year 
to build upon its historic achievement in the fiscal year 1998 bill to 
earmark assistance to Nagorno Karabagh at $20 million, an increase, and 
make it even more clear that aid is intended for disbursement within 
Nagorno Karabagh.
  I also hope the subcommittee will consider broadening the scope of 
assistance to Karabagh to include the rebuilding and reconstruction of 
infrastructure damaged during the war. I know there are some true 
friends of Armenia on that subcommittee, and I am hopeful of support 
for these much-needed funds.
  Mr. Speaker, let me say that, having twice visited this mountainous 
republic, I can attest that it is indeed a functioning society, a fact 
also attested to by members of the USAID team that visited Karabagh to 
conduct a needs assessment pursuant to this year's fiscal year 1998 
bill.
  Unfortunately, the State Department has apparently interpreted the 
provision of aid to the ``victims of the Karabagh conflict'', and they 
have interpreted this language of ``victims of the Karabagh conflict'', 
contrary to the intent of the House Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, 
Export Financing and Related Programs, as referring also to expanding 
existing funds for Azerbaijan's needy.
  While I am concerned about the needy people of Azerbaijan, two things 
are important to point out: First, U.S. assistance is already being 
provided to Azerbaijan's needy through nongovernmental organizations, 
with tens of millions of American funds having been provided over the 
past few years. And, second, and I regret to say, the government of 
Azerbaijan has done very little to help the needy population in its 
rural areas, despite the huge revenues being generated for Baku for 
development of the Caspian Sea oil reserves. This is a fact that even 
our own State Department acknowledges.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to again stress the importance of 
maintaining the current ban on government aids to Azerbaijan until that 
country lifts its blockade of Armenia and Karabagh. This ban was 
enacted as part of the Freedom Support Act of 1992, and it is a good 
law.
  Now, Congress, unfortunately, is re-examining the issue of the 
prohibition on aid to Azerbaijan as part of an effort to enhance U.S. 
engagement in the region. While I am all for greater U.S. engagement in 
the Caucasus, we must not tinker with this provision. That is Section 
907 of the Freedom Support Act.
  Unfortunately, some in Congress, the administration and the oil 
industry are

[[Page H2393]]

looking to curry favor with Azerbaijan by lifting or at least easing 
the ban on aid to Azerbaijan. And for the ban on aid to be lifted, 
Azerbaijan need only lift the blockades of Armenia and Karabagh. Until 
then, there should not be any consideration of asking the United States 
taxpayers to support the dictatorship in Baku.
  Again, Mr. Speaker, I feel very strongly about this matter, and I 
think we need to seriously address the fact that this aid has not been 
coming to Nagorno Karabagh and that, hopefully, if we continue to tell 
the State Department that they are not doing their job in providing the 
assistance, they will do so forthwith.


             Positive Developments in U.S.-India Relations

  Mr. PALLONE. Lastly, this evening, Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity 
today to visit in New York with the President of India. Some of my 
other colleagues were there, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Ackerman) 
and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Manton). Each of us had the 
opportunity to talk for some time with the President, and I wanted to 
comment on his historic visit to New York.
  He was there to receive an award, I believe at a reception this 
evening; and he also spent some time at the United Nations. But he, in 
my conversations with the President, was very optimistic about what has 
been happening in terms of India and U.S. relations. And those of us 
who are members of the India caucus, again which I mentioned that I co-
chair, are very pleased because we see more and more positive 
developments in terms of U.S.-India relations.

                              {time}  1945

  Just to mention a few things, just a few weeks ago, one of our former 
colleagues who is now the U.N. Ambassador, Bill Richardson, visited 
India along with Rick Inderfurth, who is the Assistant Secretary of 
State for South Asia, and also some other U.S. officials as part of the 
first delegation that the President sent to India since the new 
government was formed just about a month ago. And that trip I commented 
on last week was a very good trip because it really enhanced good 
feeling, if you will, between other two countries.
  But one of the things that the President of India said today that was 
very good about the trip or that he appreciated about this trip by Bill 
Richardson was the fact that the U.S. representatives, including 
Ambassador Richardson, viewed India independently from the other South 
Asian countries. In other words, in the past, India has felt that U.S. 
foreign policy looks at India vis-a-vis Pakistan or vis-a-vis 
Bangladesh or some of its other South Asian neighbors and does not see 
it as its own country with its own place, if you will, an important 
place in world affairs. And that clearly has changed.
  When Ambassador Bill Richardson went to India, he made it quite clear 
that India is a priority of U.S. foreign policy, and it is a priority 
viewed independently, if you will, because of India's own status in 
world affairs.
  Now, that is not to say that Ambassador Richardson and the others 
during this visit did not want to increase the dialogue between India 
and its neighbors in South Asia. Quite the contrary. They stressed 
during the trip, and the media reported the fact, that they stressed 
the need for India and Pakistan to resume their dialogue and try to 
improve their relations. And in fact, today when I spoke to the 
President of India, he was very optimistic that that indeed would 
happen, that sometime in the next few weeks or the next few months that 
the two Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan would meet at the Prime 
Minister level possibly, at the trade meeting of the SAARC group in 
July, or maybe even sooner than that, and that this dialogue between 
the two countries to try to reduce tension and bring not only Pakistan 
and India but all the countries of South Asia together again 
economically, politically and maybe even eventually militarily, that 
this dialogue would continue. So that was a very optimistic aspect of 
my conversation today with the President that I wanted to mention to my 
colleagues this evening.
  The other thing that the President of India stressed at the meeting 
today was the need for U.S. support for India to become a permanent 
member of the U.N. Security Council. Obviously, a big part of his trip 
today to New York related to the United Nations, and the United Nations 
is a focal point of India's efforts these days to become a permanent 
member of the Security Council.
  Myself and a number of other members of our India caucus have, in 
fact, sponsored a House resolution where we express the sense of this 
Congress that India should be a permanent member of the Security 
Council, and we are hoping that eventually we can get that resolution 
passed, but we are also hopeful that the State Department will 
eventually come around to that point of view.
  Again, the President of India was appreciative of the fact that the 
United States is pushing for an expanded Security Council, but he would 
like to see the U.S. directly support India's bid for a seat, as would 
I.
  The last thing I wanted to mention in this regard is that when I 
spoke to India's President today, he was also very much of the vein, 
and I certainly agree, and I think it has been shown in the last 2 
weeks as well, that the trade and business and investment relationship 
between our two countries, between India and the United States, is also 
going to move progressively forward.
  There was some concern, I think, on the part of American 
businesspeople that with the new government, the BJP government as we 
call it, that they might not be as willing to move forward to encourage 
U.S. investment and more trade or might put up some barriers to U.S. 
articles, certain U.S. materials or articles coming into India. But 
that has sort of been put to rest in the last 2 weeks.
  India's Finance Minister was in Washington just a short time ago, and 
he made it quite clear that the new government wants to move forward in 
terms of U.S. investment, particularly in infrastructure, that the 
market reforms would continue, that privatization would continue. And I 
mentioned to the President of India today that this was very important 
to the United States, and he was of the opinion that we had nowhere to 
go but forward in terms of increasing our trade and business 
relationships.
  So once again, I just wanted to say in conclusion this evening that 
what has been happening since the new government was elected in India 
in March has been very positive in terms of U.S. relations. I believe 
very strongly that the United States needs to think of India as a 
priority of its foreign policy and that we need to expand business and 
trade opportunities with India and basically have our countries work 
together in almost every area, whether it is political, diplomatic, 
economic, or even military. And I think we are clearly moving in that 
direction in terms of the developments that have taken place in the 
last month between our two countries.

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