[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 59 (Tuesday, May 12, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S4715]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. CHAFEE:
  S. 2066. A bill to reduce exposure to environmental tobacco smoke; to 
the Committee on Environment and Public Works.


                ENVIRONMENTAL TOBACCO SMOKE LEGISLATION

  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation 
regarding one small aspect of the national tobacco debate. This bill 
addresses the problem of second-hand smoke, also known as Environmental 
Tobacco Smoke, or ETS for short. It is my hope that the ideas contained 
in this bill can be incorporated into any tobacco legislation acted on 
by the Senate.
  The Committee on Environment and Public Works recently held a hearing 
on ETS at which we learned that the principal victims of second-hand 
smoke are children who live with smokers. Tobacco smoke has devastating 
consequences for children under 18 months of age. Annually, up to 
15,000 infants are hospitalized for lung infections caused by ETS such 
as bronchitis and pneumonia. These severe lung infections claim the 
lives of hundreds of children each year.
  Second-hand smoke is also responsible for less severe lung infections 
in 300,000 infants, 26,000 new cases of asthma among children, millions 
of middle ear infections, and roughly half the cases of Sudden Infant 
Death Syndrome (SIDS). These preventable illnesses, but 40 percent of 
children in one multi-State study were found to be routinely exposed to 
tobacco smoke.
  The bill I am introducing today would assign some of the funds 
collected under any national tobacco settlement approved by Congress to 
a state grant program to educate parents about the dangers of smoking 
in the home. The statistics I just recited are not widely known by 
parents. Once aware of the profound risk ETS poses for their child, 
most parents will go to great lengths to protect their child, and I 
believe that even includes parents who smoke.
  With the grant funds from this bill, States could provide information 
about ETS to pediatricians and other child care professionals for 
distribution to parents. States also could develop advertising aimed at 
parents. We only need to arm parents with information. They will do the 
rest.
  This bill has a few other provisions. It affirmatively states that 
there is no federal preemption of State or local efforts to address 
ETS. It would ban smoking on international flights that originate or 
terminate in the United States. It also would extend and codify the 
President's Executive Order banning smoking in federal buildings. My 
good friend, Senator Warner, in his capacity as Chairman of the Senate 
Rules Committee, is working to ban smoking from the public areas of the 
Senate. I applaud this effort and encourage my colleagues to support 
it. My legislation would complement his efforts in other federal 
buildings.
  This bill does not address the question of smoking in private 
workplaces. Up to 3,000 adults die each year from lung cancer caused by 
ETS. Because of this statistic, some have argued that the federal 
government should ban smoking in nearly every building in the nation. 
Most legislative proposals on this issue would subject every dress shop 
and church hall in the nation to federal smoking regulations.
  Ironically, most of those bills exempt bars and restaurants and other 
places where smoking can be common. That means they ignore the few 
places where employees faced a substantial threat from ETS while 
regulating every other workplace. I believe that there is a more 
efficient way to address workplaces with dangerous levels of ETS.
  We should allow State and local governments to take the lead on this 
matter, but we also should help them to solve the problem. Some towns 
and States have taken action already. We can encourage more of them to 
do so by expanding the grant program described in my bill to reward 
States that reduce dangerous levels of ETS in the workplace. Incentive 
grants would allow States to tailor their solutions to address local 
concerns. Some States could seek a gradual ban while others may 
establish protective ventilation standards.
  Any rule that requires changing a habit as deeply ingrained as 
smoking will be met with resistance. In contrast to a federal one-size-
fits-all approach, State and local efforts can be tailored more easily 
to local concerns, and will, therefore, be more effective.
  I did not address smoking in the workplace in my bill because I hope 
to work with other interested members to develop language that will be 
supportable on both sides of the aisle. Such a provision must both 
avoid rigid federal mandates and provide real incentives for States to 
address those workplaces with dangerous levels of ETS. I will continue 
to work with interested parties in an effort to devise such a 
provision. In the meantime, I wanted to offer the balance of my 
proposal for the Senate's consideration.
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