[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 72 (Friday, June 5, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5670-S5681]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        NATIONAL TOBACCO POLICY AND YOUTH SMOKING REDUCTION ACT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will now resume consideration of S. 
1415.
  The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 1415) to reform and restructure the processes by 
     which tobacco products are manufactured, marketed, and 
     distributed, to prevent the use of tobacco products by 
     minors, to redress the adverse health effects of tobacco use, 
     and for other purposes.

  The Senate resumed consideration of the bill.
  Pending:

       Gregg/Leahy amendment No. 2433 (to Amendment No. 2420), to 
     modify the provisions relating to civil liability for tobacco 
     manufacturers.
       Gregg/Leahy amendment No. 2434 (to Amendment No. 2433), in 
     the nature of a substitute.
       Gramm motion to recommit the bill to the Committee on 
     Finance with instructions to report back forthwith, with 
     amendment No. 2436, to modify the provisions relating to 
     civil liability for tobacco manufacturers, and to eliminate 
     the marriage penalty reflected in the standard deduction and 
     to ensure the earned income credit takes into account the 
     elimination of such penalty.
       Daschle (for Durbin) amendment No. 2437 (to amendment No. 
     2436), relating to reductions in underage tobacco usage.
       Lott (for Coverdell) modified amendment No. 2451 (to 
     amendment No. 2437), to stop illegal drugs from entering the 
     United States, to provide additional resources to combat 
     illegal drugs, and to establish disincentives for teenagers 
     to use illegal drugs.


                           Amendment No. 2451

  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, we are returning to the tobacco 
legislation, by previous order, and specifically to the amendment that 
I introduced last evening along with Senator Craig of Idaho and Senator 
Abraham of Michigan, which is now commonly called the drug amendment.
  To put this in context, Mr. President, the point that we are making 
is that you cannot talk about teen addiction and be silent on the No. 1 
teen addiction problem, which is drug abuse. So the purpose of this 
amendment is to make certain that any legislation being considered by 
this Chamber about teen addiction and teen problems must also include a 
title to deal with the raging epidemic in our country--teenage drug 
abuse.
  Mr. President, in the last 6\1/2\ years, teenage drug abuse has 
increased by 135 percent. Well, what does that mean? Does that mean 
that 10 more youngsters are using drugs than were 6 years ago? No. It 
means that almost 2 million teenagers are using drugs today that were 
not 6\1/2\ years ago.
  This is a massive problem and it is a consequence, unfortunately, of 
altered Federal policy. We decided early in this administration that 
the battle against drug abuse would be altered, changed, downsized. The 
drug office was virtually closed, interdiction facilities were 
drastically reduced, the Coast Guard was diminished in the Caribbean, 
and we quit talking about the problem. Simultaneously, we entered into 
new trade agreements with Mexico, which enormously increased the amount 
of travel between the two countries, upwards to 4 million vehicles now. 
So that interdiction apparatus was down and the transportation across 
the border was up, and we quit talking about the problem. Well, 
consequently, massive amounts of new drugs came into the country, and 
because they were coming in such quantities, the price fell. So we had 
a product that was everywhere, inexpensive, and very, very dangerous.
  You can go into any school in the Nation and ask students and they 
can tell you the name of all these designer drugs; they can tell you 
exactly where to buy them, and in most cases, it doesn't take over 30 
minutes. As I have said, the price plummeted 50, 60, 70 percent. 
Dropped interdiction, increased border crossings, flooded the market 
with drugs, the price falls, and the targets are kids, age 8 to 14 
years of age. What happened? It doubled and almost tripled drug abuse 
among teenagers.
  Today, in high schools across the country, one in four are using 
drugs regularly. In junior high, it is 1 in 10. We now have almost 2 
million more kids caught up in this lethal snare, drug abuse. To be 
specific about the numbers, in 1979 at the peak of the last epidemic, 
14.1 percent of the entire teenage population ages 12 to 17 was using 
drugs regularly. The Nation said we can't tolerate this. And from the 
President to the sheriff, the whole Nation began to fight this 
epidemic. And what happened?
  By 1992, we had reduced drug use among this population by two-thirds. 
Instead of 3.3 million teenagers using drugs, we drove it down to 1 
million. This is very important because it demonstrates that we can 
correct this problem. There are some in our society, and very powerful 
people, who would like Americans to believe you can't do anything about 
this. That is an utter absurdity. We have proven, and very recently, 
that you can attack this problem and make a difference. But in 1992, as 
I said a moment ago, we quit talking about the problem. And so today, 2 
million-plus are back using drugs regularly. It is a very, very 
disturbing situation. It just sort of snuck up on us.
  A lot of our parents are not talking to their children about this 
problem, which is very unfortunate, because we know that if parents are 
talking to their children about this issue, the odds of the children 
using drugs are cut in half. It is cut in half. But if you went into a 
classroom, and there are 100 students out there, and say, ``How many of 
you talk to your parents about this problem?'' you would be lucky if 10

[[Page S5671]]

held up their hands. There is just not that interplay, which explains a 
little bit here this recent survey. It is most interesting. Forty-three 
percent of parents believe their teens could find marijuana easily. 
Sixty percent of the teenagers said it is easy to find. Thirty-three 
percent of the parents thought their children viewed marijuana as 
harmful. But only 18 percent of the kids thought it was harmful. It is 
just a complete disconnect going on here. Forty-five percent of parents 
felt teens had a friend who smoked marijuana. But if you ask the kids, 
71 percent know somebody smoking marijuana. It is just a total 
disconnect.
  So one of the purposes and reasons of this amendment is to assert 
Federal policy, bold Federal policy that attacks this drug epidemic at 
every level--at the border, in our communities, in our law enforcement 
agencies--everybody. It substantially increases funding for 
interdiction and for education, and it attacks it at every level. If 
this is put into play, within 24 months there will not be a poll that 
has 21 percent thinking their teenage children knew someone who 
experimented with marijuana while 44 percent of the teens said they 
actually had. This disconnect will be ended in America, and you will 
begin to drive the numbers of teenagers using drugs down. But not if we 
bring a major bill about teenage addiction to the Senate and before the 
American public and never mention drugs and just totally be silent on 
it as if that is not a problem.
  Teenage drug abuse is the No. 1 teenage problem. It is No. 1. Myself, 
my colleague from Idaho, and my colleague from Michigan felt this 
almost is damaging if it is so much focused on teenage smoking, which 
is a problem, but it is a fourth problem. The first one is teenage 
drugs. So you would almost be saying, ``Look, we are accomplishing 
something here,'' and looking completely away from the fact that we are 
in the midst today in this country of one of the most singular alarming 
epidemics we have ever faced: teenage drug abuse.
  I am going to yield, because I see the Senator from North Dakota is 
prepared to talk here in a minute on the bill.
  But one of the saddest things about this whole teenage drug abuse 
epidemic is that in the last epidemic, in the 1960s and 1970s, most of 
those teenagers were 16 to 20 in age. Now they are 8 to 14. The cartels 
have focused. We talked about tobacco focusing on teenagers. It is an 
unconscionable policy. But the narcotic cartels are totally focused on 
a young teenage market 8 to 14, as vulnerable a market as could be.
  We will pay an unbelievable price--and are--if we do not attack this 
problem forcefully with the Nation's will, and boldly; not deja vu, 
just another day. We have to turn this thing around.
  Mr. President, I am going to yield to my colleague from North Dakota.
  Mr. CONRAD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I am going to speak on a number of 
subjects this morning. I am going to talk about a Web site contest that 
I sponsored in North Dakota on this question of tobacco. I am going to 
talk about the marriage penalty debate that we have ongoing. Then I am 
going to file a cloture motion on behalf of the leader.
  First of all, I want to say to my colleague from Georgia that there 
are some of us who agree that dealing with drugs as part of this 
legislation makes some sense. We hope we are able to work together and 
see if we can't find a formula that works so it can be included here. 
We know there are others who do not think it is appropriate to include 
it here, and we respect their views. But some of us do believe it is 
appropriate to deal with the question of other drugs in this bill. 
Hopefully, we can find a way to be successful at the end of the day. 
There is no question that it is a serious problem, just as tobacco is a 
serious problem that imposes enormous health and financial costs on 
society. Illegal drug use is also creating enormous difficulties.
  When we are in Washington, my wife and I live eight blocks from the 
Capitol. From the steps of the Capitol, we can look right down the 
street that leads to the house we live in here in Washington. In 1991, 
my wife was abducted at gunpoint by a crack addict. I tell you, I will 
never forget the trauma it caused our family. It is an epidemic in many 
parts of our country. I am proud to say it is not an epidemic in North 
Dakota, but even there we have a problem.
  I think all of us who are serious about improving the lives of people 
we represent want to address this problem in this bill if we possibly 
can. So I thank the Senator from Georgia for the effort he has made.
  Mr. President, I sponsored a Web site contest for kids from my State 
on the question of tobacco use. I asked them to create electronic 
pages, or electronic posters, to help spread the word that tobacco use 
causes problems. We just had an outpouring of kids from around the 
State who entered the contest. One of the winners was Justin Grueneich 
of Ellendale, ND. His Web site said, ``Smoke Is No Joke.'' He is right. 
His Web site was packed with statistics and information.
  One of the things that impressed us was, we found there was more 
information there than we have heard on the Senate floor. He actually 
found facts that we haven't heard in the debate on the Senate floor.
  So Justin did a superb job.
  Another person who did excellent work was Anne Erickson, a senior at 
Cavalier High School. She was very creative. Her graphic design was 
great, and her messages were right on target. She wrote, ``To smoke or 
not to smoke, there is no question.'' She also posted that in addition 
to being unhealthy, smoking was also unattractive.
  As we know, the tobacco industry has tried to present smoking as cool 
and attractive and sophisticated. She wasn't buying it.
  So thank you, Anne, for seeing through those advertising gimmicks by 
the industry.
  Six fifth graders from Dakota School in Minot joined forces and 
created a Web site they called ``The Healthiest Web Site in North 
Dakota.''
  Congratulations to Cierra Bails, Christina Leyrer, Mikey Perron, Jr., 
Nicole Rogers, Jessica Sarty, and Nicki Taylor for their excellent 
work.
  These fifth graders designed a colorful and informative Web page that 
included links to North Dakota facts and laws on tobacco. They did 
really a great job in reminding kids that buying tobacco is illegal and 
it is unhealthy.
  Now, younger students also entered the contest and published 
electronic posters on the Internet. I brought some of them here to the 
floor to share with my colleagues today. These are from third graders 
at North Hill Elementary School in Minot, ND. These are very young 
children, some as young as 7 years old. This one was done by Annie 
Kirchofner. It has a very simple message. Fruit is healthy, yes to 
grapes and apples, no to cigarettes. That is Annie Kirchofner.
  Devin Blowers doesn't think that smoking is cool. He says, ``Smoking 
is bad for you. Be cool. Don't smoke.'' And then he has down here this 
alligator figure. I guess this is his alternative to Joe Camel, and he 
has sunglasses on the top of his head here and he says ``Yuk'' to 
tobacco.
  That is pretty good for 7- and 8-year-old kids. They certainly have 
the message.
  Courtney Sluke, another third grader, produced this poster: ``Do not 
smoke.'' She is saying to her friend, ``Hey, you should not smoke.'' 
Again, a third grade student from Minot, ND.
  The next was Nicole Belgarde. She had a very interesting message. She 
says, ``Don't always take the advice off T.V.'' That is a pretty good 
message. She realizes. Here is the television and it is sending the 
message that ``Smoking is cool.'' And a fellow youngster is picking up 
that message saying ``Smoking is cool'' and she is countering it 
saying, ``No, smoking is not cool.''
  Alex Deck gets right to the point. He says, ``Smoking is bad.'' He 
has the universal symbol here, the crossing out of the cigarette, and 
he has this little figure who is chanting ``Smoking is bad.''
  Bryan Moe, he also was able to get right to the heart of it. He says, 
``Don't smoke cause you might die.'' He put the victim right in his 
deathbed. He was on top of this. And he has X's for his eyes. Pretty 
tough message. If you smoke, you die. That poor victim is right on his 
deathbed.
  The first place winner--the first place winner is Amanda Roise. She

[[Page S5672]]

shows that price does matter. I really like very much what she did.
  Now, remember, these are 7- or 8-year-old children who designed 
these. And these are electronic posters. It is just amazing; these kids 
posted them on the Internet after we had a call statewide: Send us your 
ideas. And really we got a tremendous response from all around the 
State.
  Her theme is, ``Don't waste your money on cigarettes.'' And here they 
have a price of $2.95 and a customer saying, ``I don't have enough.'' 
And here is a sign ``Don't do drug.'' She ran out of room so she put 
the ``S'' down here. ``Don't do drugs.'' And it is a store, obviously, 
and one of my favorites is she has excellent coloring, wonderful 
coloring. These are Cheerios boxes, and I like to eat my Cheerios every 
morning, so I thought this was especially good. Amanda Roise, the first 
place winner in our contest for electronic posters.
  Congratulations to all of the winners and all of the contestants. We 
are going to be having fun with this when we go back home presenting 
the awards to not only these very young children but older ones as well 
who participated in this web site contest. Gee, we have had so much fun 
with this. I can tell you, we had a number of distinguished judges make 
the determinations, and my thanks to them as well.
  Mr. President, I wanted to direct my main remarks this morning to the 
question of the marriage penalty because that has become an important 
part of the debate here as to what alternative we ought to pursue in 
addressing the marriage penalty. I thought it might be helpful to 
discuss for a moment what the marriage penalty is, who is really being 
hurt by it, and what we could do to address it in some rational way.
  Let's put up the first chart that shows the question of who really is 
facing the marriage penalty. This is according to the Congressional 
Budget Office, and it shows that 51 percent of noncorporate filers in 
this country are singles. So, of course, they don't face the marriage 
penalty. Of all the noncorporate filers, 51 percent are single people. 
They don't have a problem with the marriage penalty. And 3.5 percent 
are joint returns that are unaffected by the so-called marriage 
penalty, so we don't need to focus on them.

  Then when you look at the rest, what you find is that 24.5 percent, 
in fact, face the marriage penalty; that is, they pay more taxes 
because they are married than if they were filing separately. 
Interestingly enough, 21 percent get a bonus by being married; that is, 
they pay less by being married than they would pay if they filed 
separately as single individuals.
  I want to indicate that the Democratic alternative to the Gramm 
amendment focuses its relief on those taxpayers who are actually being 
penalized. That seems to make sense. Unfortunately, Senator Gramm's 
offering deals not only with those who are actually being penalized but 
he also gives relief to those who are getting a bonus. I am not quite 
sure what logic there is to that, but that is, in fact, what the 
amendment of the Senator from Texas would do, and as a result there are 
insufficient resources to help those who are really hurt by the 
marriage penalty. What sense that makes escapes this Senator.
  What we have done is instead of diluting the relief that would go to 
couples paying a marriage penalty, we focus on those who are paying the 
marriage penalty. It seems to me that tax fairness would require that 
married couples with equal incomes ought to be taxed equally. That 
seems to be a basic kind of concept, one that makes common sense.
  The Democratic alternative recognizes, as did the Congress in 1981 
when it enacted the Kemp-Roth tax cuts, that to eliminate or reduce the 
marriage penalty, it is necessary to draw a distinction between one-
earner and two-earner couples. As in 1981, the most efficient way to 
provide relief to couples who are incurring a marriage penalty is to 
allow a percentage of the earned income of the spouse with the lower 
earnings to be, in effect, free from income tax. Because the 
alternative offered by the Democrats is targeted on low- and moderate-
income couples, we can make this two-earner deduction more generous 
than the one that was enacted in 1981. At that time, they provided the 
10-percent deduction. Our alternative, when fully phased in, will 
provide a 20-percent deduction from the lower earner's income. This 
represents a much more potent assault on the marriage penalty than 
either the 1981 provision or the proposal offered by the Senator from 
Texas.
  Let me direct my attention for a moment to the proposal of the 
Senator from Texas. His proposal is a one-size-fits-all approach that 
scatters the modest relief that it provides to all joint filers, 
whether they actually incur a marriage penalty or not. He gives it to 
those who have a bonus from being married instead of focusing on those 
who actually are penalized by being married. As a result, he gives much 
less help to those who actually are paying a penalty. Again, the logic 
of his approach I do not think holds up under scrutiny.
  In fairness, there is marriage penalty relief in the Gramm proposal, 
but there is also a considerable tax cut for people who are already 
getting a marriage bonus. I just do not think that makes sense. The 
Senator from Texas would spend about half of the revenue he is all too 
willing to take away from health research and public health efforts in 
order to spend the money on tax relief for people who already enjoy an 
advantage under the system and, in the process, shortchanges the 
couples who are actually being penalized.

  The next chart demonstrates the weakness of the Gramm approach in 
comparison to what we are offering. This looks at the alternative that 
we are proposing on the Democratic side to cut the marriage tax penalty 
more than the Gramm proposal does for most families. This would be in 
2002, when fully phased in. The first example is for a couple earning 
$35,000 a year, split, with one member of the couple getting $20,000 a 
year of income and the other, $15,000 a year of income. The Gramm 
amendment would provide a tax deduction of $1,650. Our proposal would 
provide a deduction of $3,000--far more generous, because it makes much 
more sense, in order to provide actual relief to those who are being 
penalized by the marriage penalty.
  The second alternative is a couple earning $50,000, evenly split 
between the two. Again, the Gramm amendment, the one-size-fits-all 
approach, gives a deduction of $1,650. That doesn't really make much 
sense because, again, he is conferring benefits not only on those who 
are being penalized by the marriage penalty but he is conferring 
benefits on those who are already getting a bonus, those who are being 
given favorable treatment. He treats them all alike. Those who are 
helped, those who are hurt--he treats them all alike. We say you ought 
to focus the resources you have on those who are hurt, so we say a 
$5,000 tax deduction for that couple who has $50,000 a year of income, 
evenly split between the two.
  By the way, this is precisely the situation in which the largest 
marriage penalties occur, yet Senator Gramm treats them the same way as 
the others. And, in addition, he is giving that same benefit to couples 
who are actually advantaged by being married because of their tax 
circumstances under the current Tax Code. Again, the Gramm approach 
just does not stand up under much scrutiny.
  I think if we analyze what has happened here, the fact is that we 
know who the taxpayers are who face a marriage penalty and we know that 
some penalties are harsher than others. Why should we opt for an 
approach that treats everybody the same, especially when it is 
substantially more expensive than a tailored approach that responds to 
the marriage penalty in a proportional way on a couple-by-couple basis?
  Senator Gramm calls our approach a figleaf. I think moderate-income 
families who are struggling on two incomes would welcome our figleaf 
when they compare it with the pine needle the Senator from Texas would 
provide. The fact is, ours is far more generous to those who are 
actually experiencing a marriage penalty. If we are going to call it 
marriage penalty relief, we ought to target it to those who are 
actually facing a marriage penalty.
  I think it is also important to say that when the Senator from Texas 
asserts that this bill which is moving through Congress is regressive 
and imposes a harsh penalty on those who are

[[Page S5673]]

at the lowest end of the income continuum in this country, that there 
is another side to the story that he is not telling. The fact is, 
smoking is a huge tax on low-income Americans. An average pack-a-day 
smoker will spend more than $25,000 on cigarettes over his lifetime. An 
average pack-a-day smoker will have an additional $20,000 in medical 
costs over his or her lifetime. And the average low-income American, 
both smokers and nonsmokers, will pay his or her share of the $4.7 
trillion in costs that smoking will impose on society over the next 25 
years. That is something that has been left out completely by the 
discussion of the Senator from Texas.
  He talks a lot about tax increases, but he does not mention the 
hidden tax that is being imposed on members of this society every year: 
$130 billion that this industry is imposing in costs on society--$60 
billion in health costs, $60 billion in lost productivity, and $10 
billion in other costs. The fact is, low-income workers' payroll taxes 
are paying for about $18 billion a year in Medicare costs; low-income 
workers' income taxes are paying for about $12 billion a year in 
Medicaid costs. Those are hidden taxes that low-income people are 
paying each and every year because of the costs being imposed by the 
tobacco industry in this society. The fact is, low-income workers are 
also paying higher health insurance costs and getting lower wages as a 
result of the costs to our health care system of smoking.
  Again, let me stress the bottom line: $4.7 trillion in costs being 
imposed on this society over the next 25 years. The biggest tax cut 
that we could give low-income Americans is to reduce that cost. The 
McCain bill will cut smoking by about a third. That would produce 
savings of about $1.6 trillion for this society from the $4.7 trillion 
price tag imposed on us by the tobacco industry. That is the smart way 
of helping low-income Americans. Obviously, when we couple that with 
the proposal of the Democrats to focus on the marriage penalty, not to 
be giving the same treatment to those whether they are hurt or helped 
by the current tax system, we have a potent combination.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office describing what causes 
the marriage penalty and what causes the marriage bonus, so people 
might see how it comes about, the situations in which people are 
adversely affected by the marriage penalty, and how others benefit by 
being married and actually pay less taxes than they would pay if they 
were filing as singles.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

TABLE 3.--FACTORS DETERMINING WHETHER COUPLES FACE MARRIAGE PENALTIES OR
                              BONUSES, 1996                             
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                               Conditions leading    Conditions leading 
  Tax parameter or feature     to marriage penalty    to marriage bonus 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Personal Exemptions ($2,550   None................  One spouse cannot   
 for all individuals,                                use full single    
 regardless of marital                               exemption but other
 status).                                            spouse would have  
                                                     positive taxable   
                                                     income if taxed as 
                                                     an individual.     
Standard Deduction ($4,000    Combined use of two   One spouse cannot   
 for singles, $6,700 for       single deductions     use full single    
 couples).                     exceeds value of      deduction but other
                               married deduction.    spouse would have  
                                                     positive taxable   
                                                     income if taxed as 
                                                     an individual.     
Tax Brackets (Lower brackets  Spouses have more     Spouses have unequal
 for singles are 60 percent    nearly equal          incomes; as        
 as wide as those for          incomes; as married   singles, income of 
 couples; top bracket starts   couple, more of       higher-earning     
 at same income for all).      combined income       spouse taxed at    
                               taxed at higher       higher rate.       
                               rate; high earners                       
                               have more income                         
                               subject to top tax                       
                               rate.                                    
Earned Income Tax Credit      Low-earning parent    Low-earning         
 (Parameters same regardless   married to spouse     childless person   
 of filing status).            whose income causes   married to parent  
                               loss of some or all   with no or very low
                               of earned income      earnings.          
                               tax credit.                              
Phaseout of Personal          Spouses have more     Spouses have unequal
 Exemptions (Starting income   nearly equal          incomes; as        
 for singles equals two-       incomes; as married   singles, more      
 thirds of that for couples).  couple, more of       income of higher-  
                               total income falls    earning spouse     
                               in phaseout range.    subject to         
                                                     phaseout.          
Limitation on Itemized        Spouses have more     None.               
 Deductions (Starting point    nearly equal                             
 same regardless of filing     incomes; as married                      
 status).                      couple, more of                          
                               total income falls                       
                               in limitation range.                     
Other Fixed Dollar            Either marriage does  Marriage increases  
 Limitations (For example,     not increase limit    limit and one      
 income limit for individual   or increase is less   spouse adds less to
 retirement accounts,          than spouse adds to   measure subject to 
 thresholds for taxation of    measure subject to    limit than the     
 Social Security).             limit.                increase in limit. 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Congressional Budget Office.                                    

                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, on behalf of the Democratic leader, I 
would like to close by sending this cloture motion to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith of Oregon). The cloture motion 
having been presented under rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to 
read the motion.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of Rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     hereby move to bring to a close the debate on the modified 
     committee substitute for S. 1415, the tobacco legislation.
         John Kerry, Bob Kerrey, Kent Conrad, Harry Reid, Paul 
           Wellstone, Dick Durbin, Patty Murray, Richard Bryan, 
           Tom Harkin, Carl Levin, Joe Biden, J. Lieberman, John 
           Glenn, Jeff Bingaman, Ron Wyden, and Max Baucus.
  Mr. CONRAD. I thank my colleague from Georgia for his indulgence and 
his patience.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I suspect this most recent cloture 
motion has the potential of engendering some controversy. It puts into 
rather tenuous circumstances the amendment we are discussing, because 
if we cannot vote--if cloture were secured, this amendment would not be 
in order, along with a number of other very core components of the 
debate about this very contentious legislation. So I hope that is being 
thought through very carefully by all parties concerned, that this is a 
very significant piece of legislation that has an enormous effect on 
our country and there are some very important amendments that cloture 
could arbitrarily remove from the debate.
  I will leave that to the leadership and another day.


                           Amendment No. 2451

  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, returning to my amendment for a few 
minutes--I see Senator Graham has been waiting--I will take a couple of 
minutes and then yield the floor. But I want to reiterate the 
importance of this amendment that puts teenage drug addiction in the 
mix.
  I have said repeatedly throughout the debate that I think it is 
unconscionable policy to be talking to the country about teenage 
addiction and skip the No. 1 problem of teenage addiction, which is 
drug abuse. It almost is an extension of the silence that we have 
witnessed over the last several years about this problem. This Senator 
does not intend to allow that silence to occur here. In other words, 
the idea being we will pass a bill that deals with teenage smoking and 
somehow will have comfortably addressed teenage addiction problems is 
the wrong message. It certainly should be part of the message that we 
are dealing with teenage smoking, but we cannot--I repeat--cannot 
ignore the teenage drug issue which is, of course, related to smoking.
  I point out here, someone who smokes marijuana regularly may have 
many of the same respiratory problems that tobacco smokers have. These 
kids may have daily cough and phlegm, symptoms of chronic bronchitis 
and more frequent chest colds. Continuing to smoke marijuana can lead 
to abnormal functioning of lung tissue injured or destroyed by 
marijuana smoke. Regardless of the THC content, the amount of tar 
inhaled by marijuana smokers and the level of carbon monoxide absorbed 
are three to five times greater than among tobacco smokers. This may be 
due to marijuana users inhaling more deeply and holding the smoke in 
the lungs.
  A very large component of teenage drug abuse is directly related to 
the smoking of the most prominent drug abused by teenagers, which is 
marijuana. When they smoke marijuana, the effects and damage are far 
greater.
  Again, I reiterate, as I will repeatedly, you cannot talk about 
teenage addiction without the two. You have to talk about teenage 
smoking of tobacco, but you cannot be silent on the smoking of 
marijuana or the other drug-related abuses.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

[[Page S5674]]

  Mr. GRAHAM addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I look forward at the appropriate time to 
discuss the amendment of the Senator from Georgia because I agree with 
his premise that there is a relationship between tobacco smoking and 
the use of drugs. I have spent a great deal of my time in public office 
trying to increase our ability to deal with illicit use of drugs, both 
in terms of effective enforcement at all levels of government and those 
things that will reduce the likelihood of persons desiring to use 
drugs.
  Let me say the most fundamental relationship between the tobacco 
issue that we debate today and the amendment of the Senator from 
Georgia is that virtually no one starts with the use of illicit drugs. 
Tobacco is the gateway to the use of illicit drugs. So our ability, by 
effective legislation or otherwise, to substantially reduce the number 
of persons who commence the process of experimentation, use and then 
addiction to tobacco will make one of, if not the most, fundamental 
contributions to the reduction of the use of illicit hard drugs. That 
is an issue that we will have an opportunity to discuss in more detail 
later.

  My concern today is a series of ads that are being run, ads that are 
being run either under the specific sponsorship of the tobacco industry 
or by organizations which we know are supported by the tobacco 
industry.
  Typical of these ads is one in which there is a lady, a waitress who 
is looking into a television camera and is stating how much her cost of 
smoking will increase if legislation such as that proposed by the 
Senate Commerce Committee were to become the law.
  There are other ads that make the same point through other appealing 
messages. There is a fundamental error in those ads. There is a 
fundamental deception. There is the latest example of the manipulation 
for which this industry has become so well known. What is that error? 
What is that fraud? What is that manipulation? It is the assumption 
that the status quo is an option. It is the assumption that we can roll 
back the events of the last several years and go back to 1970 and 
everything will be as it was then; that that lady in the ad will not be 
threatened with the possibility of higher prices for her cigarettes.
  The fact is that the status quo is not an option. There are two basic 
options that are before us as we continue this debate, and I think that 
it is important that we reassert what our real alternatives are.
  Our alternatives are either comprehensive, and I believe as Senator 
Chafee and Senator Harkin and I have believed for many months, that it 
also must be bipartisan, health-oriented national legislation. That is 
one alternative.
  The other alternative is not the status quo. The other alternative is 
a continuation of the pattern of State-by-State litigation, a pattern 
which has already increased the price of cigarettes in America between 
17 to 20 cents per pack to pay for the settlements that have been 
reached thus far in only four States--Mississippi, Florida, Texas and 
Minnesota.
  It is projected that if the increase in cigarettes that will be a 
result of the other 46 States successfully pursuing litigation against 
the tobacco industry is at the same per capita level as these first 
four States, Mr. President, that the cost per pack will go up by an 
additional dollar or to a level higher than that which is being 
proposed by the Senate Commerce Committee.
  So the option that we have is not one of whether there is going to be 
an increase in the price of cigarettes; the question is whether it will 
come through a comprehensive, bipartisan, health-oriented national 
legislation, or whether it will come by a series of State-by-State 
litigations augmented by the kinds of litigations that are now being 
brought by Blue Cross-Blue Shield as an example of insurance carrier 
litigation, being brought by labor unions on behalf of their members 
and, Mr. President, I believe eventually will be brought by the Federal 
Government to secure its appropriate compensation for the additional 
cost that it has paid for tobacco-related illnesses through programs 
such as Medicare, the Veterans' Administration, CHAMPUS--the health 
care program for military personnel and their dependents--and a variety 
of other programs in which the Federal Government is either the total 
or a substantial contributor to their financing.
  The choice is either we do this through comprehensive, bipartisan, 
health-oriented national legislation, or it occurs on a State-by-State, 
litigation-by-litigation basis.
  My personal feeling is that by every criteria that we have used to 
assess what is the public interest, that the public interest would be 
better served by a comprehensive, bipartisan, health-oriented national 
legislation.
  What are some of those interests? Our most fundamental interest, the 
issue that has brought us here today and for the last several days and 
will for several more to come, has been our concern over teenage 
smoking. We know that every day 3,000 American youth, under the age of 
18, commence the process that will eventually lead to the regular use 
of tobacco. We know that of that 3,000, that a third--1,000--will 
become so addicted to tobacco that they will die, that they will die 
prematurely of a tobacco-related affliction.
  That is the fundamental objective of this legislation, to reduce this 
unnecessary carnage of America's youth and adult population because of 
the continuation of a youthful introduction to tobacco.
  Which of the two approaches is most likely to achieve the objective 
of reducing youth smoking? We know some things, Mr. President, as to 
what is the effective combination of initiatives. We know that the most 
effective plan will be a broad-based, comprehensive public health-
oriented plan. It will include items such as the funding of smoking 
cessation programs and the funding of education programs on the 
consequences of the use of tobacco. It will include limitations on 
marketing and promotion. It will include penalties against the industry 
and individual companies which fail to meet national standards for the 
reduction of teenage smoking. It will include, and probably most 
significantly, a substantial increase in the price of cigarettes, 
because it is that increase in price that will have the greatest 
deterrent effect on the use of cigarettes.
  The Centers for Disease Control has estimated that in the initial 
stages of an increase in price, that for every 10-percent increase in 
price, there is a 7-percent reduction in use. Those relationships begin 
to change as you reach higher levels of price increases. But the 
legislation that the Senator from Arizona has presented to us is 
projected to have, by the price alone, a reduction in teenage use of in 
the range of 40 to 50 percent.
  It is also important, Mr. President, that that price be instituted on 
a shock basis. If the price increase is gradual, incremental, drop by 
drop, then it is more likely to be absorbed, become the norm, and set 
the foundation for acceptance of the next increase. But if that price 
increase is dramatic--is imposed quickly--it will have the greatest 
affect in terms of achieving our objective of reducing teenage smoking.
  It is obvious that on all of those counts, comprehensive, bipartisan, 
public health-oriented national legislation will better achieve our 
objective of reducing teenage smoking than will the pattern of State by 
State, litigant by litigant courtroom action that will be the 
alternative to a national, comprehensive, bipartisan public health-
oriented resolution of this issue.
  On the standard of enforcement, much is made in these ads that the 
tobacco industry is promoting that there will be a burgeoning of black-
market sales if there is a substantial increase in the price. The fact 
is that by a legislative settlement--which among other things will 
provide the funds for those areas of enhanced enforcement that may be 
necessary, a national settlement that can contain provisions for 
strengthening our enforcement, a national settlement that will result 
in less variation State to State in terms of the price of cigarettes, 
and therefore less likelihood of black-market sales domestically within 
the United States--that a national legislative settlement will reduce 
the potential of black-market activities to a substantially greater 
degree than the alternative of State-by-State litigation.

  We also know that, on the issue of tobacco farmers, there is great 
recognition of the necessity to provide some

[[Page S5675]]

transition. That transition is contained in every serious piece of 
legislation that has been introduced in the national Congress.
  There will be a debate over which of those alternatives is preferred, 
but the fact that it is a recognized part of a national, comprehensive, 
bipartisan health-oriented tobacco resolution is unanimously agreed to. 
But, Mr. President, that has not been included in the State-by-State 
settlements, and will not likely be included. Only a relatively small 
number of States are directly affected by the issue of tobacco farmers 
and, therefore, could not be expected to include, in their settlements 
with the tobacco industry, funding for tobacco farmers.
  If there is going to be a transition, it has to be done at the 
national level, not at a State-by-State level. So the interest of that 
constituency and that important part of this overall complex issue will 
be much better served by national legislation than they will be by a 
State-by-State settlement.
  Finally, having a rational distribution of the funds, yes, this is 
going to raise a substantial amount of money. It may raise more money 
on the State-by-State basis, it may impose higher costs on the 
industry, and eventually on the users of this product than national 
legislation, but in either event there will be a substantial amount of 
funds raised by either national legislation or by State-by-State 
litigation. But it is at the national level that we will have a better 
likelihood of being able to allocate the funds to important programs, 
such as research in our national health institutes so that we will 
learn more about the consequences of past tobacco use and an effective 
means of avoiding such use in the future.
  It is less likely that the States will be equitably treated through a 
series of State-by-State matters as opposed to doing it on a national 
basis. There will not be the funds likely to be available for effective 
counteradvertising, which will require a national program just as the 
national program that the Federal Government is now underwriting as it 
relates to advertising against the use of illicit drugs.
  So, Mr. President, based on our principal objective, which is the 
reduction of youth smoking, and other important subissues of this 
current effort, including appropriate use of the funds, enforcement 
against black marketing, the effect on tobacco farmers, it is much more 
likely that we will achieve our objectives through a national 
legislative settlement than what is the real alternative, which is for 
us to do nothing and then allow the course of action which is already 
in place, State by State, private, soon to be, I hope, Federal 
litigation against the tobacco industries to be the alternative.
  So, Mr. President, as we conclude this week's debate, I hope as we 
return next week we will be prepared to focus on what the real options 
are and get the business of America done and stop the carnage of 
American children that is resulting every hour we delay in this effort 
to mitigate the carnage of American youth that occurs as they take up 
the use of tobacco.


                         Privilege of the Floor

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Jason Westin of my 
staff be allowed floor privileges for the remainder of the 
consideration of this legislation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HARKIN. Would the Senator yield for a question? I compliment the 
Senator on his outstanding statement and thank him for all of his 
diligence and hard work on the whole issue of cutting down on teen 
smoking. I know the Senator from Florida has made that one of his key 
principles, which is in this bill. Really, the essence of this bill is 
to cut down on teen smoking. I appreciate all of the work he has done, 
and with Senator Chafee and with me on this.
  I know Senator Chafee will be speaking next. We hope to engage in 
some colloquy here on the Senate floor to talk about some of the issues 
that have come up that are extraneous--important issues, but extraneous 
to the bill.
  I just want to basically ask the Senator from Florida--before I know 
Senator Chafee will make his opening statement--about that aspect, 
about the other issues that seem to be coming up on this bill and 
whether or not we could address those later on and just keep the focus 
on the main issue here.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Senator, I agree with your statement. We have one 
principal objective with this legislation, and that is to reduce 
teenage smoking, to reduce this unconscionable level of death and 
damage that is inflicted upon our young people by their early addiction 
to tobacco.
  There are other issues that are being suggested--from reforming the 
tax law to an enhanced enforcement effort against illicit drugs--which 
are all important issues, and many of us have supported and advocated 
and led the charge on those issues on other days and in other forums.
  Our concern is--and I will not impugn the motives of any of the 
advocates of those other provisions--that some outside, and maybe a few 
inside, this Chamber would be pleased at the objection of these 
``tantalizing but extraneous issues'' because they would see them as a 
means of delay, obfuscation, and, eventually, defeat of comprehensive 
national legislation.
  What stuns me is that they don't also see what the alternative is. 
The alternative is not that defeat here will mean the American public 
will throw up its hands and say, ``I guess we have to accept the fact 
that 125 American young people will take up smoking every hour of every 
day of the 365 days of the year.'' That will not be the alternative. 
The alternative will be that the American public, having disdained of 
our ability to deal with this problem, will go to their States, will go 
to their labor unions, will urge their insurance carriers to enter the 
fray, as they have in other States, and we will have a 50-State 
shootout in the courts on this issue.
  We will move toward our objective, but not nearly as effectively as 
if we accept the responsibility and the opportunity to probably make 
the greatest contribution to the enhancement of public health of 
Americans that has occurred in this century by the adoption of this 
legislation.
  Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, over the past several days it seems to me 
that the Senate debate on the tobacco bill has taken a very unfortunate 
turn. It is a turn away from what I strongly believe are the purposes 
and objectives of the legislation. I want to remind my colleagues that 
the very name of the bill that we are dealing with is the National 
Tobacco Policy and Youth Smoking Reduction Act. I want to accent the 
``Youth Smoking Reduction Act'' portion of the title.
  Now, the purpose of this tobacco legislation is to fundamentally 
change the way tobacco products are marketed and sold in this country. 
Clearly, there is an epidemic sweeping the Nation. That is the rapid 
growth of teenage smoking and tobacco use. The Centers for Disease 
Control, as has been said many times on the floor, estimates that every 
day 3,000 young American children, teenagers, take up smoking and that 
one-third of these 3,000 will die prematurely because of smoking-
related diseases.
  Thus, if you multiply that out, it is a million children a year, a 
million young American children under the age of 18, who join the ranks 
of adult smokers, and more than 300,000 of them will die prematurely. 
Over a 25-year period, that amounts to 8 million Americans dying early 
because of smoking. That is more Americans than were lost in all the 
major wars that our Nation has been involved with.

  As has been pointed out also frequently, tobacco use is the largest 
preventable cause of death in America today. In other words, if we want 
to look where can we do something about preventing deaths in our 
country, and should we tackle alcohol or should we tackle accidents or 
should we deal with illegal drugs or automobile accidents--yes, all of 
those are important, but none of them compares with the reduction in 
fatalities that would occur if we could eliminate smoking among the 
young people.
  The statistics are chilling. Tobacco-related deaths are four times 
the number of Americans who die every year from alcohol-related deaths. 
Tobacco-related deaths kill 9 times the number who die from accidental 
deaths and 44 times the number of Americans who die from illegal drugs. 
In America

[[Page S5676]]

alone, 419,000 deaths occur as a result of tobacco-related illnesses, 
diseases. Nearly half a million every year in our country die from 
tobacco-related diseases.
  So, obviously, the way to prevent and discourage young people from 
taking up tobacco is in the beginning and doing all we can to encourage 
adults to cease smoking.
  Some of the amendments before us would take us far afield from that 
purpose. In other words, the objective of the exercise is to reduce 
teenage smoking, prevent it if possible, and to encourage adults to 
give up smoking. But these amendments we have before the Senate now go 
far afield from that.
  Let me begin with the drug amendment currently pending. This 
amendment would take $3 billion annually out of this bill to combat 
illegal drugs, which means we will have $3 billion less per year 
available for the war on tobacco. Now, we already have a war on drugs, 
and we are spending billions of dollars every year to combat the 
serious problems of illegal drugs. This may be a meritorious amendment. 
Maybe we should spent $3 billion more fighting drugs. But this isn't 
the place to do it. If there is an antidrug amendment to be brought up, 
bring it up as a freestanding amendment. See if the money is there 
somewhere to fund this initiative. If it is all that important, let's 
find the money for it. But it doesn't belong on this bill.
  Now, the next one, Mr. President, the marriage penalty tax relief 
proposal. Now, maybe that is a good proposal, but it has no place in 
this legislation. Correcting a bias in the Tax Code may make sense, but 
not on this bill. As the fiscal year 1999 budget process advances, we 
will have a chance to consider the marriage penalty. Indeed, the Senate 
budget resolution which we adopted here has $30 billion provided for 
tax cuts. That is the place where marriage penalties should go if it is 
that important. The budget resolution reported from the House Budget 
Committee calls for $100 billion in tax cuts. There is ample 
opportunity to do something about tax cuts and the marriage penalty.
  Now, I know one of the arguments for doing a tax cut in this bill is, 
it is enunciated they want to return some of the money that will be 
paid in the form of higher cigarette prices paid by smokers. It is said 
that the great majority of smokers are in the low-income or the middle-
income group and that we ought to do something for them. Somehow that 
has a twist to it that isn't really sensible. I reject the argument 
that these individuals somehow need to be reimbursed. The fact is, 
because of the smoking of individuals in America, we all are paying 
vastly higher taxes than we ever would otherwise. We are paying higher 
Medicare costs, we are paying higher Medicaid costs, we are paying 
higher private health insurance premiums, because smokers insist on 
smoking, and they are the ones in whom, unfortunately, so many smoking-
related illnesses occur.
  The fact of the matter is, smoking is a hidden tax on all taxpayers. 
The direct medical costs of treating smoking-related illnesses exceed 
$60 billion a year. We are all paying that--higher premiums on our 
health insurance, as I mentioned before. The current Federal excise tax 
on cigarettes does not begin to approach offsetting these additional 
costs. Thus, in my judgment, it is perfectly proper that smokers pay 
more than they are currently paying in taxes on cigarettes.
  Now, let me conclude by making a simple point. Here, the original 
McCain bill provided an increase in revenues of $65 billion. How is 
that money to be spent?
  It was to be spent with $26 billion going to the States. This is over 
5 years--$26 billion to the States. NIH is to get $14 billion plus. In 
other words, cessation and prevention programs were to receive $14 
billion. Agriculture, $10 billion over 5 years. This is the total; it 
comes to $65 billion.
  But now what is happening, Mr. President, is a whole series of things 
have been added on. Yes, the States stay at $26 billion. In comes 
illegal drugs, $15 billion, and marriage penalty, $15 billion. 
Veterans--we adopted that already--is at $3 billion, agriculture at $18 
billion, public health at $14 billion, and NIH at $14 billion. In other 
words, the spending equalling the revenue--the revenue being $65 
billion over 5 years, and suddenly it is up to $105 billion. Obviously, 
the traffic can't bear that. That is not what the taxes are going to 
produce. So something has to give.
  Mr. President, I remember this: There is a strong constituency for 
the States. Oh, yes, they want their money. The marriage penalty is 
very enticing and veterans has already been adopted. In agriculture, 
there is a strong constituency. What is going to fall out is the NIH 
and the public health programs.
  Mr. President, I think that is terribly unfortunate. And we see here 
what is going to lose. When we talk about health-related programs, we 
are talking not only about NIH, which is a separate thing, but there 
are cessation, prevention/education, counteradvertising, antismuggling, 
and youth access restrictions. Those are the things that are so 
important if we are truly concerned with reducing smoking amongst our 
young people, as the very name of this legislation provides. These are 
the things that will go out if we adopt these other proposals, 
attractive though they may be, for marriage penalty and antidrug 
activities.
  Mr. President, the point is there won't be resources for these 
programs that are so important. So I don't think that is where we want 
to be at the end of the day. I don't think we want to end up with these 
programs losing out because we have adopted the others. If the others 
are all that important--the antidrug provisions, illegal drugs, the 
marriage penalty relief--there will be a chance at another time to 
address those. But in this legislation let's stick with the objective, 
which is to reduce teenage smoking, prevent it from occurring in the 
beginning, and do all we can to encourage those who are smokers to give 
up that unfortunate habit.
  So for these reasons, I urge my colleagues to reject the antidrug and 
the tax cut amendments. They are not about tobacco; they should not be 
in this bill.
  I thank the Chair.
  Mr. LOTT addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, first, I listened with great interest to the 
comments of the Senator from Rhode Island about these two amendments. I 
urge him to think about the end game and not just look at this vote or 
this amendment at this time. Like everybody else around here, people 
are assuming that if we have a bad bill at this point--which we do--or 
if we add an amendment here or there, that is going to become law. 
Somebody needs to think about how do we get to an end result that will 
achieve the things we want.
  If there ever is a bill, it will have a teenage smoking cessation 
campaign and it will have a drug abuse cessation campaign. It is very 
appropriate that we tie these two together. It will have additional 
help for health programs that have been affected by smoking. NIH, 
obviously, would be a major beneficiary, and it should be. We need 
research on the health problems caused by smoking. Medicaid and 
Medicare--that would be the end result. Somebody better think about how 
do you ever get an end result. If we don't add something on marriage 
penalty, tax relief, and on drugs, there won't be a bill. There will 
not be a bill.

  I want to remind everybody how we got to this point. First of all, 
Senator McCain, the manager of the bill, chairman of the Commerce 
Committee, had hearings; his committee met. They reported the bill out. 
I think it was 19 or 20-1. Republicans and Democrats voted for it. All 
of them had to sort of hold their noses, knowing there were too many 
things in here that were the wrong thing to do, and they had gone too 
far. They had some problems, but they got it done. It was a Republican 
chairman and every Republican but one voted to report it out of that 
committee.
  I want the record to show, once again, that I am the guy that called 
up this legislation for it to be considered. But I am here to say that 
at this point it looks to me like it is over because of the games that 
are being played. Now, efforts were being made this very morning to 
work out a reasonable compromise on the tax cut proposal by Senator 
Gramm. We were going to have to have a good debate and a vote on

[[Page S5677]]

this drug-related amendment. There were going to have to be additional 
votes on the attorneys' fees issue. There is going to have to be votes 
on the substitutes, if offered, by Senators Hatch, Gramm and Domenici. 
At that point, perhaps cloture could begin. That is not what has been 
happening.
  Yesterday, Senator Daschle filed a cloture motion and, frankly, I did 
not appreciate the way that was being done. We are not ready for 
cloture on this. We have some other issues that have to be considered 
before cloture would ever be invoked. And now, for the information of 
all Senators, the junior Senator from North Dakota, Senator Conrad, has 
filed a cloture motion on the pending committee amendment to the 
tobacco bill. Now, who else is going to file a cloture? We have a good 
man back here in the cloakroom, Tiny; maybe he can file cloture on this 
bill. Is everybody going to wander in and file a cloture? Do we want 
two cloture votes on Tuesday, or one every day, or do we want a bill?
  Frankly, Mr. President, I am offended by this. I consider it a breach 
of the good faith that we have worked in within this Chamber. I was not 
notified this was going to happen until 5 minutes after 11. I never had 
a discussion with my counterpart on the other side, and then Senator 
Conrad files his cloture motion at about 11:20. I resent it. I don't 
appreciate it. It is counterproductive and it is killing this bill. So 
I truly regret this action by our minority colleagues.
  As all Senators know, rule XXII, the cloture rule, is one of the most 
rigid of our rules, as far as imposing an arbitrary schedule for the 
consideration of a bill. Amendments and even dictating the convening 
time of the Senate with respect to the time of a cloture rollcall vote 
are locked in under this rule. The bill before us would require eight 
cloture motions--that is an important point--to be invoked and each of 
the eight cloture items to be disposed of with up to 30 hours of debate 
on each.
  They are as follows: cloture on the Commerce Committee amendment; 
cloture on the bill, S. 1415; cloture on the motion to proceed to a 
House revenue bill; cloture on the substitute amendment to insert the 
Senate text into the House revenue bill; cloture on passage of the 
House revenue bill; cloture on the motion to insist on the Senate 
amendment required to send the bill to conference; cloture on the 
motion to request a conference with the House on disagreeing 
amendments; and cloture on the appointment of conferees.
  I am not the only guy in the Senate who knows where all these cloture 
motions can be filed. Of course, that is assuming you get cloture, 
which then would require 30 hours and hundreds of amendments. This is a 
very complex, very important piece of legislation, no matter what your 
viewpoint is, for or against. Everybody has to acknowledge that it has 
many moving parts, is very complex, and there are many opportunities 
for amendments to be offered and for mischief to be caused. It could 
take forever or, in fact, never, as far as this bill being completed, 
unless we have some modicum of cooperation on both sides of the aisle 
and some effort to be fair to Senators that do have amendments that 
they think should be offered.
  So I am disappointed. But if this is the way we are going to proceed, 
if it is going to be done this way, then I will join the ranks of those 
that are going to use every procedural parliamentary tool to work 
against this legislation, and we can just go ahead and admit that it 
was a good thought.
  We tried our best. It didn't work. I think that is unfortunate. But 
the way that this is set up now, that is exactly where we are.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DASCHLE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chafee). The minority leader.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I am disappointed that the majority 
leader has taken the floor to criticize what has occurred this morning. 
I notified the majority leader last night of our intention to file 
cloture again. We have been on the bill 42 hours, 39 minutes as of 
11:53. Eight days we have been here debating. We have sought some 
cooperation from our colleagues on the other side in terms of reaching 
some agreement on how we can proceed on amendments. We have attempted 
to do that. We were getting nowhere. It was only after we filed cloture 
last night that we were able to get a vote finally on the Durbin 
amendment.
  The majority leader talks about fairness being the criterion by which 
we judge a Senator's right to offer an amendment. In the name of 
fairness, we need to offer Senators their opportunity to come to the 
floor to offer amendments. I wish we would use the same standard. Let's 
use the same standard for the tobacco bill as we used for the Coverdell 
bill, as we used for all other bills that we have had before the Senate 
this year. We were arguing fairness when Senators were denied the 
opportunity to offer amendments. In fact, somebody said, ``Can you 
believe they are offering a tax amendment on the Coverdell bill?'' We 
said, ``Well, this is a tax bill.'' But we were accused of destroying 
what harmony there may have been to reach some agreement. And Senators 
on this side of the aisle were precluded from offering amendments on 
the Coverdell bill even though it was a tax bill, because they said 
this is an education bill. Do you remember that debate? Because it was 
``an education bill,'' we were not supposed to offer tax amendments. 
But it was a tax bill.
  Now we have the tobacco legislation, and our colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle are saying we want to offer a tax amendment. We are 
saying this is a tobacco bill. They say it doesn't matter. We are going 
to offer this tobacco amendment, and you are not being fair unless you 
ensure that we have a right to offer tax amendments.
  I am just asking, let's play fair. Let's use the same standard. That 
isn't too much to ask. Once we have agreed on what that standard is, 
let's accommodate Senators on both sides who have amendments they wish 
to offer. We have a tax amendment. We don't understand why it would be 
that difficult for us to come to some agreement about having a vote on 
two competing ideas on the same exact issue. Let's have our debate. 
Let's lay the amendments down. Let's have a vote back to back on the 
amendments, and let's move on. We will have an amendment to the 
amendment that has now been offered by the distinguished Senator from 
Georgia. We laud him for many of the things that are incorporated in 
his amendment. There are some concerns that we have. If we can't work 
through those, we will certainly have an alternative there as well.
  But it seems to me that we have a double standard here, Mr. 
President. When it was in circumstances in the past, we had one set of 
rules. Now, with circumstances with this bill, there is another set of 
rules. Let's play by the same rules. Let's work together and see if we 
can't find some resolution of this problem. I think that can be done, 
but we have a ways to go.

  I yield the floor.
  Mr. HARKIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I listened with interest and great 
attention to the words spoken by the majority leader. He used the 
phrase, ``Let's keep in mind the end game.'' I go back to what my 
colleague from Florida, Senator Graham, and Senator Chafee just spoke 
about before the two leaders took the floor. What is the ``end game''? 
It is right here. This is the end game. The number of high school 
students smoking is going up at a precipitous rate, higher than ever. 
The end game of this bill is to cut down on teenage smoking. That is 
the end game.
  The majority leader says if there is no marriage penalty tax in there 
and no illegal drug money, then there is going to be no bill. I hope I 
still have some rational reasoning power. I have to ask, Why? Why is 
that? The majority leader didn't expound on why that would be. You mean 
to say that we are holding these teenagers being addicted every day--
3,000 teenagers every day being addicted to tobacco--hostage to the 
marriage penalty tax provision or illegal drug money? Holding them 
hostage? Yet, the majority leader says there will be no bill unless we 
have this. I don't understand that. The committee-reported bill didn't 
have them in it. The committee-reported bill that was reported out by a 
huge vote under the leadership of Senator McCain didn't have that in 
it.
  And the majority leader went on to say--I don't understand where he 
is

[[Page S5678]]

getting his figures--that we are going to have money for research, we 
will have money for cutting down teenage smoking. I don't know where he 
is going to get the money. Look, I am using the same chart that Senator 
Chafee used just a minute ago. Here is the original McCain bill: $65 
billion over 5 years for public health, NIH, health research, States, 
and agriculture. Add it up--$65 billion. If we keep the States at $26 
billion, we keep agriculture, we add in illegal drugs, the Coverdell 
amendment, the marriage penalty, and veterans, we are up to $65 
billion, and we have no money for NIH and no money for public health, 
period.
  Does the majority leader mean to say that he is going to bring 
another bill on the floor to magically find some money floating around 
someplace for NIH research and for public health for cutting down on 
teen smoking? I am sorry. The facts are simple.
  If you put in the $15 billion on the illegal drugs, the $15 billion 
on the marriage penalty, the veterans' $3 billion, agriculture $18 
billion, you can forget about public health and NIH. There is no money 
left, unless, of course, the majority leader is going to come back on 
the floor with a provision to raise the price of tobacco to even more 
than $1.10 a pack. Maybe the majority leader would like to raise the 
price of cigarettes to $1.50 a pack or $2 a pack. That might get you 
the money. But with the $1.10 a pack you have in there now, you are not 
going to have the money, period.
  So I just do not understand what the majority leader can possibly be 
talking about and where he could possibly be finding all of this money 
that he is going to have.
  The majority leader said he was offended. Enough happens around here 
to offend each and every one of us every single day of the year, I 
suppose. But I have learned after 13 years here--14, I guess--that you 
can't be too offended too much by what goes on around here.
  I guess you have to look at the reality of the situation, and the 
reality is very simple. There are those in this body who do not want a 
tobacco bill, period. They do not want the tobacco companies to have to 
shell out this money. They don't want to have a bill that will provide 
for an increase in the price of cigarettes per pack. That is 
legitimate. That is their viewpoint. They are welcome to it. They can 
defend it all they want. Maybe they have good reasons they can defend 
it. But that is the reality of the situation.
  For example, the Senator from Texas, I believe, propounded the 
amendment on the marriage penalty tax, doing away with that. I 
believe--I think I am correct--that he even said if this amendment was 
adopted he would still vote against the bill.
  So what kind of games are being played around here? I don't take 
offense at that; I just simply point it out for the reality of the 
situation. The reality is that we have a battle going on on this Senate 
floor, a big battle, and it is a battle between those who want to stop 
3,000 kids a day from starting to smoke, 1,000 who will die from it, 
and those who say business as usual; the tobacco companies, that is OK; 
let them go ahead; it is a legal product.
  We don't have to do anything to them. And if we just add all these 
amendments on, it is going to fall of its own weight.
  That is the game being played around here. It's a game that is played 
all the time. That is just sort of the way the Senate operates. What I 
guess we have to do is continually point out what is in fact being 
done.
  Now, let's talk about at least illegal drugs. We all want to stop 
illegal drugs. I have been here 13 years, 14 now. It seems like every 
year we have a bill to do something about illegal drugs: We are going 
to beef up the Border Patrol; we are going to raise the penalties; we 
are going to have mandatory sentencing. Year after year after year we 
go after illegal drugs because it makes nice headlines and we know that 
100 percent of the American people are against it so it is kind of an 
easy thing. It makes you feel good. You can hit at illegal drugs. It 
gets popular support. It gets in the newspapers. That's all well and 
good.
  But, Mr. President, what are we talking about? When you are talking 
about death and illness to the youth of America, illegal drugs doesn't 
hold a candle to tobacco. And here are the figures. I welcome anyone to 
dispute the findings by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 
If someone would like to take the Senate floor and dispute this, please 
let me see the data you have. But the data we have from the Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention says, ``Tobacco kills more Americans 
than alcohol, car accidents, suicides, AIDS, homicides, illegal drugs 
and fires combined'' every year. Here is tobacco over here: 418,000 
deaths in 1 year. Here is illegal drugs, 9,463. What's important? Year 
after year we come here going after illegal drugs, and we let the 
biggest killer and destruction of youth in America go by--tobacco. Let 
it go by every year. And we are about to do the same right here by 
loading on all these amendments.
  Now, the marriage penalty needs addressing. I think I would agree 
with others who have said it before, yes, it needs to be addressed. 
Yes, it is an unfair tax. But we are going to have a tax bill later 
this year. It is not going to take effect until next year anyway. 
Address it at that time.
  Illegal drugs, we can address that at another time. Keep our eye on 
what the majority leader said, ``the end game.'' Is the end game of 
this bill to go after homicides or illegal drugs? No. It is go after 
tobacco. That is the end game. And the end game is to make sure that we 
have the money to fight it.
  That is what this is all about. It is not just about getting tobacco 
companies to put a lot of money into the Federal Government. If that is 
all that was happening, I would be opposed to it. What it is about is 
saying to the tobacco companies you have for years through your 
advertising, through covering up the health risks, you have for years 
hooked a whole generation of Americans on tobacco. You know that it is 
carcinogenic. You know that nicotine is addictive. You know that it 
causes emphysema and cancer and heart disease. And yet through your 
slick advertising year after year you hook more young Americans.
  We know what the tobacco companies have known for years, that smoking 
begins early, that by age 18, 89 percent of all adult smokers have 
started smoking. We know that. Tobacco companies know that. Oh, they 
have said for years, no, no, we advertise for brand selection, to get 
people off of one brand and onto another. Hogwash. They know that if 
they can hook someone when they are young, they have them later on.

  As I have said many times, Joe Camel never appealed to me. Joe Camel 
does not appeal to someone my age. Neither do all these slick 
advertisements of young people on the beach and having a lot of fun and 
they are all looking healthy and they are out there. They don't appeal 
to older people. The Marlboro gear that you can get with your coupons, 
that doesn't appeal to older people. They are after young people. How 
many older people do you see wearing the Joe Camel beach togs. You 
don't see that. How many older people do you see wearing Marlboro gear. 
You see teenagers wearing it but not older people.
  The tobacco companies systematically for years have been targeting 
young people because they knew if they got them hooked young, they got 
them later on.
  What we are saying today is no, tobacco companies, don't dump a lot 
of money into the Federal Government so we can take care of the 
marriage penalty, illegal drugs, this and that. We are saying, we are 
telling you that you are going to have to pay money in so that we can 
put the money out for public health, to help take care of those people 
you hooked years ago, to bring money in so we can put it into NIH on 
research, so we can put money into the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention on research on how to cut down on smoking, how to keep kids 
from smoking, have smoking cessation programs and prevention programs 
in all of our schools.
  That is what we are after right here. NIH Health Research. End game: 
NIH health research, smoking cessation programs, smoking prevention and 
education in our schools, counter advertising, which we know is very 
effective and which the tobacco companies probably dread more than 
anything else, antismuggling, and youth access restrictions.
  This is the comprehensive bill that we are talking about. You add in 
the

[[Page S5679]]

add-ons that are now before us and all of this is gone. Every single 
one of these is gone because you don't have the money for them unless 
again can someone please get on the floor and tell me where are we 
going to find the money if in fact we adopt all of these extraneous 
provisions.
  So that is what the end game is about. It is saying to the tobacco 
companies it is time for you to cough up, cough up enough money to take 
care of those you have addicted through your advertising and that you 
did not warn about the health aspects even though you knew what the 
health aspects were going to be. It is time for you to cough up enough 
money for research in heart disease and lung cancer and emphysema and 
all the illnesses that tobacco plagues us with. It is time for you to 
cough up enough money so we can go out to our schools and we can have 
prevention programs and education programs for our kids. It is time for 
you, tobacco companies, to cough up enough money so we can have counter 
advertising, not the slick ads that tell you how good smoking is but 
ads that really tell you how death and illness will occur if you do in 
fact take up smoking.
  That is what this money is all about. It is not about the marriage 
penalty or illegal drugs or anything else. It is about taking care of 
the youth of America who have been hooked on tobacco. For the life of 
me, I don't understand why it is the majority leader can say that if 
these add-ons are not adopted, the tobacco bill is dead. I would like 
to see a vote out on the Senate floor. I think we ought to vote on the 
amendment by the Senator from Texas on the marriage penalty. Let's vote 
it up or down. Let's vote on all these amendments. Let's just vote on 
them. And then let's have a final vote on this bill and see where we 
come down. Let's cut out the games. Let's cut out all this game 
playing.
  I bet the tobacco industry CEO's today, Mr. President, are slapping 
each other on the back and they are laughing all the way to the bank, 
gleefully watching us hack away at the programs designed to prevent 
young people from smoking and to help those smokers quit who have 
already taken it up.
  They must be really happy watching us go through all of this when 
they know that tobacco is the biggest killer of youth.
  This is the end game right here. This is the end game. I have used 
this chart before on the floor. Two young, attractive women coming in 
to buy cigarettes. Which one is 16? You don't know. You don't know 
which one is 16. Melissa and Amy--it turns out Melissa is 16 and Amy is 
25.
  We want to keep Melissa from taking up tobacco, and if Amy has taken 
it up, we want her to quit. That is what the end game here is all 
about. It is not about marriage penalty or anything else. To those who 
say it is, to those who say, as the majority leader said, that if we 
don't have these extraneous measures on here the bill is going to die, 
I say, come out and explain to the American people why it is we had a 
bill reported from the Commerce Committee under the leadership of 
Senator McCain that came out with one dissenting vote, out of 
committee, and we cannot have a vote on that bill here on the Senate 
floor; why it is we are going to have all these extraneous measures, 
and they have to be adopted, according to the majority leader, or the 
bill will not pass? These were not in the committee bill, and it passed 
out of committee with only one dissenting vote.
  So, I don't know what the majority leader is talking about, unless 
what the majority leader is talking about is that he really wants this 
bill killed, that he wants no tobacco bill, that he wants to load it 
down with a number of amendments that will surely mean the end of any 
tobacco legislation this year.
  I hope that is not the case. As I said, I do not know what the 
majority leader had in mind. All he said was if these amendments are 
not adopted, the bill is dead. I don't know what he means by that. 
Hopefully, in the coming days, he will explain himself further in that 
regard.
  Mr. President, our charge is clear and simple here. Our charge is 
only one--cut teen smoking. We know what does it. The Senator from 
Florida, Senator Graham, spoke about it. It has to be a comprehensive 
bill encompassing a rapid and significant increase in the price of 
tobacco; and, second, smoking cessation and education programs, 
research, and counteradvertising. If you do all of those, you will cut 
teen smoking. You can save those lives. You will save a lot of illness 
in America. That is what we have to be about.
  Senator Chafee and Senator Graham and I have worked very hard on this 
legislation in a bipartisan manner going back several months. I think 
we can still, hopefully, have a good bipartisan bill come out. The 
committee bill was bipartisan. I am sorry to see that we have gotten 
now into this partisan wrangling over the marriage penalty, or motions, 
cloture motions and things like that. I think our leader, Senator 
Daschle, had it right. We ought to have one set of rules and we ought 
to abide by those rules. Whatever those rules are for one bill, we 
ought to attach them to the other bill.
  I think the best course of action for us here is to vote on these 
amendments, move on, and vote on final passage. Let's exercise the 
Senate's will. We have been on the bill long enough. Hopefully, we can 
finish it next week.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleagues Senator 
Coverdell and Senator Craig in offering the Drug Free Neighborhoods Act 
as an amendment to the tobacco bill.
  I fervently believe that we must do everything we can to reduce 
teenage smoking. But we are not here to deal with one issue a year. We 
are here to deal with the priorities of our constituents and our 
country. So I think we also must address the serious problem of teenage 
drug use in America today as well.
  In my view it is crucial, given our continuing struggle in the war on 
drugs, that we send an unwavering and unambiguous message to all 
Americans, and to our children in particular, that the use and sale of 
illegal drugs is dangerous, wrong, and will not be tolerated.
  As the father of three young children, I am deeply disturbed by 
recent trends in drug use. Indeed, since 1992 Washington has been 
losing important ground in the war on drugs. Let me cite just a few of 
the alarming statistics:
  First of all, over the past five years, the average number of Federal 
drug defendants prosecuted has dropped by almost 1500 cases from the 
1992 level. And the average number of drug convictions has gone down by 
a similar amount since 1993.
  The drug interdiction budget was cut by 39 percent from 1992 to 1996 
and drug surveillance flights were cut in half.
  The impact on our kids has been serious. In the last six years, the 
percentage of high school seniors admitting that they had used an 
illicit drug has risen by more than half.
  Incredibly, 54 percent of the Class of 97 had used an illicit drug by 
graduation.
  For 10th graders during that same time, drug use has doubled.
  And--perhaps worst of all--nearly 20 percent of our 8th graders use 
illegal drugs.
  Faced with this bad news, this year the Administration finally 
submitted a comprehensive long range National Drug Strategy to 
Congress.
  Unfortunately, it took them nearly five years to take this step. And, 
as the numbers show, our children have been paying the price.
  That is why today we are offering the Drug Free Neighborhoods 
amendment. This amendment addresses the alarming trends in drug use 
among teenagers. Let me describe briefly what this amendment entails:
  First, it provides additional resources for drug interdiction 
programs in the U.S. Customs Service, the Coast Guard, and the 
Department of Defense. It would double the interdiction budget for each 
of these departments.
  Second, this amendment provides additional resources to combat drugs 
that reach our schools and neighborhoods. For example, it authorizes 
$50 million per year for the Drug Free Communities Act. It also 
promotes drug free schools by allowing federal funds to be used for 
voluntary random drug testing programs--and to provide school choice 
for K-12 students who are victims of drug-related school violence.

[[Page S5680]]

  Third, the amendment increases disincentives for teens to use illegal 
drugs through the Drug Free Student Loans Act. This act would deny 
student loans to those convicted of drug possession. In addition, the 
amendment's Drug Free Teen Drivers Act, would provide grants to States 
that enact and enforce laws to crack down on teen drivers who use 
drugs.
  Finally, this amendment would ban taxpayer funding for needle 
exchange programs. In my judgment, Washington must constantly reinforce 
the message to our kids that drugs are dangerous, and drug use is 
unacceptable.
  Federal funding of needle programs sends the wrong message. And the 
statistics gathered from programs in Vancouver, Montreal, Zurich and 
Manhattan all clearly show that these programs significantly increase 
drug use. Every program studied has shown a significant increase in the 
use of narcotics among those receiving free needles--every study.
  Mr. President, we owe it to the thousands upon thousands of families 
struggling to protect their children from the scourges of drugs and 
drug violence to stay tough on the criminals who prey on their 
neighborhoods.
  Washington has to renew the war on drugs. We must provide needed 
resources, and we must reinforce the message that drugs aren't 
acceptable and that drug dealers belong in prison--for a long time.
  Our kids deserve no less.
  Mr. President, let me close by just commenting briefly on the 
majority leader's earlier remarks. There are, obviously, a lot of 
issues that are on this floor. I don't want to attempt to address every 
one of them. But I think the point the majority leader is trying to 
make, as he outlined some of his thinking as to the final version this 
legislation might take, is a very important point for us to remember, 
which is that the tax dollars we are talking about here are not coming 
from tobacco companies. They are coming from taxpayers. They are coming 
from citizens. They are coming from people, for the most part, in 
lower-income categories. So I think we do have a responsibility to 
determine, if we are going to increase taxes on working families in 
this country, exactly how those resources ought to be spent.
  The notion that we cannot, in any sense, change any of the formula 
for the expenditure of those resources or we are somehow undermining 
this legislation, I think is an incorrect conclusion. This bill, like 
every other bill we have, is about priorities. In offering the 
amendment that we are offering, that the majority leader spoke to in 
his comments, we are trying to establish as a priority of this Congress 
that we will do more in the battle against illegal drugs.
  There may be some Members--I am not sure in which States--but there 
may be some Members in some States where illegal drug use is not a 
significant problem in their communities, where they are not hearing 
from their constituents about this, where this is not a serious 
problem. Maybe that is the case. I do not know. I cannot speak for 
other States, but I can speak for my State, and when I go around my 
State I hear families in virtually every corner of Michigan talking 
about the problems, the threat to their kids, of drugs.
  If we are going to tax the families of this country to the tune of 
billions of dollars a year--not the tobacco companies but the 
families--billions of dollars a year, and the notion we are not going 
to do anything about illegal drugs, that this is somehow inappropriate 
on this legislation, that the majority leader is wrong to come to the 
floor and say there needs to be a drug component here--I don't know 
what State that represents, but it doesn't represent mine.
  I think the majority leader is right on target, and I think this 
amendment is a critical part of this legislation. I think it makes 
sense for us to do this now. We are not going to have many more 
opportunities to do this, and I think we will be sending a terrible 
message to the people of this country and our kids if we pass this 
legislation and say we are worried about tobacco and we are worried 
about smoking, but drugs can wait for another day. In my State, that 
won't sell. Maybe it will in other places. The majority leader is 
right, Senator Coverdell is right, Senator Craig is right, and I am 
happy to join them.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. COVERDELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gorton). The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, first, I associate myself with the 
remarks of the Senator from Michigan. I think his comments on the 
appropriate nature of this amendment as it relates to teenage drug 
abuse is absolutely correct.
  I was taken aback by the suggestion by a couple of our colleagues 
that somehow teenage addiction to drugs was something that ought to be 
left for another day. I suggest my colleagues need to ask Americans 
what they think the most important teenage problem is today. When you 
ask American families, not CDC or some think tank, but you ask American 
families what they think the No. 1 teenage problem is, it is drug 
abuse--No. 1, and there is not even a close 2.
  The Senator from Iowa has a chart from CDC that shows the numbers of 
deaths. Of course, that is over a lifetime of the entire population. It 
shows substantial more deaths related to tobacco than to drug abuse on 
an annual basis. I don't dispute the numbers, but I do dispute the 
point he is trying to make. He is trying to say that tobacco is the 
most significant problem, and I guess just measured against deaths, he 
is correct. But I wonder if he would be interested in looking at 
America's prison population, the millions of Americans in prison today. 
There is just one little kernel, one nugget that would be of interest 
to him, and that is that 80 percent--80--8 out of 10 prisoners in 
America are in prison on a drug-related charge, direct or indirect--80 
percent of the prison population.
  Drugs are fueling havoc in our cities, in our States and communities 
because they fuel crime and they fuel violent crime, disconnected 
mindless crime. We all know that the nature of criminal activity, 
particularly among our juveniles, is becoming more violent. We have had 
a lot of discussions about it. It is drug driven. The fact that we are 
talking about addiction and silent on the most pressing problem facing 
teenagers, in my judgment, isn't even debatable; it is unconscionable.
  The Senator from Michigan alluded to it when he said we will be 
sending the wrong message, it will be sending a message, ``Well, we've 
gotten to the most prominent, most difficult problem for teenagers 
because we have passed a program dealing with teenage smoking.''
  Teenage smoking is up. It is up about 40 percent, and it needs 
attention. Drug abuse among teenagers is up 135 percent and escalating 
as we stand here, fueling not only enormous personal disruption, family 
disruption, but community disruption as it expands itself into criminal 
behavior.
  Not long ago, I was at a youth detention center in my State. It was a 
female center. There were about 20 young people aged 12 to 16. They 
were in this detention center for prostitution, assault and battery, 
auto theft, attempted murder, and the root of every one of the crimes 
was drugs. The real reason they were there was drugs. You can walk into 
any school, I venture to say in any State, and you ask the children 
what the No. 1 problem is--alcohol, cigarettes, drugs? Ninety-five 
percent, drugs.
  If we are going to talk about addiction of teenagers, we have to talk 
about the combined problem. Yes, tobacco. It is not healthy for them to 
use tobacco products, and we want to direct our guns at that. But the 
most important problem, Mr. President, for teenagers is drugs. It is 
almost an extension of the message coming out of this city for the last 
6 months: We don't want to talk about drugs; we will shut the drug 
czar's office; we will cut the interdiction in half. And we are 
surprised because suddenly we are in an epidemic of teenage drug abuse? 
The message was silence. To let a teenage addiction bill come through 
this Senate and be silent on drugs is unconscionable.
  I, along with my colleagues, Senator Craig of Idaho and Senator 
Abraham of Michigan, are not going to allow that to happen. We are 
going to talk about teenage addiction, yes; we are going to talk about 
tobacco, but we are going to put drugs in the mix because it is the No. 
1 problem.

[[Page S5681]]

  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. DeWine). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________