[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 78 (Tuesday, June 16, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6359-S6361]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE TOBACCO BILL

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, let me just say a few words about the 
tobacco bill which we have been on here for a couple, 3 weeks now in 
the Senate.
  In my opinion, this tobacco bill is a historic piece of legislation. 
And I have complimented personally the Senator from Arizona, Senator 
McCain, for his leadership in the Commerce Committee and here on the 
Senate floor in bringing this bill here and pushing for its enactment. 
I believe very strongly that when historians look back on the 105th 
Congress and ask, What did the 105th Congress accomplish? if we are 
able to pass tobacco legislation, significant tobacco legislation, that 
will be the single item they will point to as a substantial and major 
accomplishment by this Congress. So the time we are spending on this 
tobacco bill is time well spent.
  I firmly believe that since I have been here in the Senate--and I 
have been here now nearly 16 years--during that time there has been a 
dramatic change in public opinion on the issue of smoking and tobacco 
use in this country, particularly on the issue of young people 
beginning to smoke.
  What I see this legislation as is an effort to bring our public 
policy into line with our public opinion, because public opinion has 
changed dramatically. Our public policy has not changed to the same 
extent, and we need to get on with the business of changing public 
policy to mirror and reflect what the American people want to see done. 
That is why the legislation is so important.
  We have spent many hours discussing this legislation. We have had 
several amendments offered and debated, and several adopted. I think 
all of that is to the good. And I think anyone who has watched the 
Senate operate for any period of time would have to acknowledge that, 
although we have spent substantial time on the tobacco bill, so far we 
have not seen a concerted effort by the leadership to bring this issue 
to a close, to bring the debate to a close, to get a defined list of 
amendments that need to be concluded before we can finish the bill and 
move on to another item.
  So, clearly, that is our agenda for this week. I believe very 
strongly we can finish this bill this week, or certainly if not this 
week, we can finish it next week. We owe it to the American people to 
do that.
  I know there are others in the Senate who have different opinions on 
that. We have heard a lot of public statements over the recent weeks 
and months about how this bill is dead and how the bill is dead on 
arrival. And I have thought, if I had a dollar for every statement that 
has been uttered about how this bill is dead, I would be a rich man 
today. Mark Twain was famous for his statement that the news reports of 
his demise were exaggerated. And I think that the news reports about 
this bill being dead are exaggerated as well.
  I think there is ample support here in the Senate to pass this bill. 
There is ample support in this Senate to pass a strong bill, to send it 
to conference, and I hope that there is support in the House of 
Representatives to do the same thing. Time will tell whether that turns 
out to be the case.
  So I believe very strongly we need to go ahead and get a cloture 
motion filed again. I hope Senator McCain, the lead sponsor of the 
bill, will take that initiative. I think we need to get a defined list 
of amendments that still need consideration once that cloture motion is 
completed, and then we need to go ahead and conclude action on the 
bill.

  I believe the best thing we can do for the American people before the 
Fourth of July break--and the Fourth of July break will begin the 
Friday after this Friday--the most important thing we can do for the 
American people is, prior to that date, going ahead and passing this 
historic legislation and sending it to conference.
  I urge the majority leader to use the power of his position, which is 
substantial, to move the bill forward. I compliment all my colleagues 
who have voted for cloture in the previous efforts to bring closure to 
the debate and to get a limited list of amendments for further 
consideration. But I urge everyone, this week, to vote for cloture. I 
hope we can get that done. I hope we can pass a bill with a strong 
bipartisan vote and send it to conference. I think the American people 
will thank us for that action, and we owe that to them.
  Mr. DORGAN. I wonder if the Senator from New Mexico would yield?
  Mr. BINGAMAN. I am happy to yield to my colleague from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senator from New Mexico makes a point 
that I feel strongly about. If we don't finish this product now, if we 
don't get a tobacco bill completed in the Senate, in my judgment, we 
probably will never get it done.
  We have come a long, long ways. We are, I think, close. I don't think 
there is any question but if the tobacco bill were voted on by the full 
Senate, it would pass. I don't think there is much question about that.
  There are some in the Senate, however, who are intent on trying to 
kill the legislation. So we have been tied up here in legislative 
knots, going through some amendments, but going through a process that 
has led some to conclude that maybe this bill ought to get pulled, 
maybe we ought to go to something else.
  I ask the Senator from New Mexico, as it was stated this weekend by 
the majority leader that perhaps we have to move to some other 
legislation, is it the belief of the Senator from New Mexico that if we 
don't get this bill completed now, it is likely we will never get this 
piece of legislation?
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I respond to the question by just saying 
I believe we have this week and we have next week. There is no more 
important activity we can commit that time to than completing action on 
this bill. I think the momentum for moving ahead on the bill will be 
lost if we don't get it done before we break for the Fourth of July 
recess.
  Clearly, the notion of giving up on this and moving to another piece 
of legislation--I don't know of any other piece of legislation that is 
so urgent or so important that it would justify going off of this bill. 
I am not aware of anything on the Senate's schedule that would justify 
that action.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if the Senator would yield further, I 
point out that I, and I think a number of others in this Chamber, would 
resist strongly an attempt to move to some other piece of legislation. 
That would require a motion to proceed, which obviously some of us 
would resist strenuously. We think it is important to finish this bill.
  I think that some have missed the point. You go through this process 
and have a debate. Some have missed the point. The point here is about 
trying to prevent children from smoking in this country and trying to 
prevent the tobacco industry from targeting kids with their tobacco 
products. That is not rocket science. We can do that.

  The piece of legislation that is before the Senate is a good piece of 
legislation which has a series of things in it which are very 
important--smoking cessation programs, counteradvertising programs, 
prohibitions against advertising in ways that will target children, 
getting rid of vending machines in areas where children have access to

[[Page S6360]]

cigarettes--a whole series of things that try to make certain that in 
the future we will not have the tobacco industry able to target kids to 
addict them to cigarettes.
  We know every day 3,000 kids start smoking in this country. We know 
1,000 of those 3,000 will die. We know 300,000 to 400,000 people in 
this country die every year from smoking and smoking-related causes. We 
also know that smoking cigarettes and the use of tobacco products is 
legal for adults and will always remain legal. No one is suggesting 
that it be illegal. But we are saying with this piece of legislation 
that we ought not have a tobacco industry get its new customers from 
teenagers.
  I read yesterday and the day before a whole series of statements we 
have now unearthed from the bowels of the tobacco companies which 
demonstrate that they understood that their customers are teenagers, 
their future customers come from teenagers. If you don't get them when 
they are young, you don't get them. The industry's own documents 
suggest that--that if you don't get them when they are kids, almost 
never will they reach age 30 and try to evaluate, What am I missing 
from life? come up with the idea they are missing smoking, and go out 
and start getting addicted to cigarettes. That almost never happens.
  I say to the Senator from New Mexico, and I ask him this question, it 
seems to me we have kind of lost our way here on this bill as it has 
been on the floor of the Senate for some weeks now. It seems to me that 
we have, through amendments, gone zigzagging across the landscape here 
and forgotten what the central premise of this piece of legislation is; 
that the central premise, is it not, is to try to make certain that we 
are not having an industry targeting our kids to smoke, and also 
providing a whole series of steps--smoking cessation programs, 
investment in health research, counteradvertising, and a range of other 
things--to try to make sure that will not happen in the future; is that 
not the case?
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I think that is clearly the case.
  I think although there have been some far-reaching amendments added 
to the bill, the central core of the bill remains the same. It remains 
an effort to deal with the problem of young people beginning to smoke. 
And, of course, it is a public health issue.
  That is the reason I believe this legislation is historic, because it 
goes directly at dealing with the major public health issue that is 
before this country today and that can be dealt with. So, I think it is 
extremely important we move ahead.
  I understand there are particular provisions of the bill and 
particular provisions of some of the amendments that various Members 
don't like, but it is almost ironic because you hear people come to the 
floor and support amendments to the bill and then use the fact that 
those amendments have been adopted as a reason for claiming that the 
bill is now so loaded down that we can't support the bill. To my mind, 
the right course is for us to go ahead and pass the bill, consider 
remaining amendments, adopt those that have the votes there to adopt, 
pass the bill in that form, get it to conference, and hopefully the 
House will do the same.
  I believe that the same people who are urging me as a Senator to take 
action on this important public health issue are urging Congressmen 
from my State to take action on this important public health issue as 
well. I hope that if we do the right thing before the Fourth of July 
break, the House will come back in July and do the right thing by 
passing a responsible bill and then we will be able to get a conference 
and get something that we can send to the President before we adjourn 
this fall. That is what is important. We have a historic opportunity 
here. I hope very much we will rise to the occasion.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota is recognized.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, we started debate on this bill weeks and 
weeks ago here on the floor of the Senate. We started action on this 
bill months ago in the Commerce Committee. I think we may have 
forgotten that we started real action nearly a year ago. It was on June 
20 of last year that there was an agreement announced between the 
attorneys general and the tobacco industry. That was the basis that led 
Congress to act. We are talking 1 year. On June 20 of 1997, the 
attorneys general entered into an agreement with the tobacco industry.
  Here we are, June 16 of 1998, and we still haven't acted. Now some 
are saying we shouldn't act. The majority leader said over the weekend 
that he thought this bill was dead. Well, he has said that about every 
week. About every week there is an announcement by the majority leader, 
the bill is dead. He said that when it was still in the Commerce 
Committee, yet it came out of the Commerce Committee on a 19-1 vote.
  Mr. President, I remind my colleagues that this has been going on for 
a year because that has special importance. We are talking about 3,000 
young people who take up the habit every day--3,000. Over a year, that 
is over a million kids who have taken up the habit of smoking and the 
use of tobacco products.
  And we know that one-third of them will die prematurely as a result. 
That is, over 300,000 children are going to die prematurely because 
they have taken up the habit in the one year since the settlement 
between the attorneys general of the various States and the tobacco 
industry. They entered into an agreement to fundamentally transform 
policy toward tobacco in this country. And now the question is, Is 
Congress going to act, or are we going to have an enormous leadership 
failure here in the U.S. Senate? That is the question.
  I don't think anybody wants to have that kind of failure on their 
hands. The fact is, it is very interesting that when people have a 
chance to vote, things are much different than when they are just 
talking with the newspapers. We have seen that over and over and over. 
In the Budget Committee, in the Finance Committee, when people had a 
chance to vote, they did vote, and the outcome was often much different 
than what was predicted.
  Let's look at the bill before us. We are talking about seeing the 
price increase $1.10 a pack over the next 5 years. Why is that 
important? Well, every single expert that has come and testified, every 
element of the public health community has said that a significant 
price increase is important in order to reduce youth smoking. That is 
not the only part of reducing youth smoking, but it is an important 
part. Second, we voted on look-back provisions. Look-back provisions 
are the penalties to be imposed on the industry for the failure to 
reduce youth smoking in line with the goals provided for in the 
legislation.
  We made a significant change here on the floor of the Senate. Before, 
most of the fee was going to be charged to the industry on an industry-
wide basis. Some of us didn't think that made much sense, because what 
happens when you do that is you put the good in with the bad. Those 
companies that have accomplished the goal pay the industry penalty just 
as those companies who have failed to reach the goal. What sense does 
that make? That is not fair. Instead, we think most of the fee ought to 
be placed on the companies which are the ones that failed to meet the 
goal. They are the ones that ought to be held accountable, the ones 
that ought to pay, and so that change was made here on the floor.
  Third, we dealt with the question of liability. Out of the Commerce 
Committee, just as in the proposed settlement, there was special 
protection for this industry--protection never given any other industry 
in our history. The vast majority of us on the floor of the Senate 
said, no, that is not right; we should not be giving special protection 
to this industry. That is not appropriate. So that was changed.
  There have been other significant changes on the floor of the Senate. 
A third of the revenue will now go for tax relief. Some of it is 
designed to relieve the marriage penalty. In addition, there will be 
other tax relief as well. So about a third of the revenue now goes for 
tax relief. Many of us thought it was appropriate to have some of the 
money go toward tax relief in this package, and now fully a third of it 
does.

[[Page S6361]]

  In addition, there are provisions to deal with illegal drugs. That is 
a matter that is now included in the legislation. Not only are we 
dealing with tobacco, tobacco products, but also illegal drugs. There 
are very strong provisions which have now been included in this 
legislation that relate to that. There is also the question of FDA 
authority. FDA has been given the authority to regulate this drug as 
they regulate other drugs in our society.

  We still have several matters left to resolve. One is the whole 
question of agriculture, how tobacco farmers will be treated.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time allotted to the Senator has expired.
  Mr. CONRAD. How much time is left on our side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota, Mr. Dorgan, has 
8 minutes remaining.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Chair.
  We have important matters left to resolve. How are tobacco farmers 
going to be treated? What are we going to do about the question of 
attorneys' fees. Obviously, none of us wants to see attorneys unjustly 
enriched by these tobacco settlements. In the underlying bill, the 
McCain bill, which came out of the Commerce Committee on a 19-1 vote, 
they provided for arbitration. Many of us think that is the best way to 
resolve this matter--to have parties get together and resolve, on an 
arbitration basis, differences over attorneys' fees so attorneys are 
not unjustly enriched by these settlements.
  Mr. President, most important is that I think we ought to stay on 
this bill until it is finished. We have spent 3 weeks of the Senate's 
time so far on this legislation. Let's finish the course. Let's get 
this bill resolved. I think that makes sense. I think it would be an 
enormous leadership failure if this Senate didn't take final action on 
this legislation. Some are saying the House isn't going to have a bill. 
Well, none of us can tell that until we act. We have taken a lead on 
this question in the U.S. Senate; we ought to complete our action and 
then let the House decide what it does. Let them be accountable for 
their action--or their failure to act.
  Mr. President, I hope we will stay on this bill until we finish this 
bill. That ought to be our message. The reason is very important. We 
have delay, and this delay is costing people's lives. As I indicated, 
we are in a circumstance in which, since the industry entered into a 
settlement with the attorneys general nearly 1 year ago, 1 million kids 
have taken up the habit. Fully a third of them are going to die 
prematurely--over 300,000 young people.
  Let me just close by saying the tobacco companies tell you in their 
paid advertising--they describe this bill in unfavorable terms. Let's 
remember their background. They have misrepresented this issue 
repeatedly.
  I thank the Chair.
  Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brownback). The Senator from North Dakota, 
Mr. Dorgan, is recognized.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me take another minute or so of my 
time. I know the Senator from Kansas wishes to seek the floor.
  Virtually everything we do represents a series of choices. We have a 
choice now here in the Senate; we can choose to succeed, or we can 
choose to fail on this tobacco legislation. As Senator Conrad has 
indicated, we have come a long way, and we have had people all along 
the way who are detractors. I can remember how controversial it was 
just to put a warning label on the side of a pack of cigarettes. Do you 
remember how controversial that was? It was the right thing to do, 
obviously. Would someone vote now to take the warning label off? I 
don't think so.
  The legislation before the Senate is very important. We as Senators 
and as a body can choose to succeed or fail. To those who want to 
choose to fail and say this bill cannot become law, we are going to 
pull the bill and go to something else, we simply want to say that some 
of us will resist that with great effort. We will resist every decision 
to move to other legislation before we complete work on this 
legislation. We hope the bipartisan leadership of the Senate will 
decide that this bill is important enough to finish, and it can be 
finished, in my judgment, this week or next week. We have traveled too 
far a distance on this to fail in the final week on a piece of 
legislation this important to our country.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. ROBERTS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from the State of Kansas.

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