[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 86 (Friday, June 26, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7241-S7242]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE TOBACCO BILL

  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I almost hate to break the sort of magic, 
if you will, of those moments, but I want to say a few things, if I 
may, about the proposal yesterday of the Speaker of the House with 
respect to the principles that the House and he will pursue in trying 
to put forward tobacco legislation.
  Many people in the press have been busy writing that the tobacco bill 
is dead, and a great number of people have suggested, even in this 
body, that tobacco is dead as an issue for this year.
  I wish to make it very clear that, if anything, the proposal by the 
Speaker makes it clear that not only is it not dead but the Republicans 
feel compelled to somehow create some sort of cover for the efforts 
that took place in the Senate over the course of the last weeks to stop 
a particular piece of legislation.
  I think the headlines that ran across the country saying 
``Republicans Killed Tobacco Bill''; have stung more than some people 
want to suggest, and the evidence of that is the fact that the Speaker 
saw fit to provide this figleaf to the party. It is a figleaf, and I 
think it has to be put in the context of Speaker Gingrich's own $50 
billion tax credit that he snuck for the tobacco industry into the 
balanced budget legislation. No one should forget that only a year ago 
the Speaker of the House provided the tobacco industry of this country 
with a $50 billion tax credit and now he is providing another gift to 
the industry and a disaster for children and for public health.
  As Surgeon General Koop said yesterday about the Gingrich proposal:

       Instead of doing something serious about reducing 
     the number of children who smoke, these Members of 
     Congress have created a bill that they can hold up for a 
     photo opportunity and a sound bite. If the House 
     Republicans try to call this a bill to limit the damage 
     that tobacco does to the Nation's health, that's false 
     advertising.

  Then Surgeon General Koop said:

       I'm glad they feel they have to do something. I'm sorry 
     they think they can do so little.

  Mr. President, let me say specifically what the great flaws are in 
the outlined proposed by the Speaker.
  First of all, rather than expand FDA authority over tobacco, it 
actually restricts authority. By restricting the FDA to only being able 
to regulate the manufacture of cigarettes, it actually strips the FDA 
of most of its regulatory authority. And that is directly contrary to 
what the Senate accepted in the proposal that came from the Commerce 
Committee by a vote of 19 to 1, and it was never contested in this 
Chamber that that authority ought to exist.
  The House, under the Gingrich proposal, would even curtail the FDA's 
ability to restrict the illegal sale of tobacco products to children. 
That is extraordinary, and also it lacks any common sense whatsoever.
  Furthermore, the Gingrich proposal provides no tough penalties 
whatsoever on the tobacco industry if they are to continue to market to 
kids. There is not any one of us who does not know the long history of 
the tobacco industry marketing to kids.
  Here is the memo from R.J. Reynolds Company:

       They, i.e. young people, represent tomorrow's cigarette 
     business. As this 14-24 age group matures, they will account 
     for a key share of the total cigarette volume for at least 
     the next 25 years.

  In the course of the debate, we made it very, very clear, through 
their own words, the degree to which tobacco companies targeted young 
children and the degree to which they created a strategy to try to 
addict young people to cigarettes, to tobacco. There is no effort 
whatsoever in the Gingrich approach to try to hold the tobacco 
companies responsible, not only to the programs that might reduce 
children from smoking but also to tough provisions that would hold them 
accountable if they do not meet the reduction in teenager smoking.
  The tobacco industry has preyed upon children for decades. The 
Republicans in the House evidently are prepared to let them continue to 
do that, and the Senate I know will find that unacceptable.
  Furthermore, the Gingrich approach lays out a series of very tough, 
punitive measures for teenagers without being punitive on the companies 
themselves. They are tougher on the kids who wind up subjecting 
themselves to the lure of the tobacco companies than they are on the 
tobacco companies themselves. That is absolutely extraordinary and 
totally unacceptable.
  Obviously, there ought to be some penalties with respect to teenage 
purchase if it is against the law to purchase, but the answer to reduce 
youth smoking is not a solely punitive bill on children, it is to 
include the tobacco companies. If anything ever stood for

[[Page S7242]]

the degree to which the Republicans in the House, and maybe elsewhere, 
are prepared to stand with the tobacco companies, it is an outline for 
a tobacco bill that holds the children liable and lets the tobacco 
companies go free.
  In addition to that, there is no price increase whatsoever for the 
effort to reduce youth smoking. We can argue about what this level 
ought to be. The Senate rejected the notion that it ought to be $1.50, 
but the Senate did accept the notion that $1.10 seemed to make sense. 
At least no one voted to strip that $1.10, and I doubt that they would.
  So it is clear, all of the evidence thus far makes it clear, that 
raising the price has some impact on smoking. Let me quote from Philip 
Morris. You don't have to believe the Senate debate, but this is Philip 
Morris speaking, this is an internal document from the Minnesota trial:

       You may recall from the article I sent you that Jeffrey 
     Harris of MIT calculated . . . the 1982-1983 round of price 
     increases caused two million adults to quit smoking and 
     prevented 600,000 teenagers from starting to smoke.

  In 1982, the tobacco companies took note themselves of the fact that 
a price increase prevented 600,000 teenagers from starting to smoke:

       Those teenagers are now 18-21 years old, and since about 70 
     percent of 18-20 year-olds and 35 percent of older smokers 
     smoke a [Philip Morris] brand, this means that 700,000 of 
     those adult quitters had been [Philip Morris] smokers, and 
     420,000 of those non-starters would have been [Philip Morris] 
     smokers. Thus, if Harris is right, we were hit 
     disproportionately hard. We don't need this to happen again.

  Philip Morris says, ``We don't need this to happen again.'' 
Evidently, Newt Gingrich agrees with him because he has come up with a 
proposal that allies himself directly with the tobacco companies and 
with that memo.
  Mr. President, it is clear we need serious legislation. We have made 
it clear that we are going to return on future pieces of legislation to 
try to pass tobacco legislation in the Senate.
  Let me be clear. If we were to simply come back with the same bill 
that was defeated, I think we would be both stupid and we would deserve 
a vote of rejection by the Senate. So it is clear that we need to 
rethink how we do this in an intelligent way.
  The Senate found cause to cite specific kinds of problems with the 
last piece of legislation. I am not going to disagree that there were 
not legitimate problems. I do disagree that we could not have cured 
them in a legitimate legislative process. But it is clear that, if we 
put our minds to it, we can constrain a piece of legislation so it 
adequately is tailored to meet the needs of reducing teenage smoking 
and of creating a sufficient amount of funding, if you will, of the 
States' needs with respect to the settlement process. After all, the 
tobacco companies and the States agreed to a $368 billion base over 25 
years, and that provided about $200 billion to the States to be able to 
settle. They came to agreement on that.
  It would seem to me we ought to be able to ratify something in the 
Senate that establishes a comprehensive proposal to have a State 
settlement at the same time as we meet the needs of health care with 
respect to reducing the number of kids smoking at the same time as we 
meet the needs of farmers.
  So, we will be able to test that, in the next weeks, through a 
proposal that I and others will make, which ought to be able to address 
the most critical concerns that were expressed by Senators in 
opposition but at the same time provides us with something completely 
different from what Speaker Gingrich is talking about.
  We do not need a figleaf. We do not need a photo opportunity. We need 
a serious piece of legislation that will allow the States to be able to 
do what they need to do to provide counteradvertising and cessation 
efforts to address the health care needs of our country and to reduce 
teenage smoking while simultaneously allowing us to come to a global 
settlement.
  I believe that is achievable. I hope when we return the Senate will 
act seriously to make that happen. I look forward to the U.S. Senate 
sending over to the House a serious piece of tobacco legislation that 
will provide the country with an opportunity, in bipartisan form, to be 
able to deal with this important problem.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. CRAIG addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, before I make comments on trade, let me 
only say to the Senator from Massachusetts, long before the Senate 
decided to put down the very ill-conceived piece of legislation, the 
Speaker of the House was saying that the House would address teenage 
smoking problems. So, whether the Senator from Massachusetts decides to 
characterize it today as a figleaf or Johnny-come-lately, that was 
clearly the intent of the House all along. Obviously, the Speaker is 
now honoring his commitment by stepping forward with a proposal.
  I hope in the end we can address this issue and not allow teenagers 
to be the figleaf of big taxes and big government, and find a real 
solution to this problem.

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