[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 89 (Wednesday, July 8, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7693-S7694]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                     TOBACCO SETTLEMENT LEGISLATION

 Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise today to comment on Senate 
action last month on S. 1415, the comprehensive tobacco settlement 
legislation, and to explain the votes I cast on various amendments, 
motions to invoke cloture, and other procedural matters relating to 
this legislation.
  At the outset, I would like to thank the floor manager of the 
legislation, Senator McCain, for his absolutely outstanding work on the 
tobacco settlement legislation. As Chairman of the Senate Commerce 
Committee, the distinguished Senator from Arizona took on the difficult 
task of bringing our Committee together to report out comprehensive 
tobacco settlement legislation.
  Mr. President, I believe that passing a tobacco bill would be good, 
but only if it is the right bill. In my judgment, if we are to pass 
such a bill, it should follow a number of important principles. First, 
it should increase funding for research on tobacco-related illnesses. 
Second, it should provide funds for smoking cessation programs, anti-
tobacco education programs, and counter-advertising. Third, it should 
include programs to combat drug abuse among our kids, a crisis that 
demands just as much attention as youth smoking. Fourth, it should not 
place unfair burdens on our small businesses. And finally, it should 
accomplish these goals without imposing a huge net tax increase on the 
American people.
  Last summer, the tobacco industry started this process when it 
entered into a settlement with the Attorneys General of several States, 
a settlement which required congressional action. I voted to report out 
this legislation from the Commerce Committee, with the hope that it 
could be modified in ways to achieve the above-stated goals through 
more amendments to the legislation, through consideration in the House, 
and through an eventual conference. While many improvements were added 
to the legislation--such as the addition of the Coverdell-Craig-Abraham 
``Drug Free Neighborhoods Act'' and the Gramm amendment to reduce the 
marriage penalty tax--more were clearly needed to achieve the goals set 
forth above.
  My vote for cloture was designed to move the process ahead in the 
hope that we could pass a bill and that it would meet the standards set 
forth above. It did not signal my intent to vote for final passage of 
any legislation that remained following the amendment process. Had 
cloture succeeded, it was my intention to work with others in offering 
amendments to modify the bill to achieve my aforestated goals.
  Following the failure to invoke cloture, it became clear that we were 
not going to be able to move the bill forward in the way I would have 
liked. In light of this, and my belief as a member of the Budget 
Committee that we should keep the budget balanced, I voted with Senator 
Stevens on his budget point of order. Senator Stevens raised a point of 
order that the tobacco legislation was inconsistent with the budget 
agreement reached last year between the Congress and the President. I 
voted against the motion to waive that point of order, which sent the 
legislation back to the Commerce Committee where, perhaps, we can 
devise a more acceptable bill.
  Mr. President, let me just comment briefly on some of the major 
amendments that were voted on during the course of the floor 
consideration of this bill.
  I joined Senators Craig and Coverdell in offering the ``Drug Free 
Neighborhoods Act'' as an amendment to the tobacco legislation. We are 
falling very far behind in the war on drugs, and teenage drug use has 
particularly become much worse in recent years. In the last six years, 
for instance, the percentage of high school seniors admitting that they 
had used an illicit drug has risen by more than half. Sadly, nearly 20 
percent of our eighth graders

[[Page S7694]]

use illegal drugs. This amendment provided needed resources for drug 
interdiction and deterrence and particularly addressed the alarming 
trends in drug use among teenagers. As we address the harmful health 
consequences of tobacco, we need to also remember that drug use among 
teenagers is worsening and is even more unhealthy, dangerous, and 
unacceptable.
  I voted for Senator Gramm's amendment to reduce the size of the net 
tax increase proposed in the bill by reducing the marriage penalty tax 
for working families earning less than $30,000. Under the bill as 
reported out of Committee, the burden of the price or tax increase from 
65 cents to $1.10 per pack of cigarettes would have fallen 
disproportionately on working class Americans. I believed that we ought 
to give some of this revenue back in the form of relief from the unfair 
marriage penalty tax, which requires married people to pay higher taxes 
than they would if they were single.
  On the Reed amendment, which would have denied the advertising 
deduction for any business found in violation of FDA tobacco 
advertising regulations, I opposed this amendment and felt that the 
legislation had begun to stray further away from the core goals that 
should concern the Congress. Under that amendment, which was narrowly 
adopted, if the FDA finds that one advertisement of a tobacco product 
failed to comply with marketing and advertising rules issued by the FDA 
nearly two years ago and still under litigation, the offending company 
would lose the entire business expense deduction for all of its 
advertising in that year. The Congress should not be giving the FDA or 
any other regulatory agency such expansive and punitive authority. The 
possibility of such a penalty could chill advertising and deter 
legitimate, protected speech. In my view, this raises serious 
constitutional concerns and liberty interests that should at the 
minimum be seriously considered in the appropriate committees. This is 
unsound public policy, unsound tax policy, and an unwise expansion of 
federal regulatory authority. It also sets poor precedent and raises 
constitutional concerns. No matter what we think of the uses of 
advertising, the Constitution protects the right of free speech.
  I supported Senator Gregg's amendment to eliminate the liability caps 
that had been included in the manager's amendment. I had concerns about 
our taking action to limit the liability of the tobacco industry 
without enacting other legal reforms that are desperately needed by so 
many industries. I found it highly incongruous that we would not extend 
the same liability protections to industries that produce life-saving 
products as we do for the tobacco industry.
  For example, I would have liked to see us include reforms to permit 
the development and manufacturing of beneficial products, such as 
pacemakers and other medical devices. Too often, biomaterials needed to 
manufacture those products have been unavailable due to litigation 
concerns. I had supported Senator Ashcroft's amendment in the Commerce 
Committee that would have added the Biomaterials Access Assurance Act 
to the tobacco settlement legislation. The biomaterials legislation, of 
which I am a cosponsor, offers liability protections to manufacturers 
of biomaterials, which are needed to produce life-saving devices but 
which have been tragically unavailable in some instances because of 
litigation concerns. Such important health-related legislation as the 
biomaterials bill would be appropriate to include as part of tobacco 
settlement legislation, and, in my view, should in fact be directly 
linked to and included in the legislation.
  In summary, I would like to again commend my colleagues for their 
hard work on the legislation and the majority leader for bringing this 
important legislation to the floor and giving the full Senate ample 
opportunity to debate and consider the bill. While I had hoped we could 
come together on the issue, I think it became far more complex than any 
of us had imagined. A number of amendments, many of which I supported, 
changed the nature of the legislation so fundamentally that the 
legislation really must be revisited from square one. With almost no 
restrictions on payments for damages and penalties, for instance, it 
became clear that the industry would never agree to voluntary 
advertising restrictions. In my view, tobacco advertising is one of the 
most powerful factors in influencing the decisions of teenagers with 
respect to smoking, and it was one of the key parts of that legislation 
that we were not going to get.
  I will continue to work with my colleagues on this issue, and with my 
own Governor and state legislature. I am pleased that Leader Lott is 
considering setting up a bipartisan task force to revisit this 
important issue. There is much that can still be done on it, and I 
believe that we have learned a great deal in going through this process 
once.

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