[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 93 (Tuesday, July 14, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8090-S8091]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE TOBACCO AMENDMENT

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, in the next few minutes we will have an 
opportunity to revisit an issue that many of us hoped would not have 
been rejected last month. The amendment before us is the so-called 
McCain managers' amendment to the comprehensive tobacco bill reported 
by the Commerce Committee. The only significant change is the Lugar 
amendment to repeal the tobacco quota and price support programs is 
removed.
  There were many complaints about how loaded up the tobacco bill had 
become. The amendment we are discussing this morning has none of the 
extra provisions dealing with taxes and drug abuse. Each day that we 
wait, 3,000 kids start to smoke; 1,000 of them will die prematurely of 
tobacco-related illnesses. Tobacco companies are targeting 12-, 13- and 
14-year-old children as replacement smokers to fill the shoes of the 2 
million smokers who quit or die each year. We have all heard the facts. 
Tobacco-related disease kills 400,000 Americans each year.
  So today's tobacco amendment, the McCain managers' amendment, is 
simply designed to deter teen smoking without raising all of the other 
issues that surfaced during the debate. We had hoped very much that we 
could modify this amendment before its consideration today. Our 
Republican colleagues and the leader chose to oppose our unanimous 
consent request to change the amendment. We were going to modify the 
legislation to make it a straightforward authorization.
  I will tell my colleagues that the modified amendment will be offered 
at a later date on another bill. We will be content to have the vote on 
the point of order on this amendment and then we will, as I have noted 
before, revisit this question on several occasions.
  I am disappointed that our colleagues, for whatever reason, have 
chosen not to allow us to modify our amendment at this time. I hope no 
one will be misled. Their actions reflect their willingness to make 
difficult choices on tobacco legislation targeted at teenage smokers.
  That is what this amendment is all about. So we will have an 
opportunity to vote on it. We can vote procedurally and we can 
obfuscate the question, but we will come back, and we will come back 
again and again over the course of the coming months, to offer 
legislation that will not be subject to any points of order. So we may 
be delaying that vote, but we will eventually have that vote.
  I think it is critical that everyone recognize what a very important 
moment this is. The attorneys general are meeting as we speak. There is 
very likely to be an agreement dealing with past actions on the part of 
the tobacco industry. The question is, Can we deal with future ones, 
can we anticipate similar actions and establish public policy that will 
prevent the tobacco industry from targeting teenage smokers? That is, 
in essence, what we are attempting to do here with advertising 
restrictions, with research, with an array of disincentives to teenage 
smokers that otherwise will not be part of any agreement. It takes 
legislation.
  So, Mr. President, this will be our opportunity to do that. I know 
there are other Senators who wish to speak, and I will yield the floor.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. DASCHLE. I would be happy to yield to the Senator from 
Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. There is a time-honored tradition here which has been 
violated, at least in my concern, where a person who offers the 
amendment usually is afforded the opportunity to modify it, and that 
was not afforded to our leader last evening.

  Is it the Senator's understanding that even if we have an attorneys 
general agreement that basically deals retrospectively with what has 
been achieved in the past but will not provide the kind of preventive 
programs that are so important to discourage teenagers from smoking, it 
will not strengthen the Food and Drug Administration to be able to take 
effective action in terms of certain advertising programs for youth and 
will do very little in terms of discouraging children from purchasing 
cigarettes because of an increase in price? Is it the Senator's 
understanding that one of the reasons he continues to press this is 
because even if there is an attorneys general agreement, that it is 
retrospective rather than prospective?
  Mr. DASCHLE. The Senator from Massachusetts says it very well. That 
is as succinct a description of the problem as I have heard. The 
attorneys general may help address past problems, the retrospective and 
very serious concerns that have been raised in court cases throughout 
the country. The problem, then, becomes, how do we avoid those problems 
in the future? And what every attorney general has said is the only way 
you can do that is to establish new public policy that strengthens 
regulatory controls on tobacco, ends advertisements that target kids, 
expands our research efforts, increases the price of tobacco to deter 
youth from falling prey to the smoking habit, holding tobacco companies 
accountable for accomplishing youth smoking reduction targets, that is, 
let's put into place strategies that reduce teen smoking. Permanently. 
This must happen prospectively. What the Senator from Massachusetts 
said is exactly right. It s a question of whether or not we can 
successfully put into place laws that preclude any further abuses by 
the tobacco industry. We must act now to stop the industry from any 
further use of covert strategies such as those that, thanks in large 
measure to the work of the attorneys general, are now common knowledge.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Just finally, because I see others in the Chamber, of 
course, those kinds of inflictions of addiction are continuing among 
the young people in this country today without this action.
  My final question is this: Is it the Senator's purpose in providing a 
substitute, if he had been able to do that, or make the modification 
last night in the time-honored tradition of this body, would the 
Senator's modification basically have addressed the objections which 
were made to the earlier consideration of the tobacco proposal? I 
understood that is where they were directed. So if the measure had been 
permitted to be modified, that effectively the kinds of procedural 
issues and questions that have been raised would effectively have been 
attended to and we would have on the floor of the Senate a real 
opportunity to address the substance of the amendment?
  Of course, I think, myself, they both have become interchangeable, 
but I am just interested in what is the leader's viewpoint on that 
issue.
  Mr. DASCHLE. I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his question. 
We are in an interesting position here. The Republican majority will 
argue that the pending amendment violates our budgetary rules, and on 
the basis of that violation, they will vote against the amendment and 
vote against the motion to waive the point of order on the budgetary 
rules.
  Last night, we offered to change the amendment to accommodate the 
budgetary rules, and we were denied the opportunity to change that 
amendment. So here you have the Republican majority objecting to our 
amendment based upon budgetary rules, but unwilling to allow us to 
change the amendment so that it conforms to budgetary rules. So the 
question then becomes, What is the basis for the real opposition? The 
basis for the real opposition, one could only assume, is that they 
simply do not want to pass meaningful tobacco policy that takes aim at 
the array of serious policy concerns the Senator addressed in his 
earlier question.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the leader.
  Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. DASCHLE. I am happy to yield to the Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Is the Senator saying the vote which we are about to take 
is one where there will be objection to the Senator's motion on 
procedural grounds, and yet the Senator was not afforded the 
opportunity to correct any procedural problems?
  Mr. DASCHLE. The Senator from Illinois is correct.
  Mr. DURBIN. So, in other words, I recall a gentleman I worked for in 
Illinois by the name of Cecil Partee, who

[[Page S8091]]

used to say, ``In politics, for every position you take there is a good 
reason and a real reason.'' So the good reason many Republicans will 
oppose our amendment is that because procedurally it is inartful or 
doesn't comply with the rules; the real reason is they don't want to 
give the leader a chance in any way to correct his amendment so we can 
move to a vote that really has accountability for tobacco companies. Is 
that not the case?
  Mr. DASCHLE. The Senator from Illinois is correct. My answer, stated, 
I think, prior to the time the Senator from Illinois came to the floor, 
was simply to say: We will have that opportunity on other bills. We 
will not be precluded from having an opportunity to offer a tobacco 
amendment that conforms to budgetary rules in some other context on 
some other piece of legislation in the not too distant future.
  Mr. DURBIN. I ask the Senator to yield for one other question. So the 
tobacco companies on this next vote would really want your motion 
defeated; is that not true?
  Mr. DASCHLE. The tobacco company's vote would be a ``no'' vote. That 
is correct.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. DASCHLE. I yield the floor.

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