[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 34 (Wednesday, March 14, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H913-H918]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             GLOBAL WARMING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Iowa

[[Page H914]]

(Mr. Ganske) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
majority leader.
  Mr. GANSKE. Mr. Speaker, headlines in USA Today scream: ``Global 
Warming Is Evident Now.'' U.S. News and World Report's cover story 
proclaims: ``Scary Weather: Scientists Issue a Startling Forecast of 
Global Climate Change,'' and they feature a picture of the Earth 
surrounded by stormy weather.
  On television, we see chunks of ice the size of Connecticut breaking 
off of the Antarctic ice shelf and melting. The New York Times shows us 
the North Pole as a lake. Glaciers are melting and the snows of 
Kilimanjaro will soon become a memory.
  Mr. Speaker, mosquitoes are living at higher altitudes than they have 
ever been seen before because it is warmer. Tropical bugs are moving 
north along with the diseases they carry. And if Iowa, my home State, 
becomes tropical, will dengue fever or malaria become a problem?
  The oceans are warmer and coral reefs are dying. Will we see the 
oceans rise from one to three feet and flood the 70 percent of the 
United States population that lives within 50 miles of the ocean? Will 
global warming cause extreme weather, with droughts in some areas and 
floods in others? Will heat waves hit cities like Chicago and cause 
hundreds of deaths?
  Will Iowa's farmers find that rainfall comes in monsoons and that 
growing zones are pushed hundreds of miles north? Will tropical 
agricultural pests that we have never seen before become common in 
Iowa? What will global warming do to the world's food supply? Will we 
see widespread famine?
  Will global warming destabilize nations and become a national 
security problem? Will it cause massive migrations from some countries 
to others? Will we see a further gap between rich nations who can cope 
better with climate changes than poor nations that cannot handle 
disasters?
  Mr. Speaker, what is global warming? Is it real? How do we deal with 
it? Can we alter it? Will it require life-style changes? Should we be 
afraid?
  On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, anyone who has paid their most recent 
monthly energy bills knows that energy prices this winter have gone 
through the roof. The Des Moines Register headlines proclaim that 
``Iowans Are Hurting From High Prices.''
  Every national weekly news magazine has stories on the shortages of 
energy. California is going through rolling blackouts now, and we could 
see those types of blackouts around the country this summer if we have 
hot weather.
  Fifty percent of the electric energy in this country is produced by 
coal, which releases four times as much carbon dioxide in the 
atmosphere per Btu as natural gas, but natural gas prices are at all-
time highs because of the shortages of supply. And the greenest of 
energy resources, nuclear, is hobbled because we cannot store its waste 
in a safe place in the desert.
  We have only been working on this for about 10 or 15 years in 
Congress. So, Mr. Speaker, what does a policymaker do? How do we, in a 
democracy, deal with immediate concerns that are causing real 
hardships, while at the same time look for long-term solutions to 
potential problems?

                              {time}  1400

  Well, my friends, the first thing we have to have is an educated 
public; and I might add to that, we need educated lawmakers. I want to 
learn from my constituents, and I want to learn from my colleagues, and 
I want to learn from experts on this issue, and so I hope that some of 
my following thoughts will stimulate discussion.
  One thing is for sure, Mr. Speaker, and that is that the debate on 
global warming has generated an awful lot of heat. The unknown can 
generate much fear. But I think that the more we talk about this issue 
in a rational way, the better off we will be. Problems present 
opportunities for solutions that may be beneficial in unforeseen ways 
if we are creative. So let us look at some of the science and some of 
the facts.
  The Earth's temperature is rising. That is a fact. According to the 
National Academy of Sciences, the surface temperature of Earth has 
risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the last 100 years. Some regions 
around the Earth have become warmer. Others have become colder. But if 
you take all of the Earth in aggregate, including the oceans, the Earth 
is getting warmer, and it is getting warmer faster than ever before 
measured.
  It is also a fact that carbon dioxide, CO2, atmospheric 
concentrations have increased about 30 percent since they were first 
recorded; and in the last 50 years, the concentrations are increasing 
faster and faster. That, Mr. Speaker, is a scientific fact that no one 
disputes. Whatever your position on global warming is, no one disputes 
those facts.
  And no one disputes, Mr. Speaker, that carbon dioxide, 
CO2, is a greenhouse gas. You do not have to be a scientist 
to understand how the greenhouse effect works.
  Under normal conditions when the sun's rays warm the Earth, part of 
that heat is reflected back into space. The rest of the heat is 
absorbed by the oceans and the soils and warms the surrounding areas, 
and that makes our weather. But the recent buildup of carbon dioxide in 
the atmosphere traps heat that otherwise would be reflected back into 
space. The resulting warmth expands ocean water, causing sea levels to 
rise. The heating also accelerates the process of evaporation, even as 
it expands the air to hold more water. The resulting water vapor, the 
largest component of greenhouse gases, traps more heat, making for a 
vicious cycle. The more heat is trapped, the more intense the 
greenhouse effect.
  The international panel of planet scientists that is considered the 
most authoritative voice on global warming has now concluded that 
mankind's contribution to the problem is greater than originally 
believed. Earlier reports said that man-made fossil fuels like coal and 
oil had probably contributed to the gradual warming of the earth's 
atmosphere by releasing CO2 trapped beneath the Earth into 
the atmosphere. The intergovernmental panel on climate change's latest 
report, with inputs from thousands of scientists around the world and 
reviewed by 150 countries, more confidently asserts that man-made gases 
have ``contributed substantially to the observed warming over the last 
50 years.''
  During the presidential campaign, President Bush said, ``Global 
warming should be taken seriously but will require any decisions to be 
based on the best science.'' Today, Vice President Cheney told me that 
he thinks global warming is a serious problem, too. I appreciate their 
concern.
  Mr. Speaker, let me read from President Bush's letter to Senator 
Hagel:
  ``My administration takes the issue of global climate change very 
seriously.'' He talks about various things related to the energy crisis 
but then closes with this statement. President Bush says, ``I am very 
optimistic that with the proper focus and working with our friends and 
allies we will be able to develop technologies, market incentives and 
other creative ways to address global climate change.''

  The President and the Vice President are not alone in their concern. 
In the last year, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Dow Chemical, IBM, and Johnson 
and Johnson have pledged to make big cuts in the greenhouse gases they 
produce.
  Recently, DuPont, Shell, British Petroleum and four other 
multinational energy companies joined in a voluntary plan to reduce 
wasteful use of energy and to produce cleaner products. They would like 
to get credit for their reductions in CO2.
  Just last year, I attended a conference put on by the Iowa Farm 
Bureau. They held a symposium on carbon sequestration and how farmers 
can get credit for reducing CO2. The chief executive officer 
of enRon, one of our country's largest energy companies, has said, 
``First, the science, although not conclusive, is substantial, and the 
absence of ironclad certainty certainly does not justify apathy. 
Second, the cost of obtaining dead certain proof could be high. And, 
third, I believe that with the right policy, such as carbon credit 
trading programs and incentives to start reducing emissions sooner 
rather than later, the cost of control for the next 5 years would be 
negligible.''
  Mr. Speaker, let me say a few words about the Kyoto Treaty on global 
warming which would attempt to reduce worldwide carbon dioxide 
emissions. I have traveled to many Third

[[Page H915]]

World countries. They are among the worst polluters. I remember in 
Lima, Peru, at rush hour hardly being able to see four or five blocks 
and hardly being able to breathe the air because of the pollutants. 
Friends tell me that Beijing is even worse.
  Now it is true that the United States consumes about 25 percent of 
the world's energy, but it is also true that our country has invested 
significantly in energy efficiency and cleaner air. For example, Iowa 
industries such as Maytag are actually significantly prospering because 
they have invested in developing energy efficient products. Iowa also 
leads the country in the production of renewable fuels, like ethanol 
which recycles carbon dioxide; and Iowa is also a leader in the 
production of electricity by wind power.
  Now, an international treaty has to treat all participants fairly or 
you will not get compliance. I do not believe that the Kyoto Treaty as 
it stands today does that. I would have voted with Senator Grassley 
when the Senate rejected the Treaty 95-0. I think that we need to 
improve that Treaty.
  But, in the meantime, there is much that we can do, both individually 
and collectively, to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions and to reduce 
energy consumption. There are many steps that we could do in our own 
homes to reduce leakage of heat for energy efficiencies, common things 
that certainly with the high energy costs now would prove cost 
effective.
  I think that collectively through public policy we should promote 
renewable fuels such as ethanol, promote wind power, fuel cells, 
geothermal and other 21st century technology. We should invest, both 
privately and through public grants, in energy efficiency technology. 
We should look at setting up a carbon credit trading system similar to 
the acid rain system that has worked so well. We should start to reduce 
carbon dioxide emissions now by rewarding people for saving energy, and 
we should try to build a culture that identifies and corrects 
inefficient use of resources.
  If the global warming problem turns out to be not so serious, then, 
Mr. Speaker, at the least we have helped make our country's industry 
more competitive with lower energy costs. If the problem becomes more 
severe than expected, we can phase in larger reductions in greenhouse 
gases.

  Mr. Speaker, as a physician, before I came to Congress, I think this 
is one area where an ounce of near-term prevention will be worth a lot 
more than a pound of cure later on. I hope that my colleagues and 
constituents share their thoughts with me on this issue.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to talk for a few minutes today about what I 
think is the number one public health problem facing the country, and 
that is the death and morbidity associated with the use of tobacco. I 
want to discuss why the use of tobacco is so harmful, what the tobacco 
companies have known about the addictiveness of nicotine in tobacco, 
how tobacco companies have targeted children to get them addicted, what 
the Food and Drug Administration proposed, the Supreme Court's decision 
on FDA authority to regulate tobacco, and on bipartisan legislation 
that I and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) will introduce 
tomorrow that would give the Food and Drug Administration authority to 
regulate the manufacture and marketing of tobacco.
  Mr. Speaker, the number one health problem in our country, the use of 
tobacco, is well captured in this editorial cartoon that shows the Grim 
Reaper, big tobacco, with a cigarette in his hand, a consumer on the 
cigarette, and the title is, ``Warning: The Surgeon General is right.''
  Here is some cold data on this peril. It is undisputed that tobacco 
use greatly increases one's risk of developing cancer of the lungs, the 
mouth, the throat, the larynx, the bladder, and other organs. Mr. 
Speaker, 87 percent of lung cancer deaths and 30 percent of all cancer 
deaths are attributed to the use of tobacco products. Tobacco use 
causes heart attacks, causes strokes, causes emphysema, peripheral 
vascular disease and many others. More than 400,000 people die 
prematurely each year from diseases associated and attributable to 
tobacco use.
  In the United States alone, tobacco really is the Grim Reaper. More 
people die each year from tobacco use in this country than die from 
AIDS, automobile accidents, homicides, suicides, fire, alcohol and 
illegal drugs combined. More people in this country die in 1 year from 
tobacco than all the soldiers killed in all the wars this country has 
ever fought.
  Mr. Speaker, treatment of tobacco-related illnesses will continue to 
drain over $800 billion from the Medicare trust fund. The VA spends 
more than one-half billion dollars each year on inpatient care of 
smoking-related diseases.
  But these victims of nicotine addiction are statistics that have 
faces and names. Before coming to Congress, I practiced as a surgeon. I 
have held in these hands the lungs filled with cancer and seen the 
effects of decreased lung capacity on patients who have smoked. 
Unfortunately, I have had to tell some of those patients that their 
lymph nodes had cancer in them and that they did not have very long to 
live.

                              {time}  1415

  As a plastic and general surgeon, I have had to remove patients' 
cancerous jaws, like this surgical specimen. The poor souls who have 
had to have this type of surgery to have their jaws removed go around 
like the cartoon character Andy Gump. Many times, they breathe through 
a hole in their throat. I have had to do some pretty extensive 
reconstructions on patients who have lost half of their face to cancer. 
I have reconstructed arteries in legs in patients that are closed shut 
by tobacco and are causing gangrene, and I have had to amputate more 
than my share of legs that have gone too far for reconstruction.
  Mr. Speaker, not too long ago, I was talking to a vascular surgeon 
who is a friend of mine back in Des Moines, Iowa. His name is Bob 
Thompson. He looked pretty tired that day. I said, Bob, you must be 
working pretty hard. He said, Greg, yesterday I went to the operating 
room at about 7 in the morning, I operated on 3 patients, I finished up 
about midnight, and every one of those patients I had to operate on to 
save their legs. So I asked him, were they smokers, Bob? And he said, 
you bet. And the last one I operated on was a 38-year-old woman who 
would have lost her leg to atherosclerosis related to heavy tobacco 
use. I said to Bob, what do you tell those people? He said, Greg, I 
talk to every patient, every peripheral vascular patient that I have 
and I try to get them to stop smoking. I ask them a question. I say, if 
there were a drug available on the market that you could buy that would 
help to save your legs, that would help prevent you from having a 
coronary artery bypass, that would significantly decrease your chances 
of having lung cancer or losing your throat, would you buy that drug? 
And every one of those patients say, you bet I would buy that drug, and 
I would spend a lot of money for it. And you know what my friend says 
to patients then? He says, well, you know what? You can save an awful 
lot of money by quitting smoking and it will do exactly the same thing 
as that magical drug would have done.
  Mr. Speaker, my mother and father were both smokers. They are both 
alive today because they had coronary artery bypass surgery to save 
their lives. But, I have to tell my colleagues, it took an event like 
that to get them to quit smoking, even though I harped on them all the 
time. It is a really addicting product.
  Mr. Speaker, I will never forget the thromboangiitis obliterans 
patients that I treated at VA hospitals who were addicted to tobacco. 
It would cause them to thrombose the little blood vessels in their 
fingers so they would lose one finger after another, one toe after 
another. I remember one patient who had lost both lower legs, all the 
fingers on his left-hand, and all of the fingers on his right hand, 
except for his index finger. Why? Because tobacco caused those little 
blood vessels to clot. This patient, even though he knew that if he 
stopped smoking, it would stop his disease, had devised a little wire 
cigarette holder with a loop on one end and a loop on the other end, 
and he would have a nurse stick a cigarette through the loop on one end 
and light it and put the other loop over his one remaining finger, and 
that is how he would smoke.
  I will tell my colleagues, I have told this story on the floor 
before. This is a

[[Page H916]]

fact. My colleagues can talk to any of the doctors that have ever 
worked at a VA hospital and they will have seen patients with 
thromboangiitis obliterans. I am not making up this story. When I spoke 
on the floor once before on this, I got a letter from an angry smoker 
who said, you are just making up a lot of stuff. I wish I were. I wish 
I were. Unfortunately, these are the facts, and statistics show the 
magnitude of this problem.
  Over a recent 8-year period, tobacco use by children increased 30 
percent; more than 3 million American children and teenagers now smoke 
cigarettes. Every 30 seconds, a child in the United States becomes a 
regular smoker. In addition, more than 1 million high school boys use 
smokeless chewing tobacco, mainly as a result of advertising focusing 
on flavored brands and on youth-oriented themes and on seeing some of 
their sports heroes out on the ball diamond or somewhere else chewing a 
cud. Mr. Speaker, it is that chewing tobacco that leads to the oral 
cancers that results in losing a jaw.
  The sad fact is, Mr. Speaker, that each day, 3,000 kids start 
smoking, many of them not even teenagers, younger than teenagers, and 
1,000 out of those 3,000 kids will have their lives shortened because 
of tobacco.
  So why did it take a life-threatening heart attack to get my parents 
to quit? I nagged them all the time. It took that near death 
experience. Why would not my patient with one finger, the only finger 
he had left, quit smoking? Why do fewer than 1 in 7 adolescents quit 
smoking, even though 70 percent say they regret starting? And I say to 
my colleagues, it is sadly because of the addictive properties of the 
drug nicotine in tobacco.
  The addictiveness of nicotine has become public knowledge. It has 
become public knowledge only in recent years as a result of painstaking 
scientific research that demonstrates that nicotine is similar to 
amphetamines. Nicotine is similar to cocaine. Nicotine is similar in 
addictiveness to morphine, and it is similar to all of those drugs in 
causing compulsive, drug-seeking behavior. In fact, Mr. Speaker, there 
is a higher percentage of addiction among tobacco users than among 
users of cocaine or heroin.
  Recent tobacco industry deliberations show that the tobacco industry 
had long-standing knowledge of nicotine's effects. It is clear that 
tobacco company executives did not tell the truth before the Committee 
on Commerce just a few years ago when they raised their right hands, 
they took an oath to tell the truth, and then they denied that tobacco 
and nicotine were addicting. Internal tobacco company documents dating 
back to the early 1960s show that tobacco companies knew of the 
addicting nature of nicotine, but withheld those studies from the 
Surgeon General.
  A 1978 Brown & Williamson memo stated, ``Very few customers are aware 
of the effects of nicotine; i.e., its addictive nature, and that 
nicotine is a poison.''
  A 1983 Brown & Williamson memo stated, ``Nicotine is the addicting 
agent in cigarettes.''
  Indeed, the industry knew that there was a threshold dose of nicotine 
necessary to maintain addiction, and a 1980 Lorilard document 
summarized the goals of an internal task force whose purpose was not to 
avert addiction, but to maintain addiction. Quote: ``Determine the 
minimal level of addition that will allow continued smoking. We 
hypothesize that below some very low nicotine level, diminished 
physiologic satisfaction cannot be compensated for by psychological 
satisfaction. At that point, smokers will quit or return to higher tar 
and nicotine brands.''
  Mr. Speaker, we also know that for the past 30 years, the tobacco 
industry manipulated the form of nicotine in order to increase the 
percentage of free base nicotine delivered to smokers as a naturally-
occurring base. I have to say, Mr. Speaker, that this takes me back to 
my medical school biochemistry. Nicotine favors the salt form at low pH 
levels, and the free-based form at higher pHs. So what does that mean? 
Well, the free base nicotine crosses the alveoli in the lungs faster 
than the bound form, thus giving the smoker a greater kick, just like 
the drugee who freebases cocaine, and the tobacco companies knew that 
very well.
  A 1966 British American tobacco report noted, ``It would appear that 
the increased smoker response is associated with nicotine reaching the 
brain more quickly. On this basis, it appears reasonable to assume that 
the increased response of a smoker to the smoke with a higher amount of 
extractable nicotine, not synonymous with, but similar to free-based 
nicotine, may be either because this nicotine reaches the brain in a 
different chemical form, or because it reaches the brain more 
quickly.''
  Tobacco industry scientists were well aware of the effect of pH on 
the speed of absorption and on the physiologic response. In 1973, an 
RJR report stated, ``Since the unbound nicotine is very much more 
active physiologically and much faster acting than bound nicotine, the 
smoke at a high pH seems to be strong in nicotine.'' Therefore, the 
amount of free nicotine in the smoke may be used for at least a partial 
measure of the physiologic strength of the cigarette.
  Indeed, Mr. Speaker, Philip Morris commenced the use of ammonia in 
their Marlboro brand in the mid 1960s to raise the pH of the 
cigarettes, and it then emerged as the Nation's leading brand. Well, 
the other tobacco companies saw this rise in Marlboro construction, so 
they reverse-engineered and caught on to the nicotine manipulation. 
They copied it. The tobacco companies hid that fact for a long time, 
even though they privately called cigarettes ``nicotine delivery 
devices.''
  Claude Teague, assistant director of research at RJR said in a 1972 
memo, ``In a sense, the tobacco industry may be thought of as being a 
specialized, highly ritualized and stylized segment of the 
pharmaceutical industry. Tobacco products uniquely contain and deliver 
nicotine, a potent drug with a variety of physiologic effects. Thus, a 
tobacco product is, in essence, a vehicle for the delivery of 
nicotine.''
  In 1972, a Philip Morris document summarized an industry conference 
attended by 25 tobacco scientists from England, Canada and the United 
States. Quote: ``The majority of conferees would accept the proposition 
that nicotine is the active constituent of tobacco smoke. The cigarette 
should be conceived not as a product, but as a package.'' Then they 
said, ``The product is nicotine.''
  Mr. Speaker, does anyone believe that the tobacco CEOs who testified 
before Congress that tobacco was not addicting were telling the truth?
  As I said, Mr. Speaker, most adult smokers start smoking before the 
age of 18.

                              {time}  1430

  Mr. Speaker, most adult smokers start smoking before the age of 18. 
That has been known by the tobacco industry and its marketing divisions 
for decades.
  A report to the board of directors of RJR on September 30, 1974, 
entitled ``1975 Marketing Plans Presentation . . .'' said that one of 
the key opportunities to accomplish the goal of reestablishing RJR's 
market share was ``to increase our young adult franchise.''
  First, let us look at the growing importance of this young adult 
group in the cigarette market.
  In 1960, what did they call the young adult market? They called it 
``the young adult franchise.'' What was the age group they were talking 
about? Ages 14 to 24. They say, ``This represents 21 percent of our 
population. They will represent 27 percent of the population in 1975, 
and they represent tomorrow's cigarette business.''
  An adult, Mr. Speaker? These are 14-year-olds. Those are pretty young 
adults.
  In a 1990 RJR document entitled ``MDD Report on Teenager Smokers Ages 
14 Through 17,'' a future RJR CEO, G. H. Long, wrote to the CEO at that 
time, E.A. Horrigan, Jr.
  In that document, Long laments the loss of market share of 14-to-17-
year-old smokers to Marlboro, and says, ``Hopefully, our various 
planned activities that will be implemented this fall will aid in some 
way in reducing or correcting these trends.'' The trends they were 
losing market share to were in the 14-to-17-year-old age group.
  Mr. Speaker, the industry has indisputably focused on ways to get 
children to smoke in surveys for Phillip Morris in 1974 in which 
children 14 years old or younger were interviewed about their smoking 
behavior. Or how

[[Page H917]]

about the Phillip Morris document that bragged, ``Marlboro dominates in 
the 17 and younger category, capturing over 50 percent of the market.''
  Speaking about Marlboro, I wonder how many Members have seen on 
television lately the commercials about the Marlboro man, narrated by 
his brother, who spoke about his good-looking brother, the Marlboro 
man. Then, at the end of the commercial, we see him dying of lung 
cancer.
  Mr. Speaker, when Joe Camel was associated with cigarettes by 30 
percent of 3-year-olds and nearly 90 percent of 5-year-olds a few years 
ago, we know that marketing efforts directed at children are 
successful.
  Mr. Speaker, children that begin smoking at age 15 have twice the 
incidence of lung cancer as those who start smoking after the age of 
25. For those youngsters who start at such an early age and have twice 
the incidence of cancer, for them, Joe Cool becomes Joe chemo, pulling 
around his bottle of chemotherapy.
  If that is not enough, it should not be overlooked that nicotine is 
an introductory drug, as smokers are 15 times more likely to become 
alcoholic, to become addicted to hard drugs, to develop a problem with 
gambling.
  Mr. Speaker, in response to this, the Food and Drug Administration in 
August, 1996, issued regulations aimed at reducing smoking in children 
on the basis that nicotine is addicting, that it is a drug, 
manufacturers have marketed that drug to children, and that tobacco is 
deadly.
  Most people now are familiar with those regulations. They received a 
lot of press a few years ago. It is hard to think, Mr. Speaker, that 4 
or 5 years have gone by since those regulations came out. Those 
regulations said tobacco companies would be restricted from advertising 
aimed at children; that retailers would need to do a better job of 
making sure they were not selling cigarettes to children; that the FDA 
would oversee tobacco companies' manipulation of nicotine.
  But the tobacco companies challenged those regulations. They ended up 
taking it all the way to the Supreme Court. So last year, Justice 
Sandra Day O'Connor, in writing for the majority, five to four, held 
that Congress had not granted the FDA authority to regulate tobacco. 
However, her closing sentences in that opinion bear reading: ``By no 
means do we question the seriousness of the problem that the FDA has 
sought to address. The agency has amply demonstrated that tobacco use, 
particularly among children and adolescents, poses perhaps the most 
significant threat to public health in the United States.''

  That was the Supreme Court. Justice O'Connor was practically begging 
Congress to grant the FDA authority to regulate tobacco.
  So as I said earlier today, tomorrow we will hold a press conference. 
I encourage my friends to come. We have a good bipartisan group. We are 
going to reintroduce the bill that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Dingell) and I drew up last year on this.
  This is not a tax bill. It would not increase the price of 
cigarettes. It is not a liability bill. It is not a prohibition bill. 
It would not prohibit cigarettes, because everyone in the public health 
area knows that prohibition did not work with alcohol and it would not 
work with cigarettes. It has nothing to do, our bill, with the tobacco 
settlement from the attorneys general.
  The bill simply recognizes the facts: Nicotine and tobacco are 
addicting. Tobacco kills over 400,000 people in this country each year. 
Tobacco companies have and are targeting children to get them addicted 
to smoking. Just look at the ads in some of the magazines that we will 
see, like Rolling Stone.
  I think, and many of our colleagues on the floor think, that the FDA 
should have congressional authority to regulate that drug and those 
delivery devices.
  Mr. Speaker, I will have to say there have been some very interesting 
new developments on this. Five years ago, cigarette makers howled in 
protest as the Food and Drug Administration geared up to regulate 
tobacco as a drug. But some influential players in the industry, 
including Phillip Morris, the Nation's largest cigarette maker, are now 
pushing Congress, let me repeat that, Phillip Morris is now pushing 
Congress to give the FDA much of the authority that it sought.
  That remarkable reversal has been driven in part by a hope that 
government-sanctioned products could bring some legitimacy and 
stability to an industry that has been fighting lawsuits and declining 
demand in the United States.
  In news stories last month, the world's biggest cigarette maker said 
it would support government regulation of tobacco that includes 
advertising limits on cigarettes, rewritten warning labels, and 
additional disclosure of ingredients. Phillip Morris, the maker of 
Marlboro, Virginia Slims, and other popular brands, presented its most 
detailed plan to date in response to a Presidential Commission's 
preliminary report due later this spring on how government should 
regulate tobacco.
  This is from Phillip Morris: ``The company views its proposal as a 
starting point for discussion,'' thus said Phillip Morris spokesman 
Brendan McCormick. He said that the company would oppose giving 
regulators the power to ban cigarettes.
  I repeat, there is nothing in my bill that would say cigarettes have 
to be banned.
  In a letter responding to the Commission's proposals, Phillip Morris 
largely endorsed the panel's work, suggesting, for example, that the 
FDA is best suited to decide which cigarettes should be labeled 
``reduced-risk cigarettes.''
  Mr. Speaker, that is what my bill, the FDA tobacco Authority 
Amendments Act of 2001, does. It simply gives the FDA authority to 
regulate tobacco. It is not a tax bill. It does not ban tobacco. In 
fact, it contains a specific clause to protect against a ban.

  I would like to point out to my colleagues that the Presidential 
commission I referred to before will explicitly state that the goal of 
FDA regulation ``should be the promotion of public health,'' not the 
banning of tobacco products.
  Well, it is a new day, Mr. Speaker, when one can see Phillip Morris 
advertisements or visit a Phillip Morris website and find the following 
statements. These are statements on Phillip Morris's website:
  ``There is overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that 
cigarette smoking causes cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and other 
serious diseases. Smokers are far more likely to develop serious 
diseases like lung cancer than nonsmokers. There is no safe cigarette. 
We do not want children to smoke. Smoking is a serious problem, and we 
want to be part of the solution.''
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, this is on the Phillip Morris website now, 
``Cigarette smoking is addictive.''
  Mr. Speaker, a poll of 800 likely voters shows overwhelming support 
for giving the U.S. Food and Drug Administration the authority to 
regulate tobacco products. The poll was conducted by the Mellman Group 
of 800 likely voters at the time of the Supreme Court ruling last year.
  In the wake of last year's Supreme Court ruling that the FDA does not 
currently have the authority to regulate tobacco, the poll also shows 
that two-thirds of voters would prefer a candidate for Congress who 
supports legislation granting FDA authority over tobacco to a candidate 
who opposes such legislation. By a three-to-one margin, 75 percent to 
25 percent, voters want Congress to pass a bill that would give the FDA 
the authority to regulate tobacco products, including 61 percent who 
strongly favor congressional action.
  That support crosses all geographic, demographic, gender, and 
political lines with voters from every region, every age bracket, 
income group, educational level, and political party favoring FDA 
regulation. Even 60 percent of smokers favor congressional action. Let 
me repeat that: Even 60 percent of smokers want Congress to do 
something on this.
  Congressional action is supported by 78 percent of Independents, 77 
percent of Democrats, 70 percent of Republicans, including 65 percent 
of conservative Republicans. Support for congressional action is 
especially strong among key voter groups of suburban women, 80 percent 
of whom say it is important that Congress pass a bill giving the FDA 
authority to regulate tobacco products.
  Mr. Speaker, voter support of FDA regulation is not surprising, given 
the electorate's acute concern over the use

[[Page H918]]

of tobacco by children. Eighty-eight percent of voters say they are at 
least somewhat concerned about youth tobacco use, including 60 percent 
who say they are very concerned. Among suburban women, 70 percent say 
they are very concerned about youth tobacco use.
  Mr. Speaker, this poll shows voters want Congress to act. They are 
sending a message to Congress: Protect our kids, and not the tobacco 
companies. Voters clearly agree with the view that tobacco use is the 
most significant public health threat in the United States. They are 
telling us loud and clear they want Congress to enact legislation like 
the bill myself and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) which 
would grant the FDA authority to regulate tobacco and protect America's 
families and children.
  Mr. Speaker, it is now up to Congress to provide strong protections 
for America's families. I ask my colleagues to join me in fighting 
America's number one health care threat, the death and morbidity 
associated with the use of tobacco products.
  So as I finish, Mr. Speaker, let me just show a few of the recent 
cartoons that we have seen. Here are two little kids looking at this 
billboard. It says, ``Yes, smoking is addictive and causes cancer, 
heart disease, emphysema, and other serious diseases.'' Then we have 
this beautiful lady in a bikini. The little boy is saying to the little 
girl, ``What exactly is the message here?''
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, here is big tobacco standing giving a talk with 
their own chart that says, ``Fantastic Lights. Warning, these babies 
will kill ya,'' and big tobacco says, ``. . . and as a good-faith 
gesture . . .''.

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