[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 83 (Thursday, June 4, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Page S6170]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


           FAMILY SMOKING PREVENTION AND TOBACCO CONTROL ACT

  Mr. REID. Madam President, there are a number of amendments that have 
been filed that are at the desk. They haven't been offered as yet. 
Amendments on both sides in agreement should be considered. We were 
very close on working out an agreement to do just that. The vast 
majority of the amendments will be germane postcloture. I have 
indicated that for those that are arguably germane, I would be willing 
to work with the person who offered the amendment to have a vote on it. 
But one Senator has held this up. That is the way things can happen 
around here. It is unfortunate, but it does happen. We worked for a 
couple of days trying to arrive at the point we are. The sad part about 
it is the Senator who has held all this up has an amendment that isn't 
remotely germane to this bill, but he has lodged an objection to this 
agreement that is agreeable by all other Senators. I would hope that 
the Senator would reconsider this objection over the next few days.
  In the meantime, I have had conversations with the managers of the 
bill. I have spent a lot of time with Senator Dodd. It is an important 
piece of legislation. I watched the Presiding Officer offer her speech 
today. What a sad thing, the man she spoke about. A picture is worth a 
thousand words. The picture that she had when she was talking about 
this bill and how important it is was worth more than a thousand words.
  I will have more to say about this on Monday, but everyone in my 
family smokes. Sadly, my parents are dead. My dad's miner's consumption 
was terribly exacerbated by his smoking. So when did he start smoking? 
He was a kid. He started smoking as a little boy. The same with my 
mother. The same with my brothers. One brother started when he was in 
the Air Force. He was I guess 20 years old or something like that. He 
wasn't very old. But the others, all of my other family members, 
started smoking as kids. One of my brothers chewed tobacco. I can 
remember I had a friend who learned that my brother chewed tobacco. He 
was a lobbyist for the tobacco industry and he said, Oh, I will send 
him a case of--what kind does he chew? I didn't think that was a good 
idea.
  In Los Angeles last week I met the first lawyer who filed litigation, 
serious litigation against the tobacco industry--a wonderful man. He 
got terribly upset with the Joe Camel advertisements, when they placed 
that little comic strip character on lunch boxes for kids. He also was 
upset because at that time the tobacco industry went through another 
one of their ideas to get kids to start smoking in stores, like a 7-
Eleven store. They would have bins of cigarettes out there. You are 
supposed to pay for them, but they were there. Kids could steal them so 
easily. So he filed this lawsuit. He had the confidence to tell me he 
lost that lawsuit. But when all the lawyers got together to go after 
the tobacco companies big time, they pooled their money and went after 
the tobacco companies, and they used all of his pleadings. He said even 
the misspelled words they used. They didn't change anything. 
Ultimately, that led to the favorable ruling by the courts that tobacco 
companies were liable for the damages in the billions of dollars.
  It is important that we move forward. I hope that cloture would be 
invoked on this Monday afternoon. It is one of the most popular pieces 
of legislation we could do. I am sorry we weren't able to work anything 
out on the amendments, but we simply were not able to do so. No one can 
complain this entire Congress that we haven't had the ability to offer 
amendments. We were concerned for a lot of reasons. One is we have the 
supplemental appropriations bill floating around here and we didn't 
want a lot of nongermane amendments on this, but there were no 
restrictions whatsoever on even nongermane amendments. We just wanted--
every Republican wanted to look at ours; we wanted to look at theirs. 
We used to do that a lot. We can still do that. But no one can complain 
and use it as an excuse to not vote for this bill, that we haven't 
given them a chance to offer amendments.
  So I hope Senators will take a look at this to move forward. Let us 
invoke cloture and complete this legislation. I have already indicated 
I would be happy to work out something that would be fair to dispose of 
the amendments that are germane to this bill that have been filed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. Madam President, I wanted to begin by thanking the majority 
leader for his efforts and those of others, and to agree with him. We 
are prepared to debate these germane amendments, or amendments that are 
arguably germane, and it is regrettable we couldn't do that. This bill 
has enjoyed overwhelming support in both Chambers in previous 
Congresses. Our colleague from Massachusetts has been the leading 
champion of this effort for more than a decade, if not longer. As I 
pointed out, every single day we fail to act on this legislation, the 
statistics are that 3,000 to 4,000 children will begin to smoke every 
day; 400,000 of our fellow citizens will die this year, not to mention 
thousands who will live very, very debilitated lives as a result of 
being contaminated by cigarette smoke and tobacco products. Here we are 
on the eve of a national health care debate where a major part of that 
will be about prevention, and what better way to begin that debate than 
the Congress taking a step in this area which could make such a 
difference.
  So I thank the majority leader for his efforts. I am still hopeful we 
can get this done. I believe we can. People such as Senator Burr and 
Senator Hagan who have legitimate interests and concerns about the 
legislation before us deserve to have their amendments considered, 
debated, and discussed. In fairness to other Members, it is regrettable 
that one single Member of this body, on a totally nongermane proposal, 
can cause us to delay or avoid meeting the obligation of the issues and 
concerns about tobacco and the effects on our citizenry.
  So I thank the majority leader for his efforts. We will be here next 
week to debate those amendments and hopefully our colleagues will 
invoke cloture so we can get to this matter.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, let me say, while the distinguished 
Senator from Connecticut is on the floor, the chairman of the Banking 
Committee and the manager of this bill, Senator Enzi has been a real 
partner in what we have done here. He asked that we do a committee 
hearing on this bill. We could have brought it to the floor under rule 
XIV. This bill has had lots of hearings in the past, but because 
Senator Enzi is such a gentleman and he thought it would be the right 
thing to do, we went ahead, in spite of a very difficult schedule that 
we had and the schedule that especially Senator Dodd had, of all of the 
things that we were doing under the jurisdiction of that Banking 
Committee, but with Senator Kennedy's help, he was the one who was 
obligated to do this legislation. So we have done that. We have jumped 
through all the hoops. I repeat, I hope no one will use as an excuse to 
not vote for cloture that we have been unfair in moving forward on this 
bill, because it would be unfair for them to say that we have been 
unfair.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to terminate morning 
business and have the bill reported.

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