[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 84 (Monday, May 20, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2964-S2967]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. McCONNELL (for himself and Mr. Kaine):
  S. 1541. A bill to increase the minimum age for sale of tobacco 
products to 21; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and 
Pensions.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, today, I am introducing Federal 
legislation to make 21 the new minimum age for purchasing any tobacco 
product anywhere in the United States. Let me say that again--a new age 
nationwide for purchasing anything classified as a tobacco product--
cigarettes, e-cigarettes, vapor products, and everything else. It 
shouldn't be 18 any longer; it should be 21, and this legislation will 
make that happen.
  I recognize I might seem like an unusual candidate to lead this 
charge. I am the senior Senator from Kentucky. I have consistently 
stood up for our Kentucky farmers, including our tobacco farmers. I 
championed the tobacco buyout back in 2004. But actually my long 
experience with this subject and my commitment to farm families are 
part of what has convinced me that now is the right time to do this. I 
would like to say a few words about why.
  Tobacco has been deeply intertwined in our Nation's history from the 
very beginning. Native Americans grew it and used it before European 
explorers ever arrived. John Rolfe--the famous settler who later 
married Pocahontas--kick-started Virginia's export economy using 
foreign tobacco seeds in 1612.
  By the eve of the Revolution, tobacco was a major export and a huge 
part of

[[Page S2965]]

our colony's prosperity. Many tobacco farmers were energetic early 
backers of independence. George Washington grew tobacco at Mount 
Vernon, at first as his primary crop. In Benjamin Franklin's 
newspapers, some of the earliest ads for American tobacco ran alongside 
the essays urging Americans to stand up for freedom. Several million 
pounds of tobacco were actually used as collateral to help secure the 
loans they needed from France. Years later, Lewis and Clark used it as 
a peace offering to the Native Tribes they met while they were headed 
west. And, like too many other parts of early American history, 
tobacco's development was closely linked with the sin of slavery.
  So tobacco has been a part of this country right from the start--so 
much so, in fact, that right here in the U.S. Capitol, artisans 
replaced the traditional designs in many of the Roman-style columns and 
chiseled American tobacco leaves in their place. Right here in this 
Chamber, we still have some old spittoons. We used to have Senate snuff 
boxes filled on the taxpayers' dime. The residue on the floors used to 
be so considerable that Charles Dickens warned fellow visitors not to 
pick up anything they dropped unless they had a pair of gloves on. One 
of the Senators Dickens actually admired most from that visit was Henry 
Clay. And, befitting the Commonwealth of Kentucky and our own rich 
history with the crop, that legendary Kentuckian was also a legendary 
tobacco enthusiast.
  When the first settlers came over the Appalachians into what is now 
Kentucky, tobacco offered the perfect opportunity to jump-start their 
new lives. A pocketful of seeds was enough for a downpayment on a new, 
economically secure future for your family. Kentucky had fertile soil. 
We had favorable summers. We had inland waterways and access to the 
Mississippi for shipping.
  Before long, burley tobacco was a staple crop for literally tens of 
thousands of Kentucky farms. For a time, we led even Virginia and North 
Carolina as the No. 1 tobacco State. Generations of farmers, even if 
they weren't primarily tobacco growers, would plant a little corner of 
it to help float the rest of the operation. Farming tobacco put shoes 
on kids' feet. It put dinner on the table. For many in Kentucky, 
tobacco made the American dream possible. It is a central pillar of our 
State's history.
  In fact, back in the early 1900s, there was literally an armed 
conflict called the Black Patch War that revolved around tobacco 
prices. Farmers were against farmers. We are talking about beatings and 
horse whippings. Barns were burned. Eventually, martial law was 
declared in part of Kentucky. We are talking about neighbor-on-neighbor 
violence that was reminiscent of the Civil War--all over tobacco 
prices. The conflict was actually memorialized in the book ``Night 
Rider,'' the first novel by Robert Penn Warren, the famous Kentucky-
born writer who won multiple Pulitzers and served as U.S. Poet 
Laureate.
  A few decades later, in the late 1930s, Senator Alben Barkley--the 
only other Kentuckian to serve as majority leader--set up a top-down 
quota system that got Washington heavily involved in the tobacco market 
to try to provide price special assurance for farmers.
  So when I first arrived here in the Senate in 1985, more than two-
thirds of Kentucky's farmers grew some tobacco, and it accounted for 
almost half of the value of all the agricultural production in my 
State. But, of course, demand for U.S. tobacco has gone down as, among 
other factors, our knowledge of the health consequences has gone up.
  Even as early as the late 1800s, when the transition began from all 
the varied forms of tobacco toward the modern, mass-marketed, mass-
produced cigarette industry, there was concern. Those concerns went 
mainstream with the Surgeon General's report on smoking in the 1960s, 
and of course our understanding has only grown with more research. By 
2004, these concerns, plus foreign competition, were making that quota 
system less of a helpful backstop and more of a stranglehold. So there 
was interest on all sides in unwinding this archaic system without 
pulling the rug out from under our growers.
  I secured the Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform Act, known as the 
tobacco buyout, which President Bush 43 signed into law. It wound down 
the special treatment for tobacco, while also providing the farmers who 
had invested heavily in these quotas 10 years of buyout payments to 
ease their transition.
  What has happened since then has been a very exciting story. Just as 
Kentucky farmers once led the Nation in cultivating tobacco and helped 
write that important chapter in American history, they are now helping 
to write the next chapter of innovation.
  We aren't interested in banning tobacco. We aren't interested in 
turning our backs on adults who choose to use these products or 
pretending we aren't proud of the Kentuckians who still grow it. But as 
the market has settled, many of our farmers have seized the opportunity 
to try new things.
  Just a few years before the buyout, almost 30,000 Kentucky farms were 
still growing tobacco. It still made up about one-quarter of all of our 
farmers' cash receipts statewide. But the 10-year buyout program ended 
in 2014. These days, instead of 30,000 farms growing tobacco in the 
Commonwealth, it is more like 2,600. It still brings in hundreds of 
millions of dollars, but now it is only 6 percent of our total receipts 
from agriculture. Freed from the sunk costs of a quota system, our 
farmers have been able to participate in a more free market and reap 
the benefits. In fact, overall cash receipts from agriculture actually 
set a new record in 2014--the very same year the buyout ended. I am 
proud the 2004 policy I achieved has been a success. Kentucky farmers 
have taken the ball, however, and they have run with it.
  I mentioned that George Washington initially planted a whole lot of 
tobacco at Mount Vernon before a variety of factors led him to scale it 
back and experiment with other things. One of those new crops was hemp. 
That was all the way back in the 1770s. As usual, George Washington 
knew what he was doing.
  Industrial hemp is making a comeback today, and Kentucky farmers 
asked for help to change the outdated Federal laws that confused the 
plant with cannabis and prevented them from exploring the crop.
  In 2014, I fought and won for farmers the right to explore hemp 
through State pilot projects. In last year's farm bill, my provision 
finished the job and made hemp a fully legal commodity nationwide. Now 
we are seeing the future take shape right before our eyes. Farmers in 
99 of 120 counties are growing hemp. Processors are reporting more than 
$50 million in gross sales. And this is just one of the new crops our 
farmers are using to chart new directions and connect Kentucky's past 
with its future.
  I realize this has been quite a history lesson, but Kentuckians are 
used to hearing sweeping statements about our tobacco industry from 
folks outside the State who know none of this history and yet have no 
problem forming strong opinions. We are proud of our past. We are proud 
of who we are. But Kentucky farmers don't want their children to get 
hooked on tobacco products while they are in middle school or high 
school any more than any parents anywhere want that to happen. Kentucky 
is proud of what we make, but we also take pride in the health and 
development of our children.
  The sad reality is that Kentucky has been the home to the highest 
rates of cancer in the country. We lead the entire Nation in the 
percentage of cancer cases tied directly to smoking. Our State once 
grew tobacco like none other, and now we are being hit by the health 
consequences of tobacco use like none other.
  Nationwide, we are in the middle of a completely new public health 
epidemic that is really threatening our progress in youth tobacco use--
the use of e-cigarettes and vaping. This spike has been concentrated in 
teenagers--and not just 18-year-olds. Moms and dads across the country 
are seeing their middle and high schoolers take up this new habit and 
start down a deadly path that our society has previously spent decades 
working hard to close down.
  From 2017 to 2018, high school students' use of what are classified 
as tobacco products shot up by nearly 40 percent. That is a staggering 
figure, especially in a single year. That increase is driven almost 
entirely by vaping.

[[Page S2966]]

The brain is still developing at this young age. When teenagers use 
tobacco, they are quite literally altering their brain's chemistry and 
making it more susceptible to addiction. Many young vape users aren't 
buying the products themselves but sharing them with a friend. And 
remember, 90 percent of adult daily smokers say they used their first 
tobacco product before age 19.
  Youth vaping is a public health crisis. It is our responsibility, as 
parents and public servants, to do everything we can to keep these 
harmful products out of high schools and out of youth culture. We need 
to put the national age of purchase at 21.
  That is why I am introducing this legislation in recognition of 
tobacco's storied past in Kentucky and aware of the threat that all 
tobacco products pose now and for future generations. I am proud to 
partner on this effort with Senator Tim Kaine, who represents another 
Commonwealth with a long history of growing tobacco. I know there is 
interest from Members on both sides of the aisle, including Senators 
Young, Romney, Schatz, and others. This is not a zero-sum choice 
between farmers and public health. We can support both. We need to 
support both, but the health of our children is literally at stake.
  That is why I will make enacting this legislation one of my highest 
priorities, and I look forward to working with all of our colleagues to 
make that happen.
  Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to support the words of my 
colleague, Leader McConnell, and to thank him for working on this 
important piece of legislation, the Tobacco-Free Youth Act. I will 
offer some thoughts about why I have been happy to work with Leader 
McConnell and with other Senators who share the goal of raising the 
national tobacco age to 21.
  Like Senator McConnell, I come from a tobacco State. The Jamestown-
based Virginia Company was chartered by King James, landing at 
Jamestown in 1607, and beginning the English colonization of the United 
States. They almost didn't make it. They could easily have failed like 
other English settlements in the Outer Banks of North Carolina or 
others, but two things saved them.
  The first was the magnanimity of the Powhatan Indians, who, in those 
early years, when times were tough, helped them to survive and helped 
them to get over times of drought and hunger. The second thing was the 
discovery of, as Leader McConnell mentioned, the tobacco seeds in 
Virginia that, through the efforts of John Roth and others, became such 
a powerful driver of the Virginia agricultural economy. Had it not been 
for tobacco and had it not been for the Powhatan Indians, the Jamestown 
colony would likely have disappeared.
  Tobacco has such a place in our history that in the ceiling of both 
of the legislative chambers in the Virginia Capitol, designed by Thomas 
Jefferson, the ceiling is circled by gold-embossed tobacco leaves. We 
restored the capitol in 2000 and restored the gold embossing because we 
understand that it was tobacco that helped create modern Virginia.
  In the city of Richmond, where I live and where I served as mayor, 
one of the largest cigarette-producing manufacturers in the world is 
the Philip Morris plant in South Richmond, which over decades has been 
a fantastic employer of local Virginians and local residents.
  As Governor, I was proud to work on tobacco initiatives because, as 
the leader indicated, as we become more aware of public health 
consequences, there has been more need to try to stem the challenges 
that these health consequences create.
  When I was Governor, I worked in tandem with my Republican speaker of 
the house to ban smoking in restaurants and bars, which was a tough, 
tough sell at that time back in 2009, but we made it happen. Probably 
my happiest day as a Governor, vis-a-vis tobacco, was the day where I 
went to Chesterfield County in suburban Richmond, and, together with 
bipartisan legislators, we celebrated the results that had just come 
out that showed that for the first time in recorded history the youth 
smoking rate in Virginia was below the national average. Much like 
Kentucky, we have been above the national average because in a State 
where it is a product that you are proud of, everyone is encouraged to 
use it. But by about 2009, we were below the national average, and we 
felt very good about that.
  I am here with Senator McConnell, partly because of our history, but 
really I am here, as he indicated, because of the current challenge. We 
are backsliding. We are backsliding. The recent increases in youth 
tobacco use demonstrate that we need to do more.
  Current youth tobacco product use has increased dramatically from 
2017 to 2018, completely erasing the decline in tobacco product use 
among youth that had been happening for many years. From the CDC, this 
increase is driven largely by e-cigarettes. More than 1 in 4 high 
schoolers in 2018 and 1 in 14 middle schoolers in 2018 had used a 
tobacco product in the last 30 days--a dramatic increase from 2017--and 
1.5 million more young people used e-cigarettes in 2018 than in 2017.
  E-cigarettes are the most commonly used product among the young, and 
they are frequently used in combination with other tobacco products. 
The recent increase in the use of tobacco products is heavily, heavily 
driven by the popularity of e-cigarettes, shaped like a flash drive, 
able to be shared with friends, and sold in kid-friendly flavors with a 
high nicotine content.
  Disturbingly, it is not only e-cigarettes. The use of any tobacco 
product grew by more than 38 percent among high schoolers from 2017 to 
2018, and in Virginia, where we had celebrated in our State that it was 
below the national average, we are seeing dramatic increases. And 16.3 
percent of high school youth are reporting using any tobacco product, 
and 6.5 percent of those--one-third of those--smoke cigarettes.
  According to the CDC, any use of tobacco products by the young is 
considered unsafe. The leader laid out how the use of these e-
cigarettes alter the chemistry of the brain and actually make a young 
person more prone for the rest of their life to becoming addicted. And 
it is not just addiction. It is also learning, memory, attention, 
impulse control, and cognition. The use of tobacco also increases among 
the young the likelihood of developing mood disorders like anxiety and 
depression.
  So there is a strong rationale for this bill, and I was honored when 
the majority leader asked about a month ago if I would work together 
with him on a bipartisan bill as two Senators from tobacco States, 
joining others to find a way to raise the age from 18 to 21.
  Now, 95 percent of adult smokers begin smoking before the age of 21. 
The Institute of Medicine, now the National Academy of Medicine, did 
research recently showing that increasing the tobacco age to 21 will, 
over time, significantly reduce the number of young and young adult 
smoking, as well as smoking-caused deaths, and improve public health 
and save lives.
  What does our bill do? Our bill raises the Federal minimum age to 
purchase any tobacco products from 18 to 21. We direct the FDA to 
update their current regulations and enforcement structure for the 
current 18 age minimum and apply to it to the new 21 age minimum. We 
encourage States to pass their own laws raising the age to 21 and 
require the States to enforce those laws and meet other requirements, 
as they currently do, pursuant to the Synar Amendment. Our legislation 
would apply to all populations and to all types of tobacco products, 
including e-cigarettes.
  As a father of a marine and as a member of the Senate Armed Services 
Committee, I strongly feel that we should extend the same public health 
protections to members of the military as we do though their civilian 
counterparts. I look forward to working with the majority leader and so 
many others on both sides of the aisle to do a good thing for public 
health, to do a good thing for our young people, and raise the tobacco 
age to 21.
  As the leader mentioned, there are other Senators--Senators Romney 
and Young, Senators Schatz and Durbin, and Senator Murray--who have 
invested their energies in this effort. We pledge to work together with 
all of them. We can come together to do this on behalf of our young 
people.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text 
of the bill be printed in the Record.

[[Page S2967]]

  There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be 
printed in the Record, as follows:

                                S. 1541

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Tobacco-Free Youth Act''.

     SEC. 2. MINIMUM AGE OF SALE OF TOBACCO PRODUCTS.

       (a) Establishing Minimum Age of 21 for Sale of Tobacco 
     Products.--Section 1926 of the Public Health Service Act (42 
     U.S.C. 300x-26) is amended--
       (1) in the section heading, by striking ``age of 18'' and 
     inserting ``age of 21'';
       (2) by striking ``age of 18'' each place such phrase 
     appears and inserting ``age of 21'';
       (3) in subsection (a)--
       (A) in paragraph (1), by striking ``fiscal year 1994'' and 
     inserting ``fiscal year 2021''; and
       (B) in paragraph (2)--
       (i) by striking ``fiscal year 1993'' and inserting ``fiscal 
     year 2020'';
       (ii) by striking ``fiscal year 1994'' and inserting 
     ``fiscal year 2021''; and
       (iii) by striking ``fiscal year 1995'' and inserting 
     ``fiscal year 2022''; and
       (4) in subsection (d)--
       (A) in paragraph (1), by striking ``1995'' and inserting 
     ``2022'';
       (B) in paragraph (2)--
       (i) by striking ``1994'' and inserting ``2021''; and
       (ii) by striking the period and inserting ``; and'';
       (C) by redesignating paragraphs (1) and (2) as 
     subparagraphs (A) and (B), respectively, and adjusting the 
     margins accordingly;
       (D) by striking ``this section, the term'' and inserting 
     ``this section--
       ``(1) the term''; and
       (E) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(2) the term `tobacco product' has the meaning given such 
     term in section 201(rr) of the Federal Food, Drug, and 
     Cosmetic Act.''.
       (b) FDA.--
       (1) In general.--Section 906(d) of the Federal Food, Drug, 
     and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 387f(d)) is amended--
       (A) in paragraph (3)(A)(ii), by striking ``18 years'' and 
     inserting ``21 years''; and
       (B) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(5) Minimum age of sale.--It shall be unlawful for any 
     retailer to sell a tobacco product to any person younger than 
     21 years of age, consistent with section 1140.14 of title 21, 
     Code of Federal Regulations (or any successor 
     regulations).''.
       (2) Regulations.--Not later than 180 days after the date of 
     enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Health and Human 
     Services shall update regulations issued under chapter IX of 
     the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 387 et 
     seq.) as appropriate to carry out the amendments made by 
     paragraph (1).
       (c) Non-preemption.--Nothing in the amendments made by 
     subsection (a) or (b) shall be construed to prevent a State 
     or local governmental entity from establishing, enforcing, or 
     maintaining a law with respect to sales of tobacco products 
     to individuals below a minimum age, provided that such State 
     or local law is in addition to, or more stringent than, 
     Federal law.
                                 ______