[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 33 (Monday, August 18, 1997)]
[Pages 1223-1224]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
The President's Radio Address

August 9, 1997

    The President. Good morning. Vice President Gore has joined me today 
to talk to you about what we're doing to reduce smoking, especially by 
young people, and to protect Americans from the potential threat of 
secondhand tobacco smoke.
    Cigarette smoking is the most single significant public health 
problem facing our people today. Every year, more Americans die from 
smoking-related diseases than from AIDS, car accidents, murders, 
suicides, and fires combined, taking a terrible human toll and putting 
great financial burdens on our health care system and on businesses all 
across America.
    Last year we took bold action to shield our children from tobacco, 
telling the tobacco companies: Market and sell your products to adults 
if you wish, but you must draw the line at children. And we launched a 
comprehensive plan that prohibits retailers from selling tobacco to 
minors and requires clerks to check I.D.'s before selling cigarettes to 
the young people. These regulations are critical to our goal of keeping 
tobacco out of our children's lives, but they must be enforced. I 
requested $34 million for enforcement in my 1998 budget, but Congress 
has cut that funding. I urge the Congress to do the right thing and 
restore the full $34 million when they return in September. We need to 
do more to cut off our children's access to tobacco, and this is no time 
to cut corners.
    This week I signed historic legislation that balances the budget in 
a way that protects our values, invests in our people, and prepares us 
for the 21st century. Our balanced budget includes a 15-cents-a-pack 
cigarette tax to help States provide health care for up to 5 million 
uninsured children and helps to prevent many young people from taking up 
smoking in the first place.
    But we must do more to protect all Americans from the dangers of 
smoking. One of the most important things we can do is to protect those 
who don't use tobacco from the threat of secondhand smoke. And I'd like 
to ask the Vice President to say just a few words about what that threat 
means to our families and children.

[At this point, Vice President Gore made brief remarks.]

    The President. Thank you. Today I am signing an Executive order that 
takes the next step and bans smoking in all Federal facilities under the 
control of our administration. A year from today, every Federal agency 
and office building, every visitor's center at every national park, 
every facility owned or leased by the executive branch must be smoke-
free.
    Now, this order does allow agencies to designate smoking areas for 
their employees who smoke, as long as these areas are ventilated to the 
outside and nonsmoking employees do not have to enter them. Our Federal 
workers and the thousands of people who visit Federal facilities will 
now be protected from the risk of secondhand smoke.
    This fall, I hope we'll begin an important national debate on 
additional measures we can enact to reduce smoking, especially by 
children. I applaud the State attorneys general and public health 
advocates for providing us an extraordinary opportunity to engage in 
this debate and to build on the progress we've already made. I'm 
particularly pleased their plan includes a proposal, based on a bill by 
Representative Henry Waxman, to protect all Americans from secondhand 
smoke. And I look forward to working together in the months ahead to 
meet this challenge.
    Americans who have made the choice not to use tobacco products 
should not be put at risk by those who choose to smoke. With this step 
we're taking today, millions of Americans will be able to breathe just a 
little easier.

[[Page 1224]]

    Thanks for listening.

Note: The President spoke at 10:06 a.m. from the Oval Office at the 
White House.