Tobacco Settlement News on the Web Archive, 1998
SETTLEMENT Talks News on the Web
Archive, 1998
Note: These articles wink in and out of existence with the frequency of sub-atomic particles. Many links will be dead. In that case, these pages can be approached as bibliographies, both noting the event, and showing where you might look for further information.
- THE PRINCIPAL test the president and Congress will face next year has nothing to do with the budget, taxes, Medicare, highways, trade -- the normal stuff of legislative politics. It transcends all those in both importance -- it is literally a matter of life and death -- and in the demands it will place on them. The demands are not just political, but moral. The question, in fact, is whether they can set aside normal politics long enough to pass decent, comprehensive tobacco legislation.
- The fight over tobacco has degenerated into an emotional brawl, involving smokers, health lobbyists, tobacco farmers and liberal activists. Only one group seems certain to benefit: the lawyers.
- Our panel gave Clinton credit for identifying tobacco-industry abuses and teen smoking as hot-button issues, and saw his use of the bully pulpit as a major factor in this year's $368.5 billion settlement between the industry and 40 state attorneys general. Clinton's grade is tarnished, however, by the fact that congressional action on the deal was postponed until next year, and the chances of its passage remain uncertain.
- Many public health groups and President Clinton have already rejected the June agreement as too favorable to the industry. And though no one expects the agreement to become law without some changes, the battle lines have formed over the extent to which it should be reshaped as it moves through Congress. Tobacco producers have mounted a lobbying campaign of huge proportion, spending more than $30 million to hire such influential figures as George J. Mitchell, the former Senate majority leader. But some public health groups, state attorneys general and plaintiffs' lawyers, who support the settlement agreement, have also hired lobbyists, as have those seeking to extract greater concessions from the industry.
- Congress wants to put its stamp on the massive settlement several state attorneys general and Big Tobacco approved this summer. That's appropriate; former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop argues the tobacco companies should do more to curtail smoking. But Congress should not stray too far from the delicately crafted agreement. Big Tobacco takes a $368.5 billion hit under it. And lots of the tobacco money would flow back to states to ease their Medicaid costs. Congress needs to make its recommendations, but then move on.
- Geoffrey C. Bible, chairman and chief executive officer of Philip Morris Cos. Inc., recently was named one of "the executives at 10 U.S. companies who made waves and made news" in 1997. The list was compiled by Bloomberg News, the New York-based financial news service that has made a virtual cottage industry out of following Philip Morris and other tobacco companies through the labyrinth of court battles, regulatory fights and political in-fighting.
- Geoffrey Bible, CEO of Philip Morris Cos., did the unheard of in an industry that for years defied public opinion, disputed medical evidence and waged war against health advocates. He sought peace.
- Along with education, "quick action early in the year on the tobacco settlement, the tobacco deal, is something I think both the president, the Speaker (of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich) and others are committed to achieving," McCurry said.
- The plan, to be formally unveiled in February as part of the fiscal 1999 budget, would raise nearly $10 billion in 1999 and between $40 billion and $60 billion over five years. . . That's likely to draw opposition from some Republicans and supporters of tobacco interests, but White House officials said they are counting on public opinion to help their case. Indeed, the White House is eager to tout its plan to pay for President Clinton's new initiatives with tobacco levies, especially as congressional elections approach. If Republican opposition surfaces, Democrats believe they will have defined a potent election-year issue.
- President Clinton said yesterday that he will propose a plan to "build on" the $368.5 billion tobacco agreement between cigarette-makers and their foes, signaling that he's willing to step up his efforts to push tobacco legislation through Congress.
- Virginia communities that depend upon tobacco "would be all but destroyed" if the proposed $368.5 billion tobacco settlement is implemented without major changes, a task force named by Gov. George Allen reported yesterday. The top-level panel recommended that incoming Gov. James S. Gilmore III weigh action to help buffer Virginia's 8,400 tobacco farmers and Southside farming communities from the economic effect of any comprehensive settlement adopted by Congress.
- The North Carolina Growers Association is seeking about $7.8 billion compensation for tobacco quota owners under the pending national tobacco settlement. The association wrote to members of the North Carolina's congressional delegation Tuesday requesting that the owners receive $8 a pound under any deal struck with the industry.
- President Clinton is counting on some cash from the massive, uncompleted tobacco settlement to fund his proposals for child care. But press secretary Mike McCurry said as the $20 billion initiative was unveiled today, that there is a "very secure" feeling at the White House that the deal would soon be approved on Capitol Hill and the money forthcoming in the near future.
- In the budget he will release next month, President Clinton plans to spend $10 billion from the national settlement of legal claims against the tobacco industry. The only trick: The settlement has not actually been settled. By including the money in the budget even before tobacco legislation is crafted, the White House is taking a calculated risk that pressure will increase on the Republican-led Congress to pass the comprehensive multibillion-dollar package -- or risk taking the political heat in the fall midterm elections if it does not.
- President Clinton's 1999 budget proposal assumes that a national tobacco settlement will be enacted this year, administration spokesmen said Monday. But Clinton's aides downplayed a published report that he might propose $10 billion in cigarette excise taxes to pay for public health initiatives. They said the president simply stands by his earlier proposal to increase the cost of a pack of cigarettes by $1.50 as part of any settlement, which could generate $10 billion in fiscal 1999. "Whether those payments are in the form of a penalty, payments by the tobacco industry or taxes is something that will be debated in the national tobacco agreement and legislated," senior White House adviser Rahm Emanuel said.
- Clinton is planning to seek substantial increases in tobacco taxes, as part of a broad effort to put into law the settlement negotiated last year between the tobacco industry and states attorneys general. Raines said that the tobacco revenue would not be used to help pay for Clinton's 1999 budget. "The tobacco legislation that we will be supporting will be self-contained and will have a net-zero impact on the rest of the budget," he said.
- While many administration officials and lawmakers are optimistic that Congress will pass tobacco legislation, this is by no means assured. They added that Clinton's plans to balance the budget in fiscal 1999 do not hinge on whether the government gets the extra tobacco money. Instead, several health and education-related programs in his budget -- including new money on bio-medical research -- will be specifically "earmarked" to passage of a tobacco bill.
- State attorneys general, bemused by an earlier claim that the federal government is entitled to a big share of Medicaid-related recoveries in state settlements with tobacco companies, are now less than thrilled by a Clinton budget plan. . . "They'd better not be spending our money," said James Tierney, a former Maine attorney general who is a consultant to states that have sued the tobacco industry. "The states would be universally upset if the administration is proposing wiping out the state cases, taking the money we negotiated and spending it for nontobacco purposes."
- The Justice Department's criminal investigation of the tobacco industry will impose new pressures on Congress when it considers a massive tobacco settlement and endangers a key provision that protects cigarette makers from lawsuits, say observers close to the issue.
- The White House plans to propose a significant rise in cigarette prices to help finance domestic spending initiatives in President Clinton's new budget, a U.S. official said Thursday. The official, who asked not to be identified, declined to confirm a report in Thursday's Wall Street Journal that Clinton's fiscal 1999 budget would seek a 50-cent to 60-cent per pack increase in cigarette prices next year.
- We find out now that they were growing a "speed weed," or whatever you want to call it, the tobacco leaf that would ensure addiction more forcefully. So they've succeeded in making our cynicism a believable policy, and we want them to come straight with us. I, therefore, think that we can get some part of an agreement. I am perhaps not optimistic but hope that we can get our excise tax in place. We've proposed that at a dollar and half per pack. . . We are not discussing immunity. We first want to make sure that they stop their onslaught on our society, that they stop seducing our kids into a terrible habit that costs us all money and grief.
- To understand why the terms "Washington lawyer" and "plaintiffs' lawyer" are becoming the most derisive characterizations of the legal profession, look no further than the conduct of some of these practitioners in Congress and court as Big Tobacco seeks to muscle its sweetheart deal with the state attorneys general into the law of the land. . . When Thomas a Becket said no to King Henry II's request that he lawyer a state takeover of the church, the king had him murdered in Canterbury Cathedral. When Thomas More refused to renounce his Catholic faith, declare the king to be head of the Church in England and legally rationalize the sovereign's divorce, King Henry VIII had him beheaded. Maybe that's why in our age attorneys Thomas a Becket and Thomas More are remembered as saints, not as lawyers.
- The White House has agreed to let states receive $196 billion of the proposed $368 billion national tobacco settlement, Mississippi Attorney General Michael Moore said Monday. Moore said top White House officials provided him with the numbers at a meeting last week.
- The notion that money received by the government should be used to pay for those events first appeared in the agreement between the tobacco companies and a group of state attorneys general last year. There are now two bills that include that idea -- one sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and the other by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz..
- President Clinton, in an effort to appease states' demands for full control of funds from the national tobacco settlement, will propose granting them nearly $20 billion in new money over the next five years. The plan, which is expected as part of his fiscal 1999 budget to be unveiled in February, would let states receive about one-third of the spoils expected from the tobacco accord . . . That is a controversial notion because many state officials, who played a key role in negotiating a settlement, have repeatedly stated they want to spend all the proceeds as they -- and not the federal government -- see fit.
- Congressional leaders disagreed Wednesday whether a multibillion-dollar settlement with the tobacco industry could be reached this year, and the White House suggested a meeting to keep the deal on track. "I think what we have to do is sit down" with key lawmakers, senior presidential aide Bruce Lindsey told Reuters. "We will be happy to sit down with them and see if we can't come to some kind of agreement on it."
- The White House today challenged Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's pessimistic assessment about prospects for passage of a national tobacco settlement and urged Lott to take a leadership role on the issue.
- The White House Wednesday disputed reported comments by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott that Congress was unlikely to enact a tobacco settlement this year, and said the legislation's prospects were "very favorable." "Our conversations on the (Capitol) Hill have indicated to us that the prospects for tobacco legislation are very favorable," White House spokesman Mike McCurry told reporters. "A growing majority of Congress seems to agree that as a matter of public health policy we need to stop kids from smoking," McCurry said.
- Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said yesterday that odds are turning against congressional enactment of a tobacco settlement this year and blamed President Clinton. In a brief interview, Lott accused Clinton of "undermining the prospects" for passage and "inflaming the problem" by proposing to spend revenue from the bill before it has passed.
- "The president has shown no leadership on it," the Mississippi Republican said in an impromptu interview. "He's complicated it with cigarette taxes." Lott said he had gone from believing the environment was favorable for passage of the tobacco legislation to believing the odds are "about 70-30 (percent) against." Lott added, "Unless he (Clinton) gets serious about it ... and stops inflaming the problem ... I don't know whether it will even come up."
- Bliley's letters were sent yesterday to Geoffrey Bible of Philip Morris Companies Inc., Steven F. Goldstone of RJR Nabisco, Vincent A. Gierer Jr. of U.S. Tobacco, N.G. Brooks of Brown & Williamson, and Alexander Spears III of Lorillard. . . . "The upcoming hearing is part of the committee's continuing effort to get all the facts out and into the open," Bliley said. "The proposed settlement raises as many questions as it answers, and it's my responsibility to obtain those answers."
- Even before Congress begins scrutinizing the historic $368.5 billion tobacco agreement, new developments are threatening to undermine the deal and cloud chances for legislation. . . . Public health advocates appeared united in their opposition to giving the industry legal immunity and vowed to lobby against it. The powerful American Medical Association, for one, passed a resolution at its December meeting in Dallas that it would not support a national tobacco policy that shielded the tobacco industry from civil lawsuits.
- State Rep. Roy Barnes, a Cobb County Democrat who is running for governor, introduced a bill Monday calling for the amendment so the state can earmark any money it gets from the proposed tobacco settlement for several health-related purposes: reimbursing the state's Medicaid costs of treating sick smokers, medical education, assistance to rural hospitals, and educational programs to prevent children and teens from starting to smoke. Without an amendment, which Georgia voters would have to approve, the settlement money would go into the state's general fund.
- The Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals announced today it will support a proposed constitutional amendment to earmark proceeds of any future tobacco settlement to support Georgia's ailing rural hospitals and provide funding for indigent care and medical education.
- In the wake of the disclosure of documents showing R.J. Reynolds geared ad campaigns to teenagers, legislators may not allow the industry to elude the courtroom.
- Congress has become less likely to grant cigarette manufacturers their most cherished goal -- broad immunity from lawsuits -- following the release of once-secret documents detailing R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.'s efforts to attract teenagers to its brands.
- Prospects for passage of national tobacco-control legislation in this session of Congress appeared dim Thursday as the White House and GOP leaders waited for each other to take the lead. President Clinton again urged Congress to pass a bill to curb teen smoking, saying the need for action was underscored by the release of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. documents that suggest the company designed its Joe Camel marketing campaign to target minors.
- After languishing for six months, the national tobacco settlement is picking up momentum, but it's not clear if that momentum will help or cripple the deal.
- But many lawmakers have balked at granting the industry immunity, and the newly released papers, obtained from R.J. Reynolds in a California lawsuit and made public on Wednesday, are expected to heighten their wariness. Senator Edward M. Kennedy said, "The tactics revealed in these documents are shameful. The industry still hopes to get away with a slap on the wrist from Congress, but disclosures like these make a timid response indefensible."
- Although President Clinton said the "disturbing" documents should encourage Congress to act swiftly, lawmakers and their aides said the new trove of documents had transformed overnight the outlook for a deal, at least a deal resembling the one agreed to by the industry last June. . . "These revelations make it almost impossible for members of Congress to give the industry immunity and then go home to face the children in their districts," said Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat and long-time tobacco foe. "The industry still hopes to get away with only a slap on the wrist from Congress, but disclosures like these make a timid response indefensible," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat.
- 01/16/98 Table: Who Wants What Health Groups, Lawyers, Republicans, Democrats, Tobacco.
- Despite all the talk of giant lawsuits and billion-dollar legal fees, the debate about tobacco in the next few months will largely be a fight over the price of cigarettes. . . No one knows what the final price of cigarettes will be. One anti-tobacco lobbyist compares the situation to chaos theory, with so many forces bouncing off each other that it's impossible to predict how the soap opera will end.
- President Clinton on Thursday used the disclosure of new evidence of how a tobacco company had courted teen-age smokers to raise the political pressure on Republicans, many of whom are less enthusiastic than he is about regulating the tobacco industry.
- President Clinton is betting his second-term agenda on a tobacco deal. With the tobacco industry in public disrepute as never before . . . Mr. Clinton is counting on the industry to bankroll a raft of popular new initiatives and help him dodge the lame-duck label.
- "The documents that came to light today show more than ever why it is absolutely imperative that Congress take action now to get tobacco companies out of the business of marketing cigarettes to children," Clinton said, talking to reporters on the South Lawn before boarding his helicopter.
- President Clinton on Thursday said new documents appeared to show the cigarette industry targeting children and called on Congress to pass comprehensive tobacco legislation quickly.
- "If reducing teenage smoking is the White House's bottom line, as it is mine, calling for action is not enough. The President must take action, exert leadership, and work with Congress to resolve the problem. "We have yet to see a legislative proposal from the White House. I hope his statements today are an indication that one is forthcoming."
- 01/16/98 OUR VIEW: Kids are Getting Lost in Tobacco Deal Shuffle
- Congress doesn't need tobacco's permission to hike tobacco taxes by $1 to $2 a pack, enact extreme fines for any sales to minors, or to regulate nicotine as an addictive product. It needs only to give up its own addiction to tobacco's big political contributions. Perhaps negotiators can still find a way to toughen the proposed deal. But in the meantime, the tobacco settlement looks more like a bargain for the industry to keep making money - and government to spend it - than a health program to get people, especially kids, to stop smoking.
- Not only is it unfair to the employees of Reynolds Tobacco to strip these documents from the context and perspective of the broad company record as well as the social standards of the times in which they were created, it is unfair to the American people and serves only the agenda of some who seek to benefit from a broad misperception of how this company has conducted its business. Reynolds Tobacco stands by its long-held commitment to reduce youth smoking and supports the objectives of the proposed national settlement that seek to further that objective.
- "For Clinton this is politics as usual," says TIME correspondent Bruce Van Voorst, who has been tracking the deal. "He'll play the game, but if there's no bill he'll simply blame the Republicans." . . . Clinton has never even formally endorsed the settlement. And he has yet to submit anything in legislative language to the Hill. He's not helping a bit, because politically he's better off without it.
- President Clinton called today for strong bipartisan legislation to keep the tobacco industry out of the youth market and permit the regulation of tobacco as a drug. After decades of denials from the industry, Clinton said, newly released documents from a major cigarette producer show a longstanding campaign to hook teen-agers and create a new legion of lifetime smokers.
- In his weekly radio address today, Clinton said the legislation must include a plan that imposes strict penalties on companies that don't comply. According to the president, "To do that we need our comprehensive, bipartisan legislation." . . The president said, "Young people are not the future of the tobacco industry. They are the future of America."
- The tobacco industry continued to weave in and out of state and federal courts and public policy debates on a march toward determining the size of its financial burden for smoking-related health-care costs. . . . While the industry may be putting out a fire with the Texas settlement, but another case in Minnesota may next week prove more troublesome. And political observers say President Clinton is betting his second-term agenda on a tobacco deal.
- Anti-tobacco leaders say they have the industry on the run, partly because of new documents showing decades of deliberate cigarette sales to children. Now they are determined to deny tobacco firms what they want most from a proposed national litigation settlement: immunity from class-action lawsuits and punitive damages, plus an annual cap on payments to individuals who win suits against tobacco firms.
- Tobacco industry hopes that Congress would take the bait and accept last year's proposed $368 billion settlement of the industry's legal problems went up in smoke last Wednesday.
- Instead, the most contentious issue is the comprehensive tobacco settlement reached by 41 state attorneys general and the big tobacco companies last summer. It dwarfs the other issues and affects them all.
- And tobacco-watcher Ethan Siegal, who runs the Washington Exchange, a financial newsletter, offered this assessment: "I can't say, with the same assuredness I had even two weeks ago, that tobacco will get its deal. It won't be easy to get politicians to stick their neck out on lawsuit immunity -- not when you've got all these documents coming out which say to the public, `You can't trust the industry to police itself."'
- If Congress approves tobacco control legislation, Sen. Phil Gramm wants any money earmarked for the federal government to help finance privatization of Medicare. The Texas Republican is preparing legislation to use part of a $368.5 billion settlement proposed by tobacco makers and state attorneys general as seed money to help finance a new Medicare system.
- "Remember that we once prepared a detailed plan called the Health Care Plan and got killed," Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala said on "Fox News Sunday." "So what we've done this time is said, let's draft the legislation together, we'll give you the outlines of what we must have. Let's do this in a bipartisan manner," she said. . . ' He kept it at the White House over three months, just kind of fumbling with it, after an agreement was reached," Lott said. . . Lott firmly said that he would not support a tax increase on cigarettes.
- There is an art to congressional testimony. The first rule is: You fudge, you dissemble, you change the subject, but you don't lie. The second rule is: You never lie to your friends in public. . . The real issue is that it makes your friends look ridiculous. And Tom Bliley can't afford to look ridiculous. That's why he has ordered the same execs back up to his committee at the end of January. And make no mistake, his welcome will be a lot less cordial this time around. . . But tobacco already has squandered much of that goodwill. In a campaign year, it will be hard for GOP lawmakers to defend an industry that stands accused of getting kids addicted to the deadly weed. That's a lot to ask of any pol, especially one that has been hung out to dry by the folks asking for help.
- Can Congress say yes to a deal when new evidence shows how Big Tobacco targeted teens?
- [I]f we don't get the tobacco settlement we'll either have to cut the size of the child care initiative or cut elsewhere or do something else because I will not just on my own get up and propose that we spend the proposed settlement or part of it on these programs. I think they're terribly important, but right now we've got other fish to fry,
- On other issues, Clinton said . . . He would favor strengthening the power of the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco companies if Congress fails to enact a national tobacco settlement. He said that "long term, we need to deter teen smoking with more than just a higher price tag for cigarettes."
- One questioner asked Gingrich whether Congress this year would approve a tobacco settlement . . . "I honestly don't know," he replied, listing several areas of concern. "A lot of people are concerned about giving liability protection to one industry." Gingrich noted that congressional Republicans probably would insist on capping payments to lawyers in any settlement. And he suggested that any money that tobacco companies pay to expand Medicaid coverage should be offset by a tax cut. Otherwise, Gingrich said, Democrats would use a settlement as a back-door way to increase spending.
- Separately, Mr. Archer threw his weight behind Republican efforts to alter the proposed tobacco settlement by capping lawyers' fees and using those savings for state programs that "promote marriage, work, payment of child support, and better parenting." The proposal is an attempt to blunt the political windfall Democrats hope to reap by endorsing huge fees on tobacco companies to pay for a range of social initiatives, ideas that many Republicans oppose.
- The House's top tax writer today called on Congress to approve a major tax cut and lock in the reduction with a lid on the federal tax burden for individuals and businesses. "Despite two years of tax cutting, the tax take on the American people is the highest in our nation's history, surpassed only during the Second World War," Rep. Bill Archer, R-Texas, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in prepared remarks. . . Archer called for limiting attorneys' fees in the proposed $368 billion tobacco settlement pending before Congress and using $1 billion of the money for a program called Fatherhood Counts
- The Senate Commerce Committee announced Wednesday that it has asked the chairmen of five tobacco companies to testify at a hearing Feb. 24. Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., invited the chairmen of Philip Morris Companies, Inc., Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corp., RJR Nabisco, Inc., Loews Corp. and UST, Inc (USTB). They are not required to testify.
- WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- The Coalition for Workers' Health Care Funds today applauded John Garrison, CEO of the American Lung Association, for his stand in opposition to lawsuit immunity for the tobacco industry.
- Some state chapters of the American Heart Association are urging the group to stop lobbying for the national tobacco deal that gives cigarette makers legal protections, a sign of growing dissension over the proposal. "How tragic it would be if after the settlement is accomplished and the dust has settled, the public perception were that the AHA had been duped by the tobacco industry," says a strongly worded Jan. 15 letter from the Kentucky branch of the AHA.
- Big Tobacco has made itself yet another enemy. The grassroots anti-tobacco lobby group "Save Lives Not Tobacco, " a coalition of smoking foes who've joined forces to fight proposed legal immunity for tobacco companies, is scheduled to unveil it's platform in Washington Thursday. With Congress coming back Jan. 26, the coalition, which includes former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, is hoping to rally public opinion against the legal protections for tobacco companies included in a $368.5 billion industry/government settlement yet to be ratified.
- Tobacco enemies break ranks Anne Morrow Donley of Richmond, a veteran fighter against her hometown tobacco industry, is preparing to escalate the battle. Tomorrow, Donley will join a number of grassroots allies in unveiling a national anti-tobacco coalition that breaks away from mainstream public health groups and takes aim at proposed legal protections for the tobacco industry. The new "Save Lives, Not Tobacco" coalition seeks to prevent Congress from ratifying what they call a legal "bailout" for Big Tobacco. It boasts more than 150 backers, including the well-financed Association of Trial Lawyers of America and the American Lung Association.Here's the Save Lives, Not Tobacco site.
- More than 75% of Americans say a balanced budget and revamping Social Security and Medicare should be among Congress's absolute priorities this year. And 72% say expanding federal support for education should be, while 58% say cutting taxes. Passing "fast track" trade authority, the tobacco deal and campaign-finance reform can wait, the public says.
- Finalizing the proposed settlement reached last year between the nation's state attorneys general and the big tobacco companies*
- Absolute Priority For This Year 40
- Can Be Delayed Until Next Year 50
- Not Sure 10
- Lott said the settlement is "good in many respects, in termsof fighting teen smoking, health care, and including the liability protections."
- Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott Friday gave another pessimistic appraisal of the chances for a comprehensive tobacco settlement, saying, "I don't see it right now." The Mississippi Republican said Congress needed to "find some ways to deal with" the problems of teen smoking and tobacco's toll on health in America but that there was only about a 30 percent chance of passage of a settlement package.
- Lott recalled that he told Clinton: "Mr. President, oh, yeah, you've got it set up great -- if we don't do anything you're going to attack us, saying, 'Oh, well, you're just trying to look after your tobacco friends."'
- Another Wall Street bull turned bearish on prospects that Congress will pass the proposed, multibillion-dollar national tobacco settlement in 1998. In a morning research note to investors, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter's David Adelman, one of the Street's more respected tobacco analysts, said he believes it is "relatively unlikely" a national tobacco deal will come this year.
- Stocks of tobacco companies were the one sector said to be feeling the influence of Clinton's troubles. "The tobacco investors clearly are going to feel more anxious. . . . They were looking to him for leadership" in brokering a settlement of litigation against the tobacco companies, said Ellen Baras, a tobacco industry analyst with Nesbitt Burns Securities in Chicago.
- Tobacco stocks fell Thursday as the market viewed the investigation into President Clinton's alleged extra-marital affairs as an impediment to reaching a resolution of the proposed $368.5 billion national tobacco settlement. . . "I think the market is concerned that the current presidential scandal could reduce President Clinton's effectiveness as a thought-leader, as a politician," said Morgan Stanley Dean Witter analyst David Adelman. "To the extent that he is less effective, it will hurt the prospects for a settlement."
- Fractious anti-smoking groups, seeking to heal an internal rift, appear to be moving toward unified opposition to legal protections for the tobacco industry, a stand that could further complicate prospects for congressional approval of the giant tobacco truce that the industry is desperately seeking. In another potential blow to settlement prospects, several analysts said Thursday that allegations of misconduct involving President Clinton's relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky will distract the president at a time he is being called on for leadership in brokering a deal.
- Koop said he hoped to be able to announce he had achieved that goal of a truce within two weeks. "I am almost there," he said. In the meantime, "I don't think that going to one press conference of one coalition is the way to announce unity between the two," he said. . . Koop and former Food and Drug Administration commissioner David A. Kessler have worked to reconcile the two groups: specifically, to try to get key players in the ENACT coalition to speak out against the civil liability protections.
- Rep. DEBORAH PRYCE, R-Ohio. As secretary of the House Republican Conference, Pryce, 47, will be coordinator and chief House spokeswoman for GOP policy on the landmark tobacco settlement between 40 states and tobacco companies. "Unfortunately, Congress was completely left out of the negotiations. We need to start from the beginning," said Pryce, who sits on the Rules Committee that acts as gatekeeper to bills destined for House votes. Leadership sources said House Speaker Newt Gingrich sought her out to centralize the party's focus on whether the settlement would cut tobacco use by youngsters.
- Wall Street analysts are losing faith that the cigarette industry's historic settlement proposal of last June can clear Congress in its current form. Their gloomy remarks on the deal's chances contributed to a drop in tobacco-stock prices of almost 7% last week, and now more clouds loom over the $368.5 billion settlement.
- "I understand the tobacco health problem," Ford said. "But we have to somehow be able to have a transition" for farmers. . . But there's a shrinking timetable for Ford in that effort. When Congress recesses this fall and other lawmakers head home to campaign for re-election, Ford's work will be done. The Democrat, 73, will go home to Owensboro to retire.
- Known as a plain-spoken man from Kentucky, Ford has looked out for one of his state's top industries: tobacco. With an ever-present cigarette in his mouth -- either during Congressional hearings or in the hallways of power -- Ford has made sure that Senate rules allow individuals to smoke on his side of the Capitol.
- Della-Porter said Clinton's woes had been bad news for tobacco shares. He, and other analysts, had been looking towards some mention of a tobacco industry settlement in Tuesday's State of the Union address. "Without Clinton, I am not sure that anyone will come forward to advance it in the legislative pecking order," he said.
- LONDON, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Shares in tobacco and insurance group B.A.T Industries Plc dipped in a rising UK equity maket on Monday, as analysts at NatWest Securities cut the stock to "hold" from "add," dealers said. . . Traders said the downgrade reflected two main factors -- the company's exposure to the strength of the pound, coupled with concerns that the U.S. tobacco industry may suffer if U.S. President Bill Clinton, seen as relatively friendly to the industry, is forced from office.
- Califano's chief complaint -- that the agreement restricts class-action lawsuits -- ignores the realities of our legal environment. Judges take a dim view of certifying class actions. Recent efforts to certify a class action -- for nicotine and asbestos -- have failed. To date, I am aware of no class action on tobacco that has succeeded. Even the recent settlement in the flight attendants' class action provides no financial award to plaintiffs. In stark contrast, the attorneys general agreement gives every citizen who believes he or she is injured by tobacco the right to a day in court and strengthens every legal case by guaranteeing each plaintiff unprecedented access to "smoking gun" documents. . . Legislation built on the tobacco agreement will save lives.die
- History appears ready to repeat itself. Faced with unprecedented legal challenges, tobacco companies again have run to Congress with a "compromise" deal . . . Immunity would be a stunning victory for the industry negotiators. The deal would change the rules in a way that would make it virtually impossible for anyone to win against the tobacco industry. . . To give the industry the immunity it seeks, Congress would have to preempt every state's fraud, antitrust, conspiracy and racketeering laws.
- he American Academy of Family Physicians today called on them to pass comprehensive tobacco control in 1998 -- and to reject any legislation that limits the rights of victims of the tobacco industry to seek compensation for injuries they have suffered.
- As Congress reconvenes this week, public-health groups appear to be moving toward a consensus to oppose shielding the tobacco companies from class-action lawsuits and punitive damages for their past actions. And pro-tobacco sources on Capitol Hill said that it will be difficult for politicians who are not from tobacco states to explain a vote for immunity. Those sources also speculated that the Republican-led Congress, afraid of being linked to an unpopular industry in an election year, might pass a scaled-down tobacco-control bill that increases tobacco excise taxes. "Republicans fear getting clobbered on tobacco," said one aide.
- It could be a tough week for Big Tobacco. Given the industry's rough-sledding of late, that's saying something.
- President Bill Clinton on Tuesday urged lawmakers to approve a $1.50 per pack hike in cigarette prices over 10 years and slap penalties on tobacco companies if they keep marketing cigarettes to youths. "Let's pass bipartisan, comprehensive legislation that will change the way tobacco companies do business forever," Clinton said in the prepared text of his State of the Union speech to Congress.
- TOBACCO -- Seek congressional approval of tobacco-control legislation that contains five elements: reducing teen smoking, affirming the FDA's regulation of nicotine, holding tobacco companies responsible for child marketing, improving public health, and protecting the economic well-being of tobacco farmers.
- The AAFP -- which has called for comprehensive tobacco control legislation in 1998 -- welcomed the President's leadership but called on him to take the further step of pledging to reject any legislation that limits the rights of victims of the tobacco industry to seek compensation for injuries they have suffered. "Tobacco companies must be held accountable for their wrongdoing," said Patrick Harr, M.D., Chairman of the AAFP Board of Directors and a practicing family physician in Maryville, Missouri.
- Republicans and Democrats alike who once supported the settlement have grown skittish after the recent release of documents from R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. showing that the company targeted teen-agers. Many other wild cards are lurking as well -- from lawyers demanding high fees to convenience-store clerks demanding a cut. . . "The deal will die a thousand deaths," said tobacco analyst Ethan Siegal of the financial newsletter The Washington Exchange. "It is very complicated. It will bring everyone out of the woodwork."
- The Senate Republican in charge of tobacco legislation said he doubts Congress would enact last June's comprehensive tobacco settlement but will seek a "significant campaign against young people smoking." "We will come up with a significant bill to reduce teen smoking," Assistant Republican Senate leader Don Nickles of Oklahoma told reporters.
- The Senate Republican in charge of tobacco legislation said Monday he doubts Congress would enact last June's comprehensive tobacco settlement but will seek a "significant campaign against young people smoking." "We will come up with a significant bill to reduce teen smoking," Assistant Republican Senate leader Don Nickles of Oklahoma told reporters.
- Next, we must help parents protect their children from the gravest health threat that they face -- an epidemic of teen smoking, spread by multimillion dollar marketing campaigns. I challenge Congress -- let's pass bipartisan, comprehensive legislation that will improve public health, protect our tobacco farmers and change the way tobacco companies do business forever. Let's do what it takes to bring teen smoking down. Let's raise the price of cigarettes by up to $1.50 a pack over the next 10 years with penalties on the tobacco industry if it keeps marketing to our children. Tomorrow, like every day, 3,000 children will start smoking, and 1,000 will die early as a result. Let this Congress be remembered as the Congress that saved their lives.
- Clinton did not say how he planned to pay for those proposals, and it appeared the president was relying on an anticipated surplus and a tobacco settlement to fund his programs, Domenici said. "Now I will speculate that he, perhaps, intends to pay for it by taking money out of the cigarette settlement -- if we ever get one -- and saying that the United States government is entitled to part of it and then offer it as a means of paying for this litany of new programs," Domenici said.
- Like the president, I want to stop youth smoking, but the narcotics problem is a far greater threat to teen-agers. . . In addition, we're committed to more positive reforms in health care, protection of workers' rights and paychecks, reform of bankruptcy laws and legislation to combat teen smoking.
- DeLay also cast doubt on the fate of the tobacco settlement, saying Republicans had doubts about the precedent that would be set if tobacco companies have immunity from prosecution.
- White House officials expressed a high degree of confidence that political pressure is mounting on Congress to pass the legislation, given recent revelations that tobacco companies actively targeted underage smokers with marketing campaigns. 'It will be very difficult for Congress to go home without tobacco legislation,' one official said. 'When initiatives are popular, no one wants to oppose the president,' he added.
- Much of the money for his initiatives would come from a settlement with the tobacco companies over the lawsuits charging them with knowingly endangering the health of smokers. Mr. Clinton's hopes for a newly activist role for government thus rests on the chances of settling these suits in a favorable way over the next year or so. That is a risky gambit filled with potential problems, not least the question of how to pay for the new programs once the tobacco suit money runs out.
- The president also may find himself undercut on winning approval of tough tobacco-settlement legislation. Instead, legislation pushed by Republicans -- and more generous to tobacco companies -- might emerge. Clinton is counting on a tobacco deal for $65 billion over five years to pay for social spending.
- It has been a foregone conclusion that any tobacco legislation would boost prices -- bringing in billions of dollars in revenue from tobacco companies -- because public-health officials agree that doing so is one of the best ways to curb underage smoking. But conservative Republicans are privately using the presidential crisis to chip away at this assumption, portraying a climate in which the president and antitobacco Democrats would have trouble imposing a price increase of any size.
- Even before Congress completes hearings on a proposed multibillion-dollar tobacco deal, Republican leaders are coming out against a key provision that would protect tobacco companies from lawsuits. "Amongst the (Senate) leadership on the Republican side, there's not a lot of interest in granting immunity to tobacco," Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., said after President Clinton's State of the Union address. "And if you don't have immunity, the tobacco boys aren't going to be willing to participate."
- But several prominent Republicans, notably House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas and Senate Assistant Majority Leader Don Nickles of Oklahoma, have begun to talk of a less comprehensive bill aimed at youth smoking. . . Meanwhile, North Dakota Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad Wednesday briefed Senate Democratic leader Thomas Daschle on the draft of a Democratic tobacco task force bill. Conrad refused to directly confirm accounts from several sources that the Democratic bill would not give the companies legal immunity but dropped a big hint by telling Reuters: "If the industry expects they are going to get special protection as they move forward, they're wrong."
- Even as lawmakers prepare to open another round of tobacco hearings Thursday, most are declaring the $368.5 billion tobacco settlement dead. "Everything is in a real state of flux right now," said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz.
- Clinton is counting on a tobacco deal and increased taxes on cigarettes for $65 billion over five years to pay for many of his new social spending programs. "I believe from what we saw last night, reading between the lines, you saw this president saying he's totally behind it and he's going to try to get it done because his new programs fall if it isn't done," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M.
- For example, Mr. Jordan's position as a director of RJR Nabisco, the second-largest manufacturer of cigarettes, didn't stop him from helping appoint federal health officials when he chaired the president's transition team in 1993. "I don't think the American people should be concerned about it," Mr. Clinton said at the time. During his State of the Union address Tuesday, however, Mr. Clinton called smoking "the gravest health threat" faced by teen-agers. Mr. Jordan resigned from RJR several years ago, but remains on the boards of several large corporations that benefited from the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
- Liggett Is Only Tobacco Company To Sign Pledge; Pledge Includes Commitment To Not Oppose FDA Regulations
- "Now that the tobacco companies have stopped hiding the truth and are openly acknowledging that nicotine is addictive, there should be little dispute that lethal, addictive drugs should be held to the highest of public health standards," said Dr. Rob Crane, a physician with The Ohio State University Hospitals and Tobacco-To-21 coalition founder . . . Crane has led the fight for legislation introduced Tuesday by State Senator Grace Drake (R-Solon) in the Ohio Senate. Drake's Senate Bill 221 proposes to raise the age requirement for tobacco to 21 and increases the penalties for retailers who sell tobacco to underage smokers. Drake is also considering a provision to strengthen tobacco licensing.
- Several powerful lawmakers warned the heads of the country's major tobacco companies Thursday that Congress has the power to pass legislation cracking down on their industry -- and does not need permission from the cigarette-makers to do so.
- Four of five executives from top tobacco companies admitted under oath to a congressional panel Thursday that the nicotine in tobacco can be defined as additive. "From the definitions we are using today, yes, it would be addictive," said Vincent Gierer Jr., chief executive of UST Inc. (UST)
- "Despite their conciliatory tone," Waxman said of the tobacco executives, "they haven't offered us anything except to go along with a deal that is very favorable to them because it limits liability and provides assured profitability."
- The officials sought in both the tone and substance of their remarks to rally support for the embattled accord and distance themselves from their predecessors, who had declared in a 1994 congressional appearance that they never marketed tobacco to children -- and even questioned links between smoking and diseases like lung cancer.
- THE CHIEF executives of the major tobacco companies told Congress yesterday that they could not "agree," as one unfortunately put it, to comprehensive tobacco legislation that did not include limits on their future liability. It was an odd and anachronistic choice of words in testimony otherwise carefully crafted by the companies' PR people to sound somewhere between virtuous and contrite. The implication was that this was still to be regarded as a deal instead of an act of Congress and an expression of national policy. But the deal stage has been left behind, and the Founders left the tobacco industry out of the Constitution.
- Tobacco executives told a House panel Thursday they will not agree to a settlement that deletes protection from future lawsuits, but a key Democrat retorted that Congress doesn't "need the tobacco industry's blessing" to pass legislation sealing the deal. "We cannot agree to any legislation that does not include the limited commonsense civil liability protections," said Nick Brookes, chairman and chief executive officer of Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.
- The heads of five leading tobacco companies urged Congress Thursday to pass the $368.5 billion deal they negotiated with the states but now under attack in Congress. In written testimony prepared for a House of Representatives Commerce Committee hearing scheduled for later Thursday obtained by Reuters, STEVEN GOLDSTONE, chairman and CEO of RJR Nabisco Inc. was the bluntest of the five companies' executives, saying the tobacco company sells a product with "known health risks to smokers" and that it is not acceptable or "ethical to target underage smokers."
- A top tobacco company executive admitted under oath to Congress for the first time Thursday that cigarettes are dangerous. The testimony by RJR Nabisco chairman and CEO STEVEN GOLDSTONE came at a hearing where industry leaders pushed Congress to enact a $368.5 billion deal giving them partial immunity from future lawsuits.
- The head of Philip Morris (MO - news) said Thursday the company would quickly release most of its huge cache of tobacco documents although it would continue to withhold some privileged ones. Chairman and CEO GEOFFREY BIBLE told the House Commerce Committee that he would release documents that have long been sought by critics of the tobacco industry. But certain documents covered under attorney-client privilege and some involving competetive trade secrets would also be withheld.
- While the House Commerce Committee debated lofty issues about the tobacco settlement and public health, Rep. Michael Bilirakis wanted to know about the effect on vending machine owners. In his one chance to ask questions of tobacco industry executives, Bilirakis, R-Palm Harbor, quizzed them about whether the vending industry would be compensated because the settlement would ban all cigarettes sales in vending machines. "Nobody seems to be speaking on behalf of the vending machine operators," Bilirakis told the tobacco executives. His comments drew snickers from the audience.
- In stark contrast to a controversial statement four years ago, the head of Philip Morris Cos. will tell Congress today that "under some definitions, cigarette smoking is addictive." At a crucial hearing that could determine the fate of the $368.5-billion tobacco settlement, Philip Morris chairman and CEO Geoffrey C. Bible also will acknowledge the health risks of the 900-billion cigarettes his company sells yearly.
- Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, is still backing his own bill, which does include some civil immunity. He said it is not realistic to get a bill "without some sort of civil liability protection." Hatch said he did not understand why the Reynolds documents had shaken prospects for a settlement. "It seems that some people looked at those and decided this was a sleazy industry. I knew they were sleazy a long time ago."
- Tobacco executives are prepared to broadly defend the industry's embattled settlement to lawmakers Thursday, warning that they won't accept tobacco legislation that doesn't contain relief from lawsuits.
- B.A.T Industries Plc unit Brown and Williamson's chief executive Thursday told a House committee that his company would consider walking away from a proposed tobacco deal if it did not get limited civil immunity from Congress. Chairman and CEO Nicholas Brookes said that without "the limited protection" under the proposed tobacco deal, his company "would necessarily -- unwillingly, but necessarily -- ave to reconsider whether we should throw ourselves back on our constitutional protection provided by the First Amendment."
- The Chairman of Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation today told a Congressional Committee that the June 20, 1997 resolution adopted by the tobacco companies, the nation's attorneys general and the health community, represents "the very best opportunity to reduce significantly youth smoking in this country." Testifying before the House Commerce Committee, Nicholas G. Brookes, B&W's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, pledged support for the resolution, characterizing it as a "giant leap forward in delivering major public health initiatives for this country..."
- More than 2,500 union sponsored health care funds representing 33 million American workers with class action lawsuits against Big Tobacco in 29 states, today emphatically rejected a call to Congress from Brown and Williamson CEO Nick Brookes to get a bath of immunity from civil liability lawsuits.
- Today, CEOs of the five major US tobacco corporations will be confronted with images gathered by INFACT of international advertising and promotion geared to children and youth. Photos of young girls in Marlboro uniforms in Cambodia and Vietnam handing out cigarettes, Salem tattoos handed out at a shopping mall in Hong Kong, advertisements for a Camel Planet nightclub posted next to a primary school in Poland-these are just a few examples of tobacco promotion that INFACT submitted for the hearings
- PaineWebber said its analyst Emanuel Goldman reiterated his buy rating on Philip Morris Cos Inc. -- Even if there is no national tobacco settlement, tobacco companies will manage OK unless Congress passes a large excise-tax increase, Goldman said in a research note. -- A settlement is likely at some point, because the large amount of money available would be difficult to walk away from. Also, whoever occupies the White House would benefit politically from taking credit for a settlement that was seen as protecting child
- A U.S. lawmaker released on Thursday a confidential tobacco industry memo calling for a $20 million "ad blitz" to sway public opinion for Congressional approval of the tobacco settlement. REP. EDWARD MARKEY obtained the memo, sent from the BOZELL SAWYER MILLER GROUP to members of the tobacco industry, which pushed for the creation of an "exit strategy" that would pin blame on Congress for not approving the settlement.
- Millions of dollars in campaign contributions and button-holing by 100 of Washington's most powerful lobbyists won't get the $368.5 billion tobacco settlement through this Congress, according to Republican leaders in the House and Senate. Recent revelations about the industry's efforts to recruit young smokers and concerns over gran-ting tobacco companies immunity from future lawsuits have effectively destroyed the prospects for legislation approving the deal, according to top lawmakers. Even the industry's staunchest supporters, including House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Republican Conference Chairman John Boehner (Ohio), are no longer willing to shoulder the burden of pushing for a settlement. "It was already dead," Boehner declared matter-of-factly Tuesday night. "The past few weeks just put a few nails in the coffin."
- "Giving the tobacco industry immunity is very serious," said House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, Texas Republican. "We have to be very careful about the precedent we set." The recent release of tobacco papers detailing industry studies of teen smoking habits has eroded what little support existed in Congress for giving the companies immunity from punitive damages and future class-action lawsuits. "I don't sense there's any growing support for immunity, and if you don't have immunity, you probably won't have an enormous multibillion-dollar package," Mr. Nickles said. "I think the revelations of late, the documents and so forth, have made it more difficult for them to get immunity."
- The tobacco industry was going to decline which was a good thing for the country, said RJR Nabisco chairman Steven Goldstone Thursday. Goldstone, who earlier in the day told a congressional committee it was not ethical to target underage smokers with a product with known health risks, amplified his comments on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer television program. "This business is not going to grow," said Goldstone. Asked if he looked on that as a good thing for the country, Goldstone said: "Yes, I do."
- The American Association of Health Plans (AAHP) will use a four-year, $1.4 million grant from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to create a national clearinghouse for information on tobacco prevention and cessation. As part of RWJF's "Addressing Tobacco in Managed Care" initiative, AAHP will direct the National Technical Assistance Office (NTAO) which is designed to be a one-stop shop for health plans to get the resources and tools necessary for implementing tobacco prevention and cessation programs in their communities.
- Philip Morris said the signs at 3Com are not intended to be in view of TV cameras, Marlboro billboards received an unusual amount of air time in the NFC championship, broadcast by Fox Sports. . . "Under normal circumstances, you would not see those signs," he said. Lou Dermilio, a representative of Fox Sports, said the appearance of the signs in its telecast were "purely incidental and accidental."
- So, in 1995, by unanimous vote, Poway's city council prohibited self-service tobacco sales; the city's ordinance also required signs to be posted in stores stating that customers had to produce an ID in order to buy tobacco. . . when it comes to children, a different standard should apply. We can do more to protect our children from tobacco, and we ought to do it soon.
- The government divulges information on who owns lucrative tobacco quotas, and many are not involved in active farming. In the event of a quota buyout, leaf farmers deserve foremost consideration.
- We as adults must be responsible for the images and behaviors children see and ultimately model. All of us must accept some of the blame because of our own behavior which is witnessed by children. Parents who smoke should not be surprised when their children start to smoke. Sports stars and celebrities can claim that they are not role models for kids. But, like it or not, they have chosen a life in the public eye, and what they do counts.
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Witness Testimony:
- Mr. Laurence A. TISCH, Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer, Loews Corporation
- Mr. Geoffrey BIBLE, Chairman, Philip Morris Companies, Inc.
- Mr. Vincent A. GIERER Jr., Chief Executive Officer, UST, Inc.
- Mr. Steven F. GOLDSTONE, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, RJR Nabisco
- Mr. Nicholas G. BROOKES, Chairman, Brown & Williamson Tobacco Companies
- Facing opposition from both sides of the aisle in Congress, the Clinton administration backed away from its previous stance that it would like to see the tobacco industry's potential liability to be limited, or capped, in any tobacco settlement. . . 'If the issue is one of caps on liability, we have never said that caps on liability were absolutely essential to any legislation. In fact, as you recall, the President did not even address that in the principles he outlined last August about the legislation that would be required to implement a settlement,' White House Spokesman Mike McCurry said.
- "To the extent that anybody was counting on the president for leadership, this is one more roadblock in the way of giant comprehensive tobacco legislation," said John Banzhaf III, a professor at George Washington University and organizer of an anti-smoking group called Action on Smoking and Health. "Until the president gives some kind of clarity and some kind of focus, you can't expect people to go through such a complex piece of legislation."
- The budget plan also will count on raising $65.5 billion in revenue over five years from possible legislation settling claims with the tobacco industry. Of that total, $30 billion would go to fund federal tobacco programs, including initiatives for research and teen-smoking prevention. About $22 billion of the tobacco revenue would be given to states to use as they see fit. Another $7 billion would be earmarked for states to hire 100,000 new teachers and $7 billion would be used to help less-affluent families afford child care.
- The beauty of the president's plan is that all of his expensive programs are supposedly financed without increasing the deficit or drawing down the surplus, but not one dime is left for any Republican priorities. Of course, all this depends on a Republican Congress closing corporate tax loopholes that it has rejected several times before, and enacting a huge tobacco tax that is hypothetical at best. . . Begala noted that if Republicans vote with the president -- and four out of five Americans -- on tobacco taxes or gun control, they jeopardize two of their chief sources of funding, the cigarette companies and the National Rifle Association.
- "Bill Clinton told Congress this week that 'the gravest health threat' facing teenagers is tobacco. Sorry, Mr. President, that's not the case. Not when 1 out of 5 high school sophomores used marijuana in the last 30 days, and when 1 out of 3 have done so in the last year -- and unlike tobacco, Mr. President, the only one who suggested it was OK to use marijuana was you. The one who said he'd have inhaled if he could, Mr. President, was you. This is the Administration with a Surgeon General who wanted to ban cigarettes and legalize cocaine. . . "
- But after being left out of the initial settlement talks, many of Virginia's tobacco leaders decided to fend for themselves. . . Concerned Friends for Tobacco has led the way in developing something else ‹ a unique coalition with the very people who once castigated them: health activists. "If we can help the farmers, the farmers are going to help us," said Scott Ballin, a consultant for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a Washington-based anti-smoking group whose leaders played a role in shaping the proposed settlement.
- This document dump gives the public nothing more than would be produced in the Minnesota case anyway. Let the tobacco companies show that this is really "a new day," as their PR machine likes to claim, and not just another desperate survival ploy. I say this to the tobacco industry: If you want a clean break with your decades of deceit, let the American people know the whole truth! --Release the 240,000 documents now under crime-fraud review in Minnesota.. --Release all science and health documents in your lawyers files. --Release the computerized indexes of documents (what are called the "4A" and "4B" indices in the Minnesota case) which would permit an effective review of the 33 million.
- If anyone needed proof of how profoundly the tobacco wars have changed, evidence could be found sitting before a House committee on Thursday in Washington.
- DIRECTOR RAINES: . . With the tobacco legislation, which we expect to be an exactation from the tobacco industry, meaning we want to raise the cost of cigarettes to reduce usage, particularly among teenagers. We want to see the cost of cigarettes go up. We do not want to see that revenue go to the benefit of tobacco companies. We believe that money should go to the benefit of the federal government and state governments. And so that will come through the federal government as a receipt to the federal government, some of which the federal government will keep and some of which will go directly to states.
- Q Mike, Michael Moore said on Thursday that he thought the only think that could save the tobacco settlement --which obviously he was instrumental in negotiating -- is a sit-down meeting, a summit at the White House with Congressional leaders, people from the tobacco industry, et cetera -- to have that level of personal involvement by the President. Is anything like that being contemplated or conceivable?
- President Clinton Monday proposed that Congress enact bipartisan tobacco legislation to raise the price of a pack of cigarettes by $1.50 over 10 years and require the industry to make "lump sum" payments totaling $65 billion over five years. . . The tobacco revenue would be used for a variety of social and health programs, with the biggest single chunk of more than $25 billion over five years going to the Research Fund for America, which would finance biomedical research into cancer and other diseases through the National Institutes of Health. Another $22 billion would include payments for states, programs to help people quit smoking, and assistance to tobacco farmers. His five-year plan also includes $1.2 billion for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to enforce tobacco policies, $400 million for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention smoking prevention, and $800 million for clinical trials for Medicare patients with cancer.
- The proposals for new spending on school buildings, teachers and child care contained in President Clinton's budget are flawed, Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, said. In an interview on CNBC Monday, Gramm, a member of the Senate Budget Committee, said . . any money from a tobacco settlement should go to the federal health-care program for older Americans. "The whole logic of a tobacco settlement is that it goes to help reimburse the taxpayer for costs we have borne by people smoking and the health effects of people smoking," he said. "People don't smoke and then decide to tear down school buildings," he added.
- "This year this Congress has a choice to make," said Rahm Emanuel, Clinton's senior adviser. "They can either stand shoulder to shoulder with corporate tobacco and their profits or protect our children and insure their health and safety." Republicans, who receive far more in campaign contributions from the tobacco industry than do Democrats, are already angry over the trap that Clinton has set for them.
- TOBACCO: Raise $65.5 billion in new revenue through congressional implementation of a comprehensive settlement with tobacco companies. The amount would be equivalent to a $1.50 per pack increase in cigarette taxes.
- It's still too early to say where all this is headed. But Congress appears to be moving toward enacting the parts of the global settlement the tobacco companies don't like, while rejecting the one part they most need -- immunity from future lawsuits. That won't be easy to pull off. The tobacco companies still have clout with Republicans in Congress
- Rep. Sherrod Brown says any tobacco settlement reached by Congress should include stiff penalties for tobacco companies that continue to target children. . . These same companies have consistently lied to the public about their efforts to hook our children, manipulate nicotine levels and cover up their own internal health research," Brown said. "Based on this track record of deception, the terms of any tobacco settlement considered by this committee must include strong protections to discourage children from smoking and stiff penalties for firms that continue such practices."
- To pay for the new programs while still producing budget surpluses, Clinton is proposing raising $24 billion over five years in "loophole" closers, mainly taxes on corporate activities, and $65.5 billion -- the equivalent of a $1.50 per pack cigarette tax -- from a tobacco settlement that Congress has yet to approve. Domenici called it highly "speculative" for Clinton to count on the tobacco money given the opposition in Congress. . . 9But White House Budget Director Franklin Raines, appearing with Domenici on "Fox News Sunday," rejected that charge, contending that Clinton's program stayed within the spending caps set by the agreement. "The president's proposals are all paid for and he balances the budget three years early," said Raines.
- "As a result of this, you may well see Congress forced to address the tobacco settlement sooner and perhaps differently than they would have otherwise," said Dave Mason, an analyst with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington.
- "The president's budget makes enacting national tobacco legislation a priority, but Congress should assure that this legislation supports public health programs." Toward that end, APHA is already working with Congress to enact national tobacco legislation that will contain: 1) an increase in the excise tax; 2) restrictions on advertising; 3) full FDA authority to regulate tobacco; 4) full disclosure of industry documents; 5) no preemption of state or local laws and regulations; 6) international tobacco control efforts; and 7) no special legal protections for the tobacco industry.
- President Clinton's $1.73 trillion spending plan was attacked by Republicans today for promising billions of dollars in new spending for politically popular programs but counting on a questionable tobacco settlement to fund many of the increases.
- President Clinton found a way to get around the strict spending caps set by Congress: raise tobacco taxes by $65.5 billion over five years and then allocate that money to domestic priorities.
- Loath to give Clinton a new stream of revenue to spend, some senior Republicans have loudly announced their opposition to partial immunity from future lawsuits for Big Tobacco -- a key industry demand for any legislation. The longer that issue remains unresolved, the harder it will be for Clinton to finance his call for more child care benefits or smaller classrooms for early primary grades.
- Yet Clinton has not proposed any specific new tax on tobacco. And even some Democrats are a little skeptical about spending the money on programs before a way to get the revenue is in place. . . Administration officials declined to be negative. "My view is we shouldn't focus on the 'if you can't get it done,"' said Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. "We should focus on getting it done."
- If money from the tobacco deal does not materialize, Raines said, the administration and Congress would simply have to come up with other funding sources or scale back the initiatives. Administration officials believe that members of Congress will rally behind a tobacco deal once they realize it's the only painless way to get the programs their constituents want. "The issue comes down to who has the most attractive package of initiatives and 'pay-fors,' " Raines said. "And that's a discussion we're happy to get into."
- By including the anticipated funds in the budget, the White House is betting that it will increase pressure on the Republican-controlled Congress to approve tobacco legislation or face political heat for failing to do so. But some public health advocates said they feared that the settlement might be killed in the political cross-fire between the White House and Congress over the budget proposals.
- Policies that raise the price of cigarettes to deter smoking and protect Americans' health are not what most Americans think of when they hear talk of tax increases that would cause them to keep less of what they earn. But even if the revenues the administration anticipates receiving from tobacco legislation are counted as taxes, the percentage of income that Americans pay in taxes still would edge down a bit under the Clinton budget.
- The White House says that in one form or another, the tobacco money is still likely to materialize. And if not, the White House is prepared to blame Republicans for choking off a deal aimed at cutting teen smoking and for snuffing out the revenue that Clinton wants to spend on programs, including medical research and schools. "The odds of having tobacco legislation this year have been increasing dramatically," budget director Franklin Raines said yesterday on CNN.
- "Speaker Gingrich repeated in the presence of GOP leadership that any tax increase -- be it a compulsory taking from tobacco companies or any other means -- must be offset by a tax cut," said Christina Martin, spokeswoman for Mr. Gingrich. . . Mr. Gingrich, Georgia Republican, and House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas are open to the idea of a cigarette tax. Rep. John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican and conference chairman, and House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, Texas Republican, are not.
- "The president thinks this tobacco deal is a cash cow, and we are just not going to accept that," Armey said, reflecting a view among lawmakers that if Congress approves the tobacco settlement the money paid by the companies would go primarily for health and anti-smoking programs.
- Many congressional Republicans agree with some of President Clinton's budget priorities ranging from child care to using tobacco settlement funds, a political overlap that helps explain why GOP criticism of his spending plan has been somewhat muffled. . . Rep. John Kasich, R-Ohio. . . added a new twist on tobacco Tuesday. He suggested to reporters that if a settlement with the tobacco industry cannot be enacted, Republicans might consider simply raising the cigarette tax and using the proceeds for an income tax cut.
- On the question of tobacco, Mr. Kasich said his main concern was whether money raised from the tobacco companies should be used to pay the medical costs of people who become ill from smoking, or whether it should be used to pay for a tax cut. "One thing I can promise you," he said. "We are in no way going to be out there defending tobacco."
- "Our industry is dead. It just hasn't been buried yet," Sharp told a House Agriculture subcommittee Tuesday. Sharp was among a slew of Southern tobacco farmers who urged Congress to set aside part of a proposed $368.5 billion settlement with cigarette companies to compensate tobacco growers and quota holders. "It doesn't seem fair for lawyers to get more than farmers from the settlement," declared Donny Smith, who came from Willacoochee, Ga. . .
- Several congressmen from tobacco states pressed yesterday for a tobacco settlement because it is "a historic opportunity" to compensate farmers in the face of dwindling tobacco sales. And tobacco officials warned that without a settlement, this year's tobacco market will be "chaotic."
- The idea of a "buyout" is popular in parts of the Tobacco Belt, farm group leaders said Tuesday, but they called on U.S. lawmakers to fight to keep the decades-old tobacco program. There was wide agreement during a House Agriculture subcommittee hearing that growers should be compensated if Congress approves the $368.5 billion proposed tobacco settlement. One of its likely effects would be smaller demand for cigarettes and the tobacco used to make them. However, a couple of lawmakers raised the possibility that lengthy defense of the tobacco program might block the chance to get a share of the settlement.
- Tobacco growers who insist on keeping a politically precarious government price support and supply control program could wind up with nothing out of the proposed national settlement, two tobacco-state lawmakers warned Tuesday. "Tobacco is in trouble. It's gotten progressively worse over the years," said Rep. Ron Lewis, R-Ky. "Do we want to continue to fight and allow our farmers to miss an opportunity to get something out of $368 billion?" Lewis spoke during a hearing before a House Agriculture Committee panel that oversees the tobacco program that sets quotas on how much is grown and determines the price.
- The parties to the proposed settlement, and particularly the attorneys general, have concluded that its civil liability provisions are appropriate as a means to achieve a greater good. But it is incumbent on the Congress, and particularly this committee, to evaluate these liability concessions in the broader context of the public interest.
- "A provision that has not been discussed by others before is that the settlement will also create a federal cause of action for individual bodily injuries resulting from material violations of the settlement," Norton told the Judiciary Committee. "This provision is an additional, new opportunity for individuals which would not otherwise be available, and should be viewed as compensation" for other liability provisions in the settlement.
- A group of House Republicans backed by Majority Leader Dick Armey on Thursday proposed using money from any eventual tobacco settlement to finance a tax cut and pay down part of the national debt. The bill, being drafted by Arkansas Rep. Asa Hutchinson and Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, said that if Congress enacts a tobacco deal, it should target some of the funds to smoking-related health spending and use the "excess" to pay for a tax cut and reduce the debt.
- House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.), who is sympathetic to this approach, said yesterday that "if Congress considers any tobacco settlement, and that is looking increasingly unlikely, Congress will not allow it to become a cash cow for big government."
- An increase in tobacco taxes, which some Republican leaders want to use to pay for a broad-based tax cut, will alienate a core of Republicans who oppose all tax cuts. . . Rep. Mac Collins, Georgia Republican and a member of the Ways and Means Committee, said, "I don't see any appeal in increasing the {tobacco tax}." But Rep. Nancy L. Johnson, Connecticut Republican, countered: "Frankly, I think it is a good idea. It's far simpler than a settlement and will accomplish the goal of discouraging young smokers."
- Dealing one more blow to the proposal for a massive tobacco settlement, Republicans are beginning to talk seriously about a stand-alone tobacco tax increase, a step that would deprive the overall
- The proposed national tobacco deal may not force cigarette makers to raise prices enough to cut teen-age smoking, a congressional economic analysis concluded Wednesday. In fact, the deal's wording means cigarette makers as profitable as Philip Morris might not raise prices at all, says the Congressional Research Service analysis. "For a firm that is maximizing profits, there is no reason to expect that a lump-sum payment will have any effect on price or quantity," the analysis said. "The most effective (and certain) way to effect a price increase is to use an excise tax."
- A multimillion-dollar inside-the- beltway disinformation advertising campaign launched this week by a tobacco industry front group seeks to confuse the public and Congress by lying about the facts and hiding its true agenda. This was the response issued today by the Coalition for Workers' Health Care Funds to the kick-off of the $30 million advertising blitz sponsored by the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (CTFK). . . Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids joined in the negotiations between the tobacco industry and Congress and was a party to the deal. In announcing the deal to the media, a tobacco executive described CTFK as a "public health" organization. The fine print of the deal contained a section that would provide $500 million a year for 10 years to an organization, yet to be named, whose structure met certain criteria. The structure in question bore a startling resemblance to that of Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids.
- An unprecedented coalition of tobacco/asbestos victims, labor unions, asbestos trusts and defendants today called on federal lawmakers to establish a "Tobacco Asbestos Trust" (TAT), as a vital element of any tobacco legislation. The coalition put forward the trust proposal in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee as a mechanism through which asbestos victims would receive fair and timely compensation for smoking-induced harm. Under the proposal, individual tobacco/asbestos claimants would release the tobacco companies from liability if they opt to receive payments from the TAT. The asbestos defendants and trusts would give up their lawsuits against tobacco companies.
- The House Judiciary Committee has begun sorting out the legal intricacies of the proposed multibillion dollar tobacco settlement. . . MEYER KOPLOW, attorney for the Philip Morris tobacco company, said the industry wants to eliminate: class-action lawsuits in tobacco cases; suits brought by insurance companies or unions for tobacco-related health care costs; suits by individuals who claim to be addicted to tobacco but have no health problems; and suits brought against tobacco retailers, distributors or growers. Koplow also asked Congress to cap the amount of damages the industry would be required to pay out in individual damages to $5 billion in a given year.
- The Washington Times Fri, Feb 06 1998 A key Justice Department official said yesterday that the Clinton administration could accept an immunity deal for tobacco companies as part of a nationwide industry lawsuit settlement.
- Dr. David Kessler the ex FDA commissioner and the present Dean of Yale University School of medicine, came squarely on the side of "No Deal, No Settlement." Dr. Kessler gave today a talk entitled "Perspective on Tobacco and the Nation's Health" at the conference held in Arlington, Virginia on "Tobacco Control in Managed Care"
- As the Clinton administration expressed cautious support for limiting the tobacco industry's legal liability, House Republicans unveiled legislation to block the White House from spending any tobacco money on new programs.
- "We don't particularly find ourselves interested in granting immunity from lawsuits to all the tobacco companies in order to create a cash cow for the President to build all these new government spending programs," Armey said.
- "That is an endorsement of immunity" to the tobacco companies, Rep. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., protested after Ogden's statement. "I resent the administration's unwillingness at this date to get specific," Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said at the Judiciary Committee session. "I do not think you can be on all sides of this issue." Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., asked Ogden to "convey to the president to get his plan up here, with his fingerprints all over it, so we can examine it in some detail."
- Shares in B.A.T Industries Plc (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: BATS.L) climbed almost two percent on Friday after the Clinton administration said it could accept "reasonable" civil liability protection for tobacco companies. . . "It is the first time the possibility of concessions has been so explicitly laid out," said Jonathan Fell, tobacco analyst at Merrill Lynch.
- The Clinton administration on Thursday told Congress it could accept "reasonable" limits on cigarette makers' legal liability as part of comprehensive tobacco legislation that advanced health goals. But in a Congress growing increasingly wary of any breaks for the tobacco industry, the administration immediately came under fire for being vague about what was "reasonable" protection and what health policies merited the concession.
- The Clinton administration for the first time will explicitly support granting the tobacco industry relief from potentially crippling lawsuits, according to congressional testimony to be delivered Thursday by a Justice Department official. "If there is agreement on a comprehensive bill that advances the public health ... then reasonable provisions modifying the civil liability of the tobacco industry would not be a dealbreaker," David W. Ogden, counselor to Attorney General Janet Reno, says in testimony prepared for Thurday's hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.
- As negotiations were under way at the ANA Hotel outside of Washington to hammer out legislation on the historic $368 billion tobacco settlement, tobacco lawyers threw down a glove: If the White House doesn't back their requests for immunity from civil litigation, they could walk as soon as Feb. 13. . . "They're very good at killing things, but they're not very good at passing things," says John Coale, a leading plaintiff's lawyer involved in the tobacco talks. It may turn out that the immunity issue is the one that ultimately makes Congress immune to the persuasions of Big Tobacco.
- Agreeing with Clinton's stand on Social Security, Domenici said: "I would go one step further. Your budget would spend the $65 billion from a tobacco settlement on new Washington-based programs. But I believe we should save Medicare first. If there is tobacco money, it should go toward keeping the Medicare system solvent, not for new Washington spending."
- Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici said Saturday that any money the government reaps from a tobacco settlement should be used to shore up Medicare rather than to fund the Washington-based programs outlined in President Clinton's budget. "We should save Medicare first," said Domenici, R-N.M., in the GOP's weekly radio address.
- Hoping to outflank President Clinton on the budget, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici said today that any money the government reaps from a tobacco settlement should be used to shore up Medicare.
- With President Clinton's budget now before Congress, where do we go next? The answer is the tobacco settlement, because without it much of Clinton's new spending is impossible. . . Strangely, for an issue on which so much of his budget rides, Clinton did not send Congress recommendations for the settlement other than asking for a big share.
- Philip Morris Cos. and three rival cigarette makers, seeking support for the proposed national tobacco settlement, yesterday floated an $11 billion, 25-year plan to help growers weather the expected drop in demand for tobacco. J. Phil Carlton of North Carolina, a leading lawyer for the tobacco companies, said the plan was a "discussion draft" and not a specific proposal by the industry. . . "I think this plan stinks to high heaven. I would never go for it," said Bryant, who is president of Concerned Friends for Tobacco, a political action committee.
- [F]our cigarette-makers yesterday floated an outline of an $11 billion package to compensate farmers and communities for their likely losses under the settlement. "They're terribly concerned that the apparent lack of cohesion amongst the producing community is dangerous for them," said Arnold Hamm, the assistant general manager of the Flue-Cured Tobacco Cooperative Stabilization Corp. in Raleigh. "They claim they need our support, and until we become unified we can't offer the kind of support that they need."
- In preparing for this year's tobacco battle, NACS took advantage of the congressional recess to meet lawmakers responsible for crafting the proposed tobacco settlement. On January 9, Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND), Chairman of the Senate Democratic Task Force on Tobacco, held a hearing in Fargo, North Dakota, to solicit the views of his constituents on the national tobacco settlement. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), a member of Senator Conrad's task force, also participated. NACS retail member, Sheila Carney, Controller for Stop-N-Go Stores, Fargo, North Dakota, appeared on behalf of the convenience store and petroleum marketing industries. "NACS' primary concerns about the proposed settlement agreement arise from proposed restrictions on access to, and promotion of, tobacco products in retail establishments," Carney told the Democratic Task Force.
- Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott on Monday repeated his opposition to raising taxes on tobacco and said using funds from any tobacco legislation for Medicare seemed like a "good idea."
- The recent questioning in Congress of tobacco executives focused on research at Philip Morris USA and generated renewed criticism of the tobacco industry's past practices toward young, new smokers. Amid the smoke and fury surrounding the House Commerce Committee's Jan. 30 hearing came some hints about Big Tobacco's future ‹ and even a few remarks about how Philip Morris' 8,000 local employees might be affected by the proposed $368.5 billion settlement. The Richmond connection was made by the city's former mayor, Rep. Thomas J. Bliley Jr., the Republican chairman of the committee.
- RAINES: No. I'm saying we will get the tobacco legislation. I believe we'll get at least $65 billion. I think the American people, more and more, every day, more and more, as they hear more and more revelations, are insisting that Congress act to raise the price of cigarettes, to reduce the use of cigarettes. Now if we raise the price to reduce the use, we've got to decide, who gets the money? We certainly don't want the tobacco companies to get it. And that's why we're getting it and we're going to be distributing it in a manner to improve health and to help children.
- In a sign of their growing sophistication, Indians are also weighing in on issues that seem, on the surface, unrelated to tribal affairs. For instance, many tribes are opposing portions of a proposed national tobacco litigation settlement because it might authorize government agencies to regulate Indian tobacco shops -- a violation of their sovereignty, tribes say.
- Most important, Humphrey's attorneys intend to explore, for the first time in a public forum, how the companies apparently intend to wriggle out of paying for the harm they have caused. . . The companies had slipped a paragraph past the state attorneys general who negotiated the settlement that suggests there would not be enough cash in the corporate kitty to cover the settlement cost. Under the heading "Payment Protection," the overlooked Title VI B 6 in the settlement proposal says, "Obligation for annual payments responsibility only of entities selling into the domestic market." This means the wealthy parent companies of Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, Lorillard et al. would be released from liability, leaving in doubt whether the full sum would be paid. The problem, as Harvard Law School professor Lynn LoPucki points out, is that the tobacco companies have not disclosed sufficient financial information to show how much their domestic tobacco subsidiaries would be able to pay. . . According to Title VI of the proposal, if the companies show empty pockets, as LoPucki says, "That's the end of it. The money stops."
- The White House has decided to embrace a tough tobacco settlement bill that would impose a $1.50-per-pack tax on cigarettes over the next three years and give the tobacco industry little of the protection from lawsuits it has been seeking, officials said yesterday. Vice President Gore is scheduled to attend a news conference Wednesday where the bill will be formally unveiled, signaling the administration's support for legislation that would raise cigarette taxes far faster than envisioned by the president's budget. The administration's blessing of the bill, written by a Senate Democratic task force led by Sen. Kent Conrad (N.D.), would begin to set the parameters of the Senate debate on the complex and explosive issue of a national tobacco settlement policy. Two bills introduced by Republican senators call for far smaller payments from the tobacco industry and give the industry broader protection from the massive lawsuits it is facing.
- The Senate Judiciary Committee today considered a bill that would, in effect, ask tobacco companies to waive their First Amendment rights in exchange for protection from certain types of civil litigation. . . Elsewhere, the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee heard testimony on a proposal to allocate $300 million to the Food and Drug Administration, to states, and to other health agencies for tobacco regulation and research. The committee also debated whether funds should be set aside to reimburse the Medicare system for smoking-related care in addition to the settlement's plan to reimburse states for their Medicaid expenses.
- This morning David Versfelt, general counsel to the American Association of Advertising Agencies, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on behalf of the Freedom to Advertise Coalition. . . He warned that "the Freedom to Advertise Coalition is greatly concerned that the advertising restrictions in the Settlement, if enacted into law, would violate the Constitution. If Congress enacts a bill that mandates overly broad tobacco advertising restrictions, a constitutional lawsuit, would likely follow, tying up the legislation for years, and probably would result in a decision that would undo much that we are all seeking to accomplish. This result would be bad for kids; bad for Congress and bad for free speech." In his testimony, Mr. Versfelt urged Congress to capitalize on the "tremendous opportunity that it has to enact comprehensive legislation to combat youth smoking."
- A comprehensive tobacco settlement that just days ago appeared dead in Congress has been revived, and the latest version is even tougher on the big cigarette makers. The Clinton administration and leaders of both parties in Congress predicted Wednesday that the landmark legislation - which settles health care lawsuits by states against the nation's largest tobacco companies - will pass this year, dramatically increasing cigarette prices and altering how the industry does business. Some said it could happen by Memorial Day.
- At the same time, administration officials said, Clinton and Gore were eager not to offend Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who is trying to craft a bipartisan bill with Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R.I.) and is urging the administration to pursue a less confrontational, less partisan approach. Some Clinton advisers, including White House deputy counsel Bruce Lindsey, are worried that if the issue becomes too politicized it will alienate moderate Republicans whose support on tobacco the administration wants. Chafee and Harkin criticized Conrad's approach, with the strongest words coming from liberal Democrat Harkin, a vocal smoking opponent. He said the Conrad bill was being "rolled out . . . in a laying-down-the-gauntlet" fashion, which may further divide Democrats and Republicans and diminish the chance of compromise.
- Vice President Al Gore gave the administration's blessing Wednesday to a tough Democratic plan to raise cigarette taxes and impose new restrictions on the tobacco industry. "President Clinton strongly supports this bill and would gladly sign this bill if Congress puts it on his desk," Gore said before a packed Capitol Hill audience of schoolchildren, anti-smoking advocates and a dozen Democratic senators.
- President Clinton and a wide swath of Senate Democrats are rallying around tough tobacco-control legislation that would raise the price of a pack of cigarettes by $1.50 over the next three years and deny the tobacco industry the protection from future lawsuits that it seeks.
- While Vice President Al Gore will appear with Mr. Conrad and other Democratic senators Wednesday to "say some supportive things" about the bill, "realistically speaking we are going to have to have a bipartisan approach," White House spokesman Mike McCurry said.
- The establishment through legislation of a national tobacco control policy based on a widely-publicized negotiated deal between the tobacco industry and some states' attorneys general would be less effective than no federal legislation at all in promoting public health and reducing smoking, according to a new analysis. According to Stanton A. Glantz, a prominent University of California San Francisco tobacco researcher, and his colleagues, Brion Fox, J.D., and James M. Lightwood, Ph.D., the continued use of already established federal authority, the pursuit of class-action and individual lawsuits, and the preservation of the rights of states and local jurisdictions to enact and enforce their own tobacco-control measures would have a more beneficial impact on public health.
- University of California researchers say the proposed $368 billion government settlement of state claims against the tobacco industry would be a raw deal for public health. Stanton Glantz and colleagues at UC San Francisco said today their analysis shows the deal would provide less than 10 cents on every dollar that's actually needed to reimburse society for tobacco damage. They also say the proposed limitation of tax liability would make it more difficult to pursue individual lawsuits against the industry for health-related costs, and affect litigation in other countries.
- Senate Democrats unveiled an omnibus tobacco bill Wednesday that was silent on the question whether to keep the federal program that sets a minimum price for tobacco sold by U.S. growers.
- The legislation introduced by Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) on behalf of the Senate Democratic Tobacco Task Force is both sound and reasonable. It represents good public health policy, while at the same time protecting the civil justice rights of the multi-employer health and welfare community and others with claims against the tobacco companies.
- Senator Conrad's legislative proposal is seriously flawed because it would unnecessarily raise taxes on 50 million adult Americans, wreak economic havoc in many states and fail to achieve the comprehensive approach envisioned in the proposed tobacco resolution. . . "There is no need for tax increases in order to achieve a comprehensive tobacco resolution. Nor is there any need to impose economic hardship on the millions of American citizens whose livelihoods depend on the tobacco industry.
- Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, likes moves in Congress to greatly restrict tobacco ads. But he conceded Tuesday that many may violate the First Amendment right of free speech because tobacco is a legal product. Still, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee that a way around the problem exists ‹ but requires approving a proposed settlement limiting the liability of tobacco companies in state lawsuits.
- What looks likeliest, sources say, is that Congress will break the deal into pieces and pass some of them, including a possible tobacco tax. While Republicans are determined to act on tobacco, they insist that any resulting revenues would go to pay for anti-teen-smoking campaigns and smoking-related public-health measures, not for new spending proposals.
- This early maneuvering was far from conclusive, but it illustrated some of the difficult issues Congress must face if comprehensive tobacco legislation is to be enacted this year. It also underscored the complications that arise when several different committees and strong-willed senators claim jurisdiction over various parts of the legislation.
- Leading anti-tobacco advocates C. Everett Koop and David Kessler Tuesday wrote to public health groups asking them to unite against any legislation that gives tobacco companies immunity from civil lawsuits. In a letter obtained by Reuters, former Surgeon General Koop and former Food and Drug Administration chief Kessler ask public health groups that have previously been divided on the liability issue to "stand with us" and oppose legislation "riddled with loopholes favoring the tobacco industry."
- A key senator has introduced a tobacco bill that expands the authority of the Food and Drug Administration but does not address such touchy issues as how much cigarettes should cost or whether the industry should get any protection from lawsuits. Sen. James Jeffords, a Vermont Republican and chairman of the Senate Labor and Human Relations Committee, drafted a bill that goes further in some respects than the proposed settlement negotiated by the tobacco companies and the states suing them last June.
- [T]he chairman of the Senate Labor Committee on Thursday unveiled his own bill aimed at stopping teen-agers from lighting up. Stopping teens from smoking remains the one common point for all sides in the debate over how much Congress should modify a landmark settlement reached last June between the tobacco industry and 40 states. "Kids are the one subject that gets everyone's juices flowing," Sen. James Jeffords, R-Vt., told reporters in promoting his bill.
- Tobacco legislation, languishing for months, is starting to move in Congress and the key to success may be an unlikely duo: President Clinton and Rep. Tom Bliley, the conservative Republican from Richmond, Va. Tom Bliley The catalyst is the sweeping proposal offered Wednesday by Sen. Kent Conrad . . . Tobacco has hired a battery of expensive lobbyists to reshape or kill any legislation it doesn't like. But they'll find that some previous puppets have turned nervous. One recent private GOP poll found that a remarkable 57% would be "strongly opposed" to voting for any candidate who accepts tobacco money.
- But in the last few days, there have been new signs of life for the settlement. The Clinton administration and key Republicans and Democrats have said they are willing to accept limited legal protections for the tobacco companies in order to get a bill that would be more effective at reducing teen smoking. Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., and two other senators are writing a bipartisan bill they hope will appease the strong demands of public health groups and still include limited protections for the tobacco companies.
- About $195 million of the initiative is earmarked for an anti-drug media campaign aimed at children. An additional $146 million would target programs to curb underage smoking; $50 million would be set aside to pay for 1,300 counselors to develop and direct drug prevention programs at middle schools.
- Vice President Al Gore yesterday responded to criticism that the White House is ducking the fight against teen-age smoking. He endorsed a Democratic bill that Republicans and the tobacco industry say has no chance of getting through Congress. He quickly left a Capitol Hill press conference after announcing the legislation, without taking questions about what the administration is willing to do to meet its goal of passing a comprehensive tobacco-control package this year.
- Democrats raised the stakes in the ongoing tobacco debate Wednesday, offering a plan that carries President Clinton's blessing and challenges lawmakers to "put the health interests of children ahead of the tobacco interests." Republicans, who have castigated the White House for failing to produce a legislative package to reduce teen smoking, now must deal with a proposal that raises the cost of a pack of cigarettes by $1.50 and stops short of providing the beleaguered industry with the legal protections it sought.
- The Clinton Administration thinks it can win the 1998 tobacco wars by forcing Republicans to enact a big cigarette tax using the argument that it's the only way to reduce teenage smoking. Or, if Republicans resist the tax, Democrats are prepared to charge in the coming Congressional campaign that the GOP is more interested in protecting tobacco companies than in saving lives.
- Vice President Al Gore and a flock of Democratic lawmakers rallied Wednesday behind one of the toughest antismoking measures pending before Congress, and left no doubt that they hoped to gain maximum political mileage against Republicans out of the issue. "If they want to stand up against these programs," said Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., "let them stand up and tell the American people." Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., weighed in similarly, saying, "Big tobacco has few friends left other than the Republican leaders in Congress." . . Gore made a similar point Wednesday. The president will "gladly sign this bill if Congress puts it on his desk," Gore said, but he added quickly that the administration was after a "truly bipartisan bill." Because of nearly solid Democratic support, the Conrad bill probably commands more support than any other single measure that has been introduced. But no Republicans are backing the bill, and without Republican votes, it has no chance.
- Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III asked Rep. Thomas Bliley, R-Va., to demand to see the documents before taking action on any national settlement with the tobacco industry. . . Even if Fitzpatrick releases the documents, they would not become public until they are introduced in trial, which is expected to last about four months. That's not soon enough, Humphrey said in a letter faxed to Bliley.
- The bidding war to raise the price of a pack of cigarettes is heating up. The potential revenue from a tobacco settlement is becoming central to the debate this year over possible tax cuts favored by congressional Republicans or policy initiatives by the Clinton administration in areas such as child care and education. And this potential multibillion-dollar bonanza is being closely watched by state governments, which say they deserve at least 50 percent of the money.
- He spoke before a conference of scientists. He said "almost one million lives" could be saved by 2003.
- Tobacco: An ATF analysis predicts his cigarette tax increase of $1.10, other initiatives could cut number by as much as 46%.
- "WE OUGHT to save those lives, and you should demand that we save those lives," he told more than 1,000 people at the 150th-anniversary meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "The scientific community can speak with a very loud voice."
- President Clinton today renewed his call for Congress to pass comprehensive tobacco legislation as the White House released the results of a new study suggesting that broad regulations, such as price increases and restrictions on marketing, could curb teenage smoking by up to 46 percent by 2003.
- President Clinton's proposed $1.10 cigarette price hike would cut teen smoking nearly in half and keep as many as 2.8 million teen-agers from lighting up over the next five years, the government estimated today. Announcing the findings of a Treasury Department analysis in a speech to the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, Clinton said the report should spur Congress to adopt the price hike and other tough anti-tobacco measures. "If we act this year -- instead of having a yearlong political debate and doing nothing -- if we act this year, by the year 2003 we can stop almost 3 million young people from smoking and save almost 1 million lives as a result," Clinton told the audience of researchers.
- President Clinton urged America's scientists Friday to "speak with a very loud voice" in support of tobacco-settlement legislation, citing a federal report suggesting a $1.10-per-pack tax increase could cut teen smoking almost by half in five years.
- President Bill Clinton on Friday pressed his campaign to cut youth smoking, citing a new federal study that claims a price increase of $1.10 per pack would cut cigarette use by teens by 46 percent in five years.
- Stanley M. Chesley President Clinton will visit Cincinnati March 10 to attend a Democratic fund-raiser at the Amberley Village home of lawyer Stanley M. Chesley. Mr. Chesley, who gave and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 1996, said Thursday that the president will probably schedule a public event for his visit.
- Reps. WAXMAN of California, DINGELL of Michigan and BROWN of Ohio write the judge in a Minnesota lawsuit seeking access to documents offered recently by tobacco executives. House Commerce Chairman BLILEY and WAXMAN begin informal talks about developing a bipartisan tobacco bill.
- President Clinton is set to head for Philadelphia where he plans to address the annual meeting of the American Association of the Advancement of Science, where he is expected to discuss anti-smoking initiatives and biomedical research. White House spokesman Mike McCurry says today's talk will focus on the administration's efforts to curb smoking by young people. McCurry said, "I think he'll have some interesting new statistics to share about tobacco use by young people that will underscore the importance of moving ahead on the president's public health legislation, or the public health proposals concerning tobacco use."
- Dow Jones Newswires WASHINGTON -- Consumer groups urged lawmakers Friday to not give any immunity to the tobacco industry. "We are urging members of Congress and President Clinton not to grant special protections, such as immunity to the tobacco industry," said Alfred Munzer, M.D. past president of the American Lung Association. . . 'Obviously the thoughts on tobacco in Congress are changing,' said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen. Claybrook also called on lawmakers to not accept tobacco money. She released a Public Citizen study that she said shows the impact of tobacco money on votes in Congress.
- Members of the House Commerce Committee urged the judge presiding over Minnesota's tobacco trial to release millions of pages of internal tobacco company documents to Congress. In a letter Thursday, Democrats Henry Waxman of California, John Dingell of Michigan and Sherrod Brown of Ohio asked Ramsey County District Court Judge Kenneth Fitzpatrick to grant a motion filed by the tobacco companies last weekend.
- The host for the event was the Congressional Prevention Coalition, a new 22-member, bipartisan group. It includes three lawmakers from Virginia, a tobacco state where the leaf is the No. 1 cash crop. This coalition was announced Feb. 3 at a news conference featuring former U.S. Surgeon General Everett Koop and fitness expert Denise Austin. Rep. James P. Moran, D-8th, is one of four co-chairmen of the coalition. A fiery Democrat from Alexandria, he hasn't made a secret of his concerns about tobacco. Sen. Charles S. Robb, D-Va., is another member. He's been working recently on legislation to help cushion the impact for tobacco growers if Congress adopts legislation toward a proposed national tobacco settlement. And Rep. Robert C. Scott also belongs. His 3rd District includes a giant Philip Morris USA cigarette plant in Richmond. Scott, a Democrat, hasn't taken a high profile on tobacco issues. His father was a doctor.
- What has happened is that Democrats in Congress have decided that they have found in the tobacco issue a political magic carpet they can ride to smashing victories in the November congressional elections. Republicans are divided and nervous. This is the political landscape: In a large segment of American society, smoking is reviled nowadays. The tobacco industry generates about as much political sympathy as the Mafia. Opinion polls show that about two-thirds of American adults favor a steep rise in taxes on cigarettes and strict federal regulation of tobacco products. Complicating matters for Republicans is the fact that the tobacco companies are among the largest donors to political campaigns.
- Florida officials urged federal lawmakers Monday to move toward a tobacco settlement that leaves the bulk of spending decisions with state legislators and seeks a nationwide ban on advertising aimed at children. State leaders speaking to a joint session of the Florida legislature said they supported the concept of a national settlement even though they some aspects may not be as tough on on tobacco companies as provisions of Florida's landmark $11.3 billion deal.
- Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop said yesterday the proposed $368.5 billion tobacco settlement is disintegrating, and he predicted Congress will enact comprehensive legislation this year to regulate the industry. In a talk at the annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Koop said, "What was called a settlement has practically unraveled." "Now, the whole issue is where it should be, and that is in the hands of Congress, and they are not dickering with the tobacco industry about the future," he said.
- Former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. C Everett Koop said Sunday that any money from Congressional action against tobacco companies should be spent fighting smoking and the diseases it causes rather than research as President Clinton has proposed.
- Former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. C Everett Koop said Sunday that any money from Congressional action against tobacco companies should be spent fighting smoking and the diseases it causes rather than research as President Clinton has proposed. Clinton has proposed using the money in part to boost science and health research, in particular cancer research. "My mother used to say 'don't count your chickens before they are hatched'" . . "There are tremendous numbers of legitimate things that tobacco money can be used to correct in this country," Koop said. "First of all I think it should be used for a tremendous educational campaign that never ends."
- Within the next few years, America's nicotine addicts increasingly will get their fix without the dangers of smoking cigarettes, former surgeon-general C. Everett Koop said. Speaking today at a major science meeting in Philadelphia, Koop said he foresees nicotine nasal sprays and inhalers joining the currently available nicotine chewing gum and nicotine patch products. Said Koop: "Nicotine is not the dangerous part of a cigarette." Within the next five or 10 years, Koop said, "we will still have a tremendous number of nicotine addicts, but we will have smoking nicotine addicts and non-smoking nicotine addicts." "The smarter addicts," Koop said, will say, "I'll be darned if I'm going to inhale with the nicotine all of that other junk that's going to kill me."
- In Congress and in courtrooms across the nation, the tobacco industry is on the run. Neither Griffin nor anyone else can guess what sort of laws, judgments and rulings are coming. But he knows his future as a tobacco farmer is in jeopardy.
- The firm has Richards lobbying for passage of the $368.5 billion tobacco settlement now before Congress. She contends that what has been portrayed as selling out on her part is instead promoting good public policy. Noting that both the American Cancer Society and the American Medical Association support the legislation, Richards says that while "detractors have tried to characterize [her lobbying] as doing something for the tobacco industry," "the reality is ... an enormously complex piece of legislation that's going to protect children, that's going to place restrictions on tobacco sales and advertising and the makeup of the cigarettes themselves."
- Leading U.S public health groups put aside some of their disputes Tuesday and united in calling on Congress not to give the tobacco industry immunity from lawsuits. "We oppose granting the tobacco industry immunity against liability past, present and future misdeeds. Congress should focus its efforts on public health, not on the concessions the tobacco industry seeks," the groups said in a letter outlining an array of public health goals in any tobacco legislation.
- "We are not wedded to a particular method to deal with this problem," industry attorney Meyer Koplow told reporters. "If there are other suggestions that work as well for the industry but cause other people less difficulty, we certainly are prepared to talk to people about them. . . We just haven't heard anything that would fit that description raised so far" . . . "If there's a different way to get there than the June settlement, we will look at it," Koplow said. "But so far, in all of the months of negotiations, we haven't heard anything suggested other than what's in there that other people are prepared to agree to."
- Some scholars wonder if even a voluntary agreement not to advertise can be enforced. Professor Daynard believes that one way or the other, the issue will be headed for court. "Getting the industry's permission will not help one whit, because the industry can later claim Congress unconstitutionally conditioned the receipt of . . . immunity on the relinquishment of its alleged rights," he said. "Today the industry may shake your hand, but tomorrow it will claim you twisted its arm."
- "We oppose granting the tobacco industry immunity against liability for past, present or future misdeeds," said the Advisory Committee on Tobacco Policy and Public Health in a letter to Congress that reiterated goals it considers essential to any tobacco legislation. Those goals include raising the price of cigarettes by at least $1.50 a pack, expanding regulation of second-hand smoke and providing full authority for the Food and Drug Administration to regulate nicotine and other tobacco ingredients. "For the first time in this country, Congress needs to enact tobacco legislation without asking the industry's permission," former FDA chief David Kessler said.
- The public health community broke an internal impasse and sent its clearest signal yet that the tobacco industry should make much deeper concessions than it has accepted so far and that there is deep skepticism about granting tobacco companies any legal protection from future lawsuits. . . "There is a united front and the public health community has come together," said Kessler, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and now dean of Yale Medical School. "I know of no public health group, I know of no organization that is in favor of granting this industry any concessions." . . However, five groups that signed the Koop and Kessler letter--including the National Center for Tobacco Free Kids, the American Heart Assn. and the American Cancer Society--also wrote a letter to Koop and Kessler saying that they would not automatically reject legislation with limited legal protections but wanted to review any legislation in its entirety.
- Warring public health groups called a truce yesterday to speak out in support of comprehensive tobacco legislation -- and against legal immunity for the tobacco industry, long a point of bitter contention. . . The united front against the industry did not survive long, however, as leaders of the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, and the National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids wrote a letter to Koop clarifying their position on immunity. Those groups have said that they don't like the idea of legal protection for the industry but, like the White House, they are willing to live with some legal protections for the industry in return for a strong bill.
- Public-health authorities released new studies they said show that cigarette companies target young people in advertising, and the ads make teenagers more likely to smoke. . . Especially vocal were Dr. C. Everett Koop, former surgeon general, and Dr. David Kessler, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner. "Given all the evidence that has come to light recently, it is simply not credible for Congress to grant this industry any limits on immunity," Dr. Kessler said. Other advocates, including William Novelli and Matthew Myers of the National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids, left open the possibility of supporting strong legislation that has some liability protections. That aligns with the Clinton administration's position.
- Leading public health groups unite against it "We oppose granting the tobacco industry immunity against liability for past, present, or future misdeeds," said the letter to House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. "Congress should focus its efforts on public health, not on the concessions the tobacco industry seeks," the letter said.
- "Here we are, united at last," Koop said. At Koop's side were the heads of such powerhouse antitobacco groups as the National Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the American Lung Association, the American Medical Association, and the American Heart Association. . . "Given all of the evidence that cigarette companies deliberately recruit and addict youth smokers, it is unconscionable to even consider granting these companies immunity from wrongdoing as they are seeking in a congressional tobacco settlement," said Michael Siegel, assistant professor at Boston University's school of public health.
- Two former top health officials, backed by prominent public groups, Tuesday urged lawmakers to approve sweeping anti-tobacco legislation that does not include legal immunity for the industry. "The tobacco industry, each company, and all officers must be held accountable for the havoc their products have wrought in this society," said C. Everett Koop, who was surgeon general under President Reagan. "Given all the evidence that has come to light, it is simply not credible for Congress to grant this industry any limits on liability," said David Kessler, who headed the Food and Drug Administration in President Clinton's first term.
- Apparently, the political unpopularity of tobacco has made it difficult for some in Washington to exercise the kind of leadership exhibited by the attorneys general and public health groups in making the tobacco companies part of the solution. . . Of course, Congress can always pass some limited regulation and raise excise taxes sky high. However, in doing so, it will miss the unique opportunity of including the tobacco companies in a resolution that obligates us to forgo our constitutional rights to advertise, creates a regulatory environment in which the companies can work in a cooperative, not adversarial, fashion, and pay indefinitely billions of dollars to implement significant public health policies. . . If I'm wrong, I'm afraid tobacco will remain an unsolved problem for many years to come.
- RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp said Thursday it cannot afford to pay a higher tobacco settlement than the $368.5 billion deal it and other tobacco companies have already pledged to pay states suing them. The settlement deal, negotiated with the states in June 1997, must pass Congress this summer or it is unlikely to pass this year, a RJR Nabisco spokeswoman said in a telephone interview following comments made earlier in the day by Chief Executive Officer Steven Goldstone.
- The Oklahoma organizations of the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, and the PTA will join the Oklahoma Medical Association, the American Academy of Chest Physicians, and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids in launching their advertising in the Tulsa World and The Daily Oklahoman on Sunday, Feb. 22.
- 02/21/98 State Interests in National Tobacco Legislation: An Analysis . Features comparison charts of the Hatch, Kennedy and McCain bills.
- A deep rift in the public health community threatens to derail legislative attempts to control the tobacco industry, a federal official said here Saturday. The chasm exists between medical leaders who advocate passage of a tobacco settlement proposed last June 20 and those who oppose any kind of compromise with the industry, said Mitchell Zeller, associate commissioner for policy at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He was speaking to the national conference on Cardiovascular Health: Coming Together for the 20th Century here.
- J. Skelly Wright, a federal judge and a renowned civil libertarian, stated the case in 1971 in a way that still resounds. He did not doubt that the sexy girl in the Salem advertisements was "in fact a seductive merchant of death and that the real Marlboro Country is the graveyard," Wright wrote. "But the First Amendment does not protect only speech that is healthy or harmless." . . Meyer Koplow, a lawyer for the tobacco industry, insisted last week that unless Congress enacted a law that gave tobacco companies considerable protection from damage suits, the cigarette companies would not agree to modify their relentless ad campaigns. Congress cannot stop the ads, Koplow asserted, because to do so would violate the companies' right to free speech. . . Prof. Richard A. Daynard of the Northeastern University School of Law observed that, since the 1930s, federal law has regulated the advertising of stocks and bonds. "If Congress can limit securities offerers to tombstone advertising to protect people's pocketbooks," Daynard asserted, "then surely it can similarly limit tobacco company advertising to protect people's lives and health."
- Gov. Paul Patton reiterated to President Clinton yesterday that any tobacco settlement in Congress must take into account economic disruption to Kentucky tobacco farmers and communities. In a release from his Frankfort office, Patton said he told Clinton during a meeting of the nation's governors that he backs a proposal by U.S. Sen. Wendell Ford of Kentucky that would address various economic interests in any settlement.
- HHS Secretary Tells Roll Call That the Clinton Administration Wants 6 Million More Children Insured
- In preparing this Democratic legislation, our guiding principle is what the public health requires, not what the tobacco industry desires. Our proposal does not give the tobacco companies immunity from future private litigation.
- That is why I have put forward a bill to engender the necessary national dialogue that will lead us toward acceptable, bipartisan tobacco legislation. My bill, the PROTECT Act (Placing Restraints on Tobacco's Endangerment of Children and Teens Act, S. 1530), puts forth a comprehensive strategy to reduce youth smoking.
- What's the real answer to the overall Medicare problem? Well, starting with the tobacco settlement, we need to commit every penny we can get our hands on to maintaining the existing program. If tobacco caused the health problems that Medicare will have to pay for, then it would be foolish to start spending the federal share of the tobacco settlement on anything else.
- Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, a liberal Democrat who served on Conrad's task force, said the plan was presented in a "laying-down-the-gauntlet fashion," which could hurt the chances for compromise. Republican Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, dismissed it as "great propaganda." . . "You don't go in with your bottom line. That isn't the way you get a good result around here," he said. "The way you get a good result is to have a strong proposal on substance and policy and build momentum for what is good policy." As for the plan's detractors, he said, "I don't hear anybody criticizing the specifics other than the industry. ... What they're after is special protection."
- Tobacco company executives faced dwindling prospects for a national tobacco settlement and new attacks on their credibility Tuesday as they wavered on the question of whether nicotine is addictive. "I wouldn't personally, in a serious debate about smoking, label tobacco as addictive," said Nick Brookes, chairman and CEO of Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corp. "What addiction, in my use of that word, means, is that people can't quit."
- Tobacco executives Tuesday pressed Congress to enact a settlement to their liking, saying alternative scenarios could include prolonged courtroom battles, cigarette advertising as usual and bankruptcies that could be disruptive to the whole economy. It was the second time the five chief executives have appeared before a congressional panel in less than a month, but they faced lawmakers on the Senate Commerce Committee who were openly skeptical of their promises of a new era of corporate responsibility. Unlike their predecessors before a House panel in a memorable and dramatic 1994 appearance, the executives did not deny that nicotine was addictive. But they quibbled about it.
- Tobacco companies will be hard-pressed to effectively tackle the issue of youth smoking if the future of the industry remains clouded by litigation and other financial threats, members of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee were told today. In remarks prepared for delivery to the Committee, Nicholas G. Brookes, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation, urged legislative support for a resolution proposed by the companies, attorneys general and representatives of the health community to reduce and prevent underage smoking.
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- More than 100 North Carolina tobacco growers piled onto buses and headed for Washington Tuesday, hoping to plant some political seeds that will grow into billions of dollars from a proposed national smoking settlement. The farmers, bearing the collective name of the Tobacco Fairness Coalition, plan to spend today and Thursday lobbying Congress to pass comprehensive national smoking legislation -- including several billion dollars earmarked for growers and others involved with tobacco production in North Carolina.
- The nation's governors Tuesday called for any funds raised as a result of a national tobacco settlement to be shared between state and federal governments. The National Governors Association unanimously adopted a resolution urging that the states receive a considerable proportion of any funds resulting from a settlement with the tobacco companies. "The governors will strongly oppose any federal efforts to seize state tobacco settlement funds," the resolution said. It added that the billions of dollars recouped from the companies should be fairly distributed.
- There are really three pots of money involved in the tobacco issue: One of those is monies that are included within the purview of the federal government. A second pot is those that are clearly within the purview of the states. And a third pot is a disputed part, if you will. And the dialogue that's going on here, the dance that's going on right now, is whether or not this third disputed pot -- any of that money should come back to Washington, and then be recycled here and come back to us. And we have essentially agreed, no, that money should stay in the state. The question is, "And what should be the parameters under which we spend that money? Education?" We all agree that's appropriate. "Health care?" We agree that that's appropriate. "Welfare of children, assistance to children, intervene with at-risk children?" We believe that's important. "Preventing smoking?" We believe that's important.
- But even what the president said -- if you listen to what he said in the State of the Union, he talked about the price of a package of cigarettes, but he didn't use the word "tax." The settlement doesn't call for a tax; the settlement calls for a sum of money, which can come from profits or price increases, but not taxes. And there are some fundamental differences there. What the big difference is, to me, is if there is a settlement, the funds would go where, you know, the agreement would put it, as opposed to having it come to the federal government in the form of taxes. Also, we feel very strongly -- in that outline that was mentioned, we said that if there is a settlement, and we don't know that there will be at this point, that those funds would be used for Medicare, medical research and . .
- By JEFFREY TAYLOR Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL WASHINGTON -- Governors, predicting dwindling prospects for a national tobacco settlement, plan to redouble their efforts to negotiate individual settlements with cigarette manufacturers. At the National Governors' Association meeting, the talk was of the urgent need to negotiate directly with the tobacco industry. A downbeat briefing by two senators on the prospects for passage of a national settlement "certainly encouraged us to get settlements done," said Republican Gov. Paul Cellucci of Massachusetts.
- The nation's governors came to Washington on Saturday, emboldened by huge budget surpluses back home but still fighting Congress and the White House to protect receipt of their gas, tobacco and Internet taxes. . . Governors are also concerned about attempts by President Bill Clinton and some in Congress to increase cigarette taxes and control how to spend the windfall. Governors argue that states put tobacco companies on the ropes with class-action suits, so state budgets should reap the benefits.
- The nation's governors are weighing a tobacco statement that includes the importance of assisting growers, and Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore said yesterday he's studying how best to help the farmers.
- The industry is offering the advertising restrictions as bait for immunity, arguing that Congress cannot constitutionally impose the restrictions by law. But without raising any First Amendment issues at all, Congress can properly agree to settle the suits by the state attorneys general in exchange for voluntary advertising controls. It need not give the industry any concessions on immunity that would dangerously undermine public health goals.
- "Is there some middle ground?" asked Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. The executives did not suggest one. "We are seeking certainty, not immunity," said Geoffrey Bible, chairman and chief executive officer of Philip Morris Cos.
- The heads of the nation's biggest tobacco companies gave Congress a subtle ultimatum on Tuesday: protect us from lawsuits or we might go bankrupt. Despite the fact that tobacco companies have prevailed in nearly every lawsuit that has gone to trial, the CEOs said they could be devastated by big verdicts in future suits. They said the $368.5-billion national settlement would give them the protection they need, allowing them to pay for an unprecedented public health campaign to reduce smoking by teenagers.
- "We will work with governments and our competitors proactively to try to change the marketing practices of this industry worldwide, to achieve the reforms necessary, to reduce youth smoking in each country in which we operate," he said.
- Philip Morris Cos. Chairman Geoffrey Bible promised Congress on Tuesday that his company will voluntarily work to reduce underage smoking in other countries, a move aimed at sweetening the national tobacco settlement. Bible, one of five tobacco company chiefs to testify in the opening of Sen. John McCain's hearings on aspects of the settlement, said Philip Morris executives will lobby for minimum-age laws for tobacco use in the 36 countries where they market cigarettes.
- The top executives of the major tobacco companies told Congress on Tuesday that they would never agree to modify their advertising and marketing practices unless the lawmakers gave the industry substantial protection against lawsuits. "It's rightful, legal behavior for a consumer product company," said Steven F. Goldstone, chairman and chief executive officer of RJR Nabisco Holding Corp. "It's our constitutional right, and if we stop doing it," he continued, making a swooping motion with his hand, "our business is going to go like that."
- Unless Congress grants them the lawsuit protection they seek, tobacco companies will not curb their advertising as their $368 billion agreement with the states would require, executives say. "I think we would have a very difficult time not asking for our First Amendment rights and maintaining them in light of that situation," Laurence Tisch, co-chairman Lorillard Tobacco Co.'s parent firm, told the Senate Commerce Committee on Tuesday. Steven Goldstone, chairman and chief executive officer of RJR Nabisco, agreed that the industry would challenge legislation curbing advertising. "Our company wouldn't survive, so I'd have to assert my constitutional rights," Goldstone said.
- Tobacco executives told a Senate panel Tuesday that they could not agree to marketing and advertising curbs if Congress fails to give them certain legal protections in a tobacco settlement.
- Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said that if the companies were serious about adopting a more responsible corporate posture, then they should be willing to stop marketing to children without legal protections. "Why don't you take a pledge to that effect?" he asked. Goldstone, noting that advertising designed to appeal to adults sometimes also appeals to children, said that to stop most advertising without being shielded from lawsuits would be disastrous. "What you're saying to me is: 'Mr. Goldstone, do you mind if your company goes bankrupt? Don't you think that's a reasonable thing for the country?' " Goldstone said. "It's not reasonable for me."
- [L]eading tobacco executives struggled yesterday to rescue the proposed national tobacco deal by insisting that if it were enacted, injured smokers still could sue for damages. "The industry will not be obtaining immunity," Geoffrey C. Bible . . . told the Senate Commerce Committee. Bible said critics have made the immunity issue a "red herring." "That's not immunity," Steven F. Goldstone of RJR Nabisco Inc. echoed . . . "It's predictability, and that's essential to our financial stability."
- Minnesota Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III charged Tuesday that tobacco industry executives are acknowledging some industry sins to Congress as they pursue a nationwide settlement while denying wrongdoing in a St. Paul courtroom. "There are two sets of different answers being given," Humphrey said.
- Geoffrey Bible, chief executive at Philip Morris, said such a deal would provide much wider benefits for the public than leaving the matter in the hands of the courts. "The only way the industry can possibly commit to forgo its constitutional rights in these ways, and to pay the enormous sums of money at issue is in the context of an overall resolution that provides a degree of predictability and certainty in its continuing business operations."
- Comprehensive legislation affirming the proposed national settlement with the tobacco industry gained more momentum Tuesday when leaders of the Senate Commerce Committee said they hope to draft a new proposal with bipartisan support within a month. With the chief executive officers of the major cigarette makers looking on, committee chairman Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said that he and Sen. Orin Hatch, R-Utah, who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, plan to work together to have a revised bill ready for a vote by summer. . . "I don't think the executives helped themselves here today," said Martin Feldman, a tobacco industry analyst with Salomon Smith Barney. "There was only one answer they should have given when asked if nicotine is addictive and the answer was 'yes.' Instead, they came across as if they are still dancing around trying to hide the truth."
- Convenience stores, small cigarette companies and vending machine owners on Wednesday complained they had been left out of negotiations on a tobacco deal that could spell economic devastation to them. In testimony before a congressional panel, they urged Congress not to enact the deal negotiated by five big tobacco companies without taking their interests into account.
- Steven Bailey, 27, and his father, Mac, started their own business four years ago to make "Bailey's" cigarettes. They knew the industry was on the defensive. But they didn't count on a truce to end the tobacco wars, or the possibility they might become a casualty. The younger Bailey shared his worst fears with Congress yesterday, contending the proposed global settlement sought by Big Tobacco is stacked against the little guy and could force him out of business. He asked that small companies such as his be exempted. Bailey, vice president of the family's independent S&M Brands, Inc. in Keysville, didn't hide his feelings about the controversies surrounding Big Tobacco.
- I'm very wary of dropping their liability. I guess the question you've got to ask is: Why should they be treated differently than any other industry in the country? Why should they get freedom from liability when you now have evidence that some of their top executives weren't being forthright in their testimony to the Congress? I'm willing to consider any idea to try to move this issue forward. But I entered this discussion with a skepticism about our ability or our willingness to do this. I don't think it's a great idea. But you have to keep your eye on the main goal.
- EUGENE PAVALON, former president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, told a Senate panel that "the landscape has changed" for the tobacco industry, making prospects of successful court battles for sick smokers "much more likely than they have been in the past." The public release of "more damaging documents" from the tobacco companies gives smokers a better chance of winning, Pavalon testified.
- There ought to be a Megan's Law that could be applied to the tobacco companies. Their CEOs appeared before Congress this week and issued a thinly veiled threat that they would continue to target children if Congress failed to extinguish the union fund anti-tobacco lawsuits: . . The days of power and glory for Big Tobacco are coming to a close. No longer can they count on front groups such as the attorneys general and the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids to do their dirty work while they hide in the bunkers. Now the CEOs themselves have to leap into the trenches and do their own dirty work. And the best they can come up with is to try and blackmail the United States Congress by threatening the nation's youth.
- Following is the tentative witness list (not necessarily in order of appearance): Honorable Orrin HATCH, U.S. Senator Panel I Mr. Mike MOORE, Attorney General of Mississippi Ms. Carla STOVALL, Attorney General of Kansas Ms. Gale NORTON, Attorney General of Colorado Panel II Mr. Stanley CHESLEY, Esq., Waite, Schneider, Bayless & Chesley Co., L.P.A. Mr. Eugene PAVALON, Past President, Association of Trial Lawyers of America Professor Kris KOBACH, University of Missouri at Kansas City School of Law Mr. Richard SCRUGGS, Scruggs, Millette, Lawson, Bozeman & Dent
- Congress could sink the $368 billion tobacco settlement because of its anger at the industry, state attorneys general said Thursday. The state officials tried to blunt damage done earlier this week by tobacco executives who threatened to drop the agreement if it doesn't protect them from lawsuits and also vacillated on whether nicotine is addictive. At a hearing on Thursday, some members of the Senate Commerce Committee demanded to know why they should grant the concessions called for in the settlement, which would require firms to pay $368 billion over 25 years in exchange for protection from most lawsuits.
- The only way to stop tobacco advertising and marketing to children -- essential to stopping teen smoking -- and to ensure compensation to state governments and smoking victims is for Congress to enact the civil liability provisions in the proposed settlement, three attorneys general testified today. Addressing head-on the most contentious issues of national to bacco legislation, Colorado Attorney General GALE NORTON (R), Kansas Attorney General CARLA J. STOVALL (R) and Mississippi Attorney General MIKE MOORE (D) urged the Senate Commerce Committee to pass a bill modeled on the June 20, 1997 attorneys general agreement.
- A bipartisan bill making its way through Congress reportedly could break the logjam over tobacco legislation by establishing limits on the amount of money that Big Tobacco would pay out yearly, but keeping open the possibility of future legal actions against the companies. The legislation is being pushed by Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John Chafee (R-R.I.) and is one of at least three other bipartisan measures on Capitol Hill, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. But, the Chafee-Harkin-Graham bill is getting more attention from the White House.
- A bipartisan bill that could break the logjam over tobacco legislation wouldn't give cigarette makers controversial legal protections, but would place an annual cap on the industry's legal payouts. The bill, being written by Democratic Sens. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Bob Graham of Florida and Republican Sen. John Chafee of Rhode Island, also would raise cigarette prices $1.50 a pack over three years. This would accommodate public-health authorities calling for a cigarette-price increase of at least that much as the best possible deterrent to smoking by the underaged.
- Senate leaders say the debate over the proposed $368.5 billion tobacco settlement has boiled down to one issue: How much protection from lawsuits will Congress give to cigarette makers in return for the industry's voluntary help in reducing teenage smoking? On Thursday, Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Commerce and Judiciary committees indicated they are close to agreeing on a trade-off and are ready to pass a comprehensive tobacco bill in spring. However, Republican leaders warned that President Clinton must agree to the limitations on the tobacco industry's civil liability before the legislation is formally drafted.
- The proposed national tobacco settlement picked up some momentum Thursday as key Senate Republicans inched closer together in trying to fashion a comprehensive measure on the divisive issue. Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, exchanged public promises of cooperation Thursday with Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., as Hatch testified before McCain's committee. Both senators have introduced comprehensive tobacco measures, which have been viewed as competing vehicles. Those pushing for congressional passage of a tobacco deal viewed the fledgling alliance as hopeful.
- Congressional tobacco opponents announced initiatives Thursday that would hold U.S. tobacco companies to the same standards abroad as at home. Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), along with two House members, Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) and Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), said they would try to include some or all of the standards in any future tobacco legislation.
- Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Thursday that it was not enough to crack down on tobacco marketing in the United States. He wants the foreign advertising and sales of U.S.-based tobacco companies restricted as well, and he wants the curbs included as an explicit part of any deal on tobacco that Congress votes this year. "It will be a shameful legacy if our tobacco-control efforts end up protecting America's kids at the expense of children in other countries," Durbin said at a news conference called by six Democratic legislators and health groups.
- The following is a statement by the Coalition for Workers' Health Care Funds: There ought to be a Megan's Law that could be applied to the tobacco companies. Their CEOs appeared before Congress this week and issued a thinly veiled threat that they would continue to target children if Congress failed to extinguish the union fund anti-tobacco lawsuits . . . The days of power and glory for Big Tobacco are coming to a close. No longer can they count on front groups such as the attorneys general and the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids to do their dirty work while they hide in the bunkers. Now the CEOs themselves have to leap into the trenches and do their own dirty work. And the best they can come up with is to try and blackmail the United States Congress by threatening the nation's youth. The twilight of the tobacco gods is coming -- and not a moment too soon.
- Many of the nation's largest counties vowed yesterday to oppose a $368.5 billion national tobacco settlement unless they are ensured part of the money to cover local health-care costs that they say are related to smoking. They also want assurances that the deal will not short-circuit smoking ordinances that are tougher than state or federal laws.
- A group that represents U.S. counties Friday said county officials will fight to get an 'equitable' piece of the proposed tobacco settlement currently pending in Congress. 'Counties must be compensated for their tobacco-related costs in treating individuals,' said Randy Johnson, president of the National Association of Counties.
- That concern stems from the fact that although only the five top companies signed the deal, its terms also will apply to smaller tobacco firms, merchants and others if Congress passes it. Affected groups last week voiced some of their concerns about the deal at a hearing before a House Commerce subcommittee. The sheer number and variety of groups that see some danger in the deal reflects its complexity and the difficulty of reaching a consensus. It also underscores the degree to which the U.S. economy and politics, along with 45 million smokers, are hooked on tobacco. Veteran lobbyists say the settlement debate is shaping up as one of the biggest lobbying free-for-alls in history.
- So this year, lawmakers who would rather be plotting their re-election strategies are grappling with how to translate a complicated and controversial deal into legislation that could touch a wide range of interests from the public health community to cigarette vending machine makers. And they are not having an easy time.
- They're often diametrically opposed, but tobacco archfoe Rep. Henry Waxman of California said yesterday he'd like to work together on tobacco legislation with Rep. Thomas J. Bliley Jr. of Virginia, and he thinks they might be able to reach an agreement. "I would like to work out legislation with him," Waxman said about sitting down with Bliley, the House Commerce Committee chairman and Republican from the tobacco stronghold of Richmond. Waxman said he'd talked with Bliley, but he wouldn't elaborate. Waxman didn't minimize the difficulty of prospects for finding agreement on tobacco with Bliley, saying "we have huge differences."
- The Senate should pass a national tobacco policy that would both protect the industry from most lawsuits and protect the legislation itself from court challenge, the proponent of one tobacco plan said Tuesday. "Little will be achieved if we pass legislation that will simply be held up for years in the courts and then struck down," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Commerce Committee. His bill, which contains both those shields, is being considered by GOP leaders as the chief vehicle for a national tobacco policy, according to two leadership aides. The First Amendment has taken center stage in Congress' debate over whether to pass a national tobacco policy this year.
- "Keeping this out of court is a mirage," Northeastern University law professor Dick Daynard said in an interview. "At some point, the courts are going to have to decide how far the First Amendment protects a tobacco company and its advertising." The tobacco settlement between states and large companies would be ratified under a bill sponsored by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz. But smaller tobacco companies, advertising firms, farmers and convenience stores were not parties to the June settlement. Nonetheless, the McCain bill would govern their business practices if passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton. "If the tobacco companies don't challenge it, somebody else will," Sen. Wendell Ford, D-Ky., said Tuesday during a hearing of McCain's panel.
- Tobacco companies may accept advertising limits without a court challenge in exchange for legal protections they seek from Congress, but other businesses with a stake in cigarette sales could mount a First Amendment challenge that could bog down anti-smoking laws for years, experts said Tuesday. "Keeping this out of court is a mirage," said Richard Daynard . . . But smaller cigarette and smokeless tobacco companies were not involved. Nor were farmers, retailers, wholesalers, distributors, convenience stores, cigarette vending machine companies, advertising agencies or billboard companies. But they, too, would be affected by advertising and sales rules.
- Minnesota Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III told an association of labor union health funds Monday that they must press Congress to take action against the tobacco industry. At a Coalition for Workers' Health Care Funds conference, he said that any tobacco settlement approved by Congress should not give the companies special protection, such as immunity from further litigation. "The only deal these rascals deserve is to be brought to justice. No special privileges, no protections," Humphrey said. "Just justice, plain and simple."
- Minnesota Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III and Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., continue to press their hard line against the tobacco industry even as the White House argues for compromise. " The only deal these rascals deserve is to be brought to justice, " Humphrey said.
- The Coalition for Workers' Health Care Funds held its first conference Monday to hear from senior lawmakers, litigators and other experts about how they can fight the tobacco companies and last year's tobacco deal. "Where do they get off cutting off blue-collar, working class Americans and saying to them that you no longer have the right to go into court and sue for damages that were done to you? That's un-American and we're very, very angry and we're making that anger known to our members of Congress" David Jewell, director of communications for the coalition, said.
- The campaign began last year with the hiring of a fresh crop of Washington lobbyists and public relations experts, carefully chosen for their lack of previous industry ties. The companies have been flirting with mounting a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to sell the deal publicly, and last week, they were leaning toward launching it. In the meantime, they've displayed a new willingness to engage the press more openly, meeting with editors from Boston to Minneapolis and briefing reporters in Washington. And in the industry's most public departure from the past, Goldstone and Philip Morris's Steven Parrish appeared live on two major evening news shows in January. Last week, the effort intensified. The companies placed thousands of documents -- some damaging, all previously secret and all due to become public in a Minnesota lawsuit -- on an Internet Web site that offered the industry's spin on the proposed deal.
- The Clinton administration has reversed its position on whether Congress can impose tough advertising restrictions on tobacco companies. In a Feb. 27 letter to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., White House aide Bruce Reed wrote that the restrictions "raise significant constitutional concerns." A law that imposes the advertising restrictions from the June 20 proposed tobacco settlement could be subject to "a substantial challenge," Reed said.
- The White House told Congress Monday that tobacco legislation is almost certain to be challenged in court unless lawmakers pass a bill that is acceptable to all sides. Specifically, a proposal to ban tobacco advertising on the Internet, for example, "would raise significant constitutional concerns," White House Domestic Policy Adviser Bruce Reed said in a Feb. 27 memo to Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz.
- The White House is raising a red flag to deter Congress from imposing sweeping restrictions on cigarette advertising, arguing in a memorandum scheduled for release today that broad legislative limits would "raise significant constitutional problems." The memo, a copy of which was obtained Sunday by the Los Angeles Times, casts doubt on the legality of legislating new limits on industry advertising practices in the absence of a comprehensive settlement acceptable to both sides. . . The memo provides detailed answers to questions on tobacco ads and marketing submitted by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of a committee with jurisdiction over tobacco legislation.
- With no resolution in sight, Congress and the White House are stepping up the debate over whether to ratify, rewrite or reject the landmark tobacco settlement struck in June by states and the industry. . . Bliley said Clinton should cancel his speechmaking and issue Congress specific details on what policy he would or would not sign into law.
- Philip Morris Cos. Chairman Geoffrey C. Bible unloaded Wednesday in a letter to Congress attacking Minnesota Atty. Gen. Hubert H. HUMPHREY III for complaining that tobacco firms are speaking from both sides of their mouths as they defend the lawsuit while trying to sell Congress on a national tobacco peace accord. Referring to Humphrey's refusal to date to settle the case as three other states previously had done, Bible said cigarette makers had been "prepared never again to contest" the toll from smoking but have been "compelled" to by Humphrey's insistence on trying the case instead of settling out of court. Wrote Bible: "Any complaint about the industry's conduct in Minnesota should be seen in context: A lawsuit by the state founded on the absurd contention that due to concealment by the tobacco industry neither the state nor its citizens knew that tobacco use was dangerous, and that, therefore, all alleged smoking-related health expenses are the financial responsibility of the industry."
- After committee staff members told them to expect to be sworn in, they declined to appear, saying the oath-taking was designed to put them "on some sort of parity" with five tobacco executives who testified in January, according to the pair's letter to the committee. "We have each devoted much of our professional careers to . . . working for the public health," said the letter to subcommittee Chairman Michael Bilirakis (R-Fla.). "We see no reason for the committee to suggest that our testimony about tobacco now requires that we be . . . treated akin to tobacco executives."
- Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and former Food and Drugs Commissioner David Kessler on Wednesday abruptly canceled their congressional testimony on legislation to regulate tobacco scheduled for Thursday morning after learning that they would be required to testify under oath. They said that by requiring them to take an oath, the subcommittee on health of the House Commerce Committee would be treating their testimony as comparable to that given in January by the top executives of the five largest tobacco companies. A spokesman for the committee said that witnesses were often sworn in and that the panel saw no reason to treat Koop and Kessler . . . any differently.
- Being sworn to tell the truth would put them "on some sort of parity" with five tobacco executives who testified in January, Kessler and Koop said in a letter to Rep. Michael Bilirakis, R-Fla., who chairs the House Commerce Committee's subcommittee on health. "We have each devoted much of our professional careers to ... working for the public health," Koop and Kessler wrote. "We see no reason for the committee to suggest that our testimony about tobacco now requires that we be ... treated akin to tobacco executives." House rules give committees some latitude in determining whether witnesses must be sworn.
- Contact: Kelly O'Brien Yehl or Jud Richland, 202-833-0009, both of Partnership for Prevention. The Congressional Prevention Coalition and Partnership for Prevention are sponsoring a forum for members of Congress and staff on the subject of smoking cessation.
- The realization that the First Amendment protects the right of tobacco companies to advertise may drive even the most antitobacco members of Congress to strike a deal with the industry. Keeping alluring tobacco ads from the eyes of children will be impossible without the cooperation of tobacco companies, experts told a Senate committee yesterday. Compromise is the only way to go, several senators said. "The lying and deceiving of the American public that was essentially a tobacco corporate philosophy has angered me beyond words," said Sen. Connie Mack (R., Fla.). "But if we don't get over being mad, we'll never get even."
- Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain has begun serious talks with the White House to hammer out the details of bipartisan tobacco legislation. In an interview, the Arizona Republican said he met Monday with White House domestic-policy adviser Bruce Reed to discuss various aspects of the proposed $368.5 billion national tobacco settlement and how Congress should change it.
- The Senate has picked up the pace in its review of proposed bills to curb teen smoking, with two key committees scheduling sessions next week to draft legislation. Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, sent a list of questions to the White House yesterday, saying he wants to pin down President Clinton on the issue of granting the tobacco industry limited immunity against lawsuits before the panel prepares final language on a bill March 12. . . Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee Chairman James M. Jeffords, Vermont Republican, has proposed penalties as high as $500 million per percentage point and no cap on fines if teen smoking targets are not met. He has scheduled a legislative language "markup" on his bill for Tuesday.
- A tobacco-state congressman warned yesterday that a thriving industry involving more than 2 million people may be jeopardized if Congress mishandles legislation to reduce youth smoking. Rep. Richard M. Burr, a Republican from Winston-Salem, N.C., cautioned health advocates during a subcommittee hearing to get to know the economics of the tobacco industry because "we have a tremendous amount riding on it."
- House Speaker Newt Gingrich predicted on Thursday that Congress would take action on tobacco this year, but said he would want any tobacco-related revenue to be returned to U.S. taxpayers.
- Underscoring division among Republicans, House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Thursday that federal surpluses should for now be used to strengthen Social Security but not for tax cuts. . . Gingrich reiterated that he wants a tax cut this year, paid for with spending reductions and what he said is likely tobacco money, either from a settlement with the tobacco industry or a cigarette tax boost.
- President Clinton will use his bully pulpit to make his push for a national tobacco policy, the White House said today. But some members of Congress think he would do better turning down the volume. "We're getting down to the crunch now and we need to move ahead on tobacco legislation. There are not that many days that the Congress plans to be in session this year and they need to get moving," White House press secretary Mike McCurry said.
- Clinton is expected to use his weekly radio speech to urge Congress to pass major tobacco changes that would significantly raise the per-pack price of cigarettes and pressure tobacco companies not to market to children. Clinton also plans to call for such sweeping anti-tobacco legislation next week in speeches to the American Medical Association and state attorneys general.
- President Clinton plans to use his bully pulpit to make his push for a national tobacco policy, but some members of Congress think he would do better turning down the volume. The campaign is set to begin with Clinton's weekly radio address Saturday, when the president is expected to urge Congress to stay in session until it passes a comprehensive bill aimed primarily at steering children away from smoking, according to two administration aides who asked not to be named. Clinton is to continue that theme in speeches next week to the American Medical Association and the state attorneys general.
- Tobacco legislation, repeatedly declared dead in the past few months, appears to have been revived in the U.S. Congress but it is still not blooming with health. "It's been resuscitated three times-- and now it's resuscitated," said Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch. In contrast with earlier pessimistic predictions on the tobacco issue, both House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority leader Trent Lott have reported progress.
- The Senate Republican leadership has changed its strategy on drafting tobacco legislation, switching from a multi-committee approach to one centering on the Commerce Committee led by Arizona Republican John McCain, Senate sources said Friday. McCain has postponed a scheduled March 12 bill-writing session for a few weeks, his spokeswoman said Friday. The senator this week started meetings with White House domestic policy adviser Bruce Reed and is reaching out to Democrats and Republicans to draft a comprehensive bill with bipartisan support.
- Frustrated by Congress' plodding work on tobacco policy, Senate committee chairmen next week will seek to fold various proposals into one bill.
- "There is serious effort now underway to get a tobacco settlement bill up and that's good, it's a change," Lott told reporters. The Mississippi Republican said, however, he would oppose any separate efforts to raise tobacco taxes. "If they start that routine my effort will be to kill it. A settlement was not a tax increase, it's a settlement, there's a distinct difference," he said.
- House Speaker Newt Gingrich predicts that Congress will take action on tobacco this year, but says he would want any tobacco-related revenue to be returned to taxpayers. House Republican policy on tobacco is still very much in flux. Two Senate committees are ready to start work on tobacco legislation next week, but none of the chairmen of the relevant House panels has yet introduced a bill.
- Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch yesterday urged the White House and his GOP colleagues to stop playing "political games" over giving tobacco companies limited immunity from lawsuits. The Utah Republican said both sides know that Congress must grant the industry some form of liability protection in order to pass a bipartisan anti-smoking bill. "Some believe that the White House is trying to paint Republicans in a corner, and force us to put the liability issue on the table," said Mr. Hatch, as he opened a committee hearing on tobacco. "We should not play political games with our children's health."
- It may seem to some like dealing with the devil, but Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, says Congress should give tobacco companies limited protection against lawsuits ‹ or curbs on cigarette ads and marketing to youths may go up in smoke. "In my view, absent liability provisions . . . we will be unable to change materially the way in which these products are advertised and marketed," he told a hearing Friday of his Senate Judiciary Committee.
- Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Friday said he sees an emerging consensus in the Senate to give limited lawsuit liability to the tobacco industry. "I believe that consensus is developing around the idea of including liability provisions in a comprehensive anti-tobacco deal," Hatch said at a tobacco hearing. "Adoption of limited liability provisions is acceptable if we achieve the substantial public health gains that can be won."
- Rep. Thomas J. Bliley Jr., House Commerce Committee chairman, challenged President Clinton yesterday to stay put and send Congress a plan for curbing teen smoking rather than travel next week to press for congressional action. "The last thing we need is more tobacco speeches from the president. We need action," the Richmond Republican complained at a subcommittee hearing.
- The Senate leadership has placed the Commerce Committee and its chairman, John McCain, in charge of crafting bipartisan tobacco legislation. The Arizona Republican is soliciting input from senators on the measure, which is expected to be substantially different from the proposed $368.5 billion national tobacco settlement reached in June by the tobacco industry, states' attorneys general and public-health groups.
- President Bill Clinton on Monday urged the largest U.S. doctors' group to support his calls for legislation to curb tobacco use, and a key Republican lawmaker gave measured backing to his position on the issue.
- Following is a transcript of a White House press briefing held today by Chris Jennings, deputy assistant to the president for health policy, and Elena Kagan, deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy
- President Clinton today urged Congress to pass tobacco legislation this year that he said would save lives and address a "national epidemic" in teen smoking. In a speech to an American Medical Association national conference, Clinton also made a renewed pitch for Congress to pass legislation establishing a "bill of rights" for the nearly 90 million people enrolled in federal health care programs. "There is utterly no reason not to do this this year," Clinton said, noting that Congress has as few as 70 working days left before adjourning for the fall election season.
- "Today there are as few as 70 working days left before this Congress adjourns," the president said in his weekly radio address this morning. "On every one of those days, 3,000 children will light their first cigarettes. On every one of those days, this Congress has the opportunity to stop it." Of those 3,000 first-time teen smokers, Clinton said, about 1,000 will die prematurely of smoking-related causes. "This is a national tragedy that every American should be honor-bound to prevent."
- U.S. Senate leader Trent Lott said on Monday that any funds from an eventual tobacco settlement should go to anti-smoking and health-related programs. In rare comments on tobacco, the Mississippi Republican differed from the White House, which wants to spend part of the funds on various domestic programs, and from some House Republicans, who are eyeing a tobacco settlement as a possible way of paying for across-the-board tax cuts.
- One, does he support some modification of the attorneys' contractual arrangements for, you know, tremendous payments out of a settlement? Does he support limited liability for tobacco companies to get a campaign to fight teenage smoking? And does he support using any funds that would be available out of this only for a campaign against teenage smoking and smoking in general and health-related programs that are affected by smoking, like Medicaid and Medicare and medical research? . . . But the key word there is "only." He has preferred to duck all three of those questions. But he continues to say, "Oh, by the way, here's how I want to spend it."
- Coalition for Workers' Health Care Funds PR Newswire
- Now, you're right, Dr. Wootton, I did read The Journal of the American Medical Association special edition on tobacco. I read it all from start to finish. And it was a great service to me and the American people, and I thank you very much for it. Again, you can argue about some of the fine print, but the big picture is clear: Every single day, even though it is illegal in every state in America, 3,000 kids start to smoke
- The president tells a physicians convention that time is short for this Congress to ratify a settlement with cigarette manufacturers.
- The White House this week is expected to give its approval to a bipartisan Senate tobacco bill that sponsors hope will lead to a compromise on granting the industry immunity from most lawsuits. White House and Senate aides close to the issue said Monday that a bill to be introduced this week by Sens. John Chafee, R-R.I., Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Bob Graham, D-Fla., meets President Clinton' s objectives for a national tobacco policy. However, there is still disagreement over how the government should spend money from a tobacco deal.
- Smoking-related illnesses are costing taxpayers $12.9 billion a year in Medicaid expenditures, according to a report released Monday that makes a state-by-state analysis of the tobacco toll. The report, which the authors say is the first comprehensive look at expenditures in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, supports state claims against the tobacco industry. It also raises questions about the adequacy of a proposed settlement under which tobacco companies would pay $368.5 billion to 40 states over 25 years.
- Smoking costs Medicaid, the joint state-federal U.S. health program for the poor, $12.9 billion a year, University of California experts reported Monday. Over 25 years -- the period covered by a $368.5 billion settlement between states and tobacco companies -- the costs would have totaled at least $322 billion, Dorothy Rice, who helped lead the study, said. Rice said this meant the settlement was far too low and she urged Congress, which has to approve it, to press for more money.
- The proposed settlement requiring the tobacco industry to pay $368 billion to 40 states over 25 years may cover just a fraction of smoking-related health costs in the United States. A University of California study found that the settlement would barely cover Medicaid claims.
- While members of both parties have been reluctant to take the lead on the politically thorny issue, Senator Edward M. Kennedy yesterday said he expects that his colleagues ultimately will pass a bill forcing the tobacco industry to pay billions of dollars into the federal Treasury. Framing the debate as a partisan battle, Kennedy said public pressure will help Democratic proponents of a tobacco settlement to pass a "good" law.
- The White House edged closer toward protecting tobacco companies from lawsuits yesterday, as President Clinton urged Congress to pass anti-smoking legislation before leaving town for elections.
- President Clinton plans to attend a $10,000 per couple Democratic National Committee fund-raiser tonight at the home of a prominent trial lawyer who has a significant financial stake in congressional approval of a comprehensive tobacco settlement. Cincinnati attorney Stanley Chesley -- part of a group of lawyers who represent individual smokers -- is hosting the fund-raiser, which is expected to raise at least $500,000 for the party. A group opposed to the settlement criticized the fund-raiser as a conflict of interest since the contributors may be trying to influence Clinton's position on parts of legislation that would enact a settlement.
- Dr. David Kessler, who took on the tobacco industry during his six years as FDA commissioner, suggested that families should send photographs of their deceased loved ones to their elected representatives, with the words: "No Deal." "If you had every family send that in," Kessler said, "you'd have the votes tomorrow" to reject the proposed $368.5-billion settlement, which critics say grants too many concessions to the tobacco industry. . . The tobacco companies know to appeal to adolescents' quest for rebellion and independence, he said. Public health officials need to use the same tactic to get young people to never start smoking, he said. The most effective campaigns, he said, demonstrate to young smokers how they are being manipulated by the tobacco companies.
- Rep. Michael Bilirakis was criticized recently for being a longtime friend of the tobacco industry, but he decided three years ago not to take tobacco money. His press secretary, Jerry White, said Monday that Bilirakis stopped taking campaign contributions from the industry in 1995 because "tobacco is a contentious issue."
- Mr Broughton said: "If the settlement doesn't go through this year, then the chances of it coming back on the agenda are not great." The deal was agreed between cigarette companies and attorney generals from 40 states last year but must be approved by Congress, where it has met fierce opposition.
- The nation's leading cigarette companies today began advertising to inform the American people about the details of the comprehensive tobacco agreement negotiated last June between the industry, state attorneys general, private plaintiffs' lawyers and representatives of the public health community. "Despite all the media coverage since last June, the American people don't really know the most significant details contained in this historic agreement," said Steven C. Parrish, senior vice president of Philip Morris Companies.
- The tobacco industry, which has long worked behind the scenes in political Washington, took a public plunge today, placing full-page advertisements in national newspapers promoting the multibillion-dollar tobacco settlement now before Congress. The advertisements, paid for by the nation's four major tobacco companies, tout the benefits of the controversial settlement for the public and the industry, under the headline, "What's in it for you? What's in it for us?"
- The tobacco industry will start an advertising campaign on Wednesday aimed at convincing people that a settlement proposal pending in Congress is a good one, industry and Congressional sources said on Tuesday. "It is straightforward, fact-based, and is designed to educate the public about the June 20 proposal," an industry source, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters.
- "Their timing is awfully bizarre," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles). "We're hearing about documents that they are fighting to keep secret that [show] they were knowingly and recklessly exposing millions of Americans to a deadly danger." "They are saying in effect: 'We'll stop doing what we're doing but give us special treatment that no other industry has: protection from accountability, responsibility and legal liability,' " Waxman added.
- British tobacco to financial services group B.A.T Industries Plc (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: BATS.L) on Wednesday called on U.S. Congress to adopt a co-operative approach with the tobacco industry. . . We continue to believe that a co-operative approach to tobacco issues can yield more progress than the adversarial approach so often taken by all parties in the past and we would like to think that Congress will share this view," said B.A.T chairman Lord Cairns in remarks accompanying the group's annual results.
- President Clinton today ventured outside the Beltway to tout politically popular initiatives, trumpeting a $22 billion proposal to expand tax breaks for child care for working parents and urging Congress to pass comprehensive tobacco legislation. . .At dinner tonight, about 50 couples had crab meat salad and beef tenderloin at a fund-raiser in Cincinnati. Such an event might have drawn little attention had it not been hosted by Stanley Chesley, a prominent trial attorney who represents clients with a stake in congressional approval of a comprehensive tobacco settlement.
- President Clinton was out on the road raising $850,000 Tuesday for his Democratic Party and drew fire for attending a fund-raiser because the host has a financial stake in tobacco legislation. . . "It's inappropriate for the president, especially the week that he is making speeches around the country about the need for national tobacco legislation, to be attending a fund-raising function with lawyers who stand to profit considerably from the deal," said Joan Mulhern, staff attorney for the group.
- The Freedom to Advertise Coalition (FAC) issued the following statement regarding the Senate Labor Committee's consideration of a tobacco bill, S. 1648, that would codify vast restrictions on tobacco advertising as part of the nation's food and drug laws:
- After meeting with the chief executive of a major tobacco company, SENATOR JOHN F. KERRY pledged yesterday to step up efforts to craft tobacco legislation that could pass political and public-health muster. Kerry, who has criticized the original tobacco settlement, said he had a "very good discussion" with LAURENCE TISCH, co-chief executive of Loews Inc., the parent of the company that manufactures Newport cigarettes.
- The ENACT coalition of major public health organizations applauds today's introduction of the KIDS Deserve Freedom From Tobacco Act by Senators Harkin, Chafee and Graham. These Senators have exhibited courageous leadership in crafting a strong, comprehensive, bipartisan solution to the urgent problem of tobacco use.
- "The Chafee-Harkin proposal is both punitive and patently unconstitutional. It violates the First Amendment and its financial terms are not achievable. The proposal's sudden, steep price increases would devastate communities dependent upon tobacco production. The "look-back" provisions - which cannot constitutionally be imposed upon the industry - are confiscatory and completely out of touch with economic reality.
- Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr. has introduced a bill to help tobacco growers weather a decline in consumption expected if Congress passes sweeping legislation to settle lawsuits by the states.
- It may take Solomon-like wisdom for Sen. John McCain, anointed the Senate's king dealmaker on tobacco by leadership Republicans, to strike a balance between widely conflicting views. In an unusual hearing, three fellow committee chairmen testified about the proposed $368.5 billion global tobacco settlement before McCain's Senate Commerce Committee yesterday.
- After a session that illuminated sharp disagreements, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the pivotal senator on the tobacco issue, said Wednesday that he could now separate the central questions from the more secondary ones. In the first category, issues that must be resolved before legislation can go forward, McCain, listed these topics:
- Two key Senate committees met yesterday to move forward on a national tobacco deal, but one panel broke up before taking a single vote and the other became mired in squabbles over many of the major issues. Senators testifying before the Commerce Committee, which has been anointed by the GOP leadership to pull together a major tobacco vehicle, disagreed on everything from the bill's content to how they will divide their work in writing it. . . "If this was the engagement party," observed Hollings's aide Maury Lane, "I'd hate to be at the wedding reception." . . Meanwhile, in the House, 35 Democrats, led by Rep. Vic Fazio (Calif.), introduced a tough measure, patterned after Conrad's bill, that could raise cigarette prices $1.50 a pack. The bill garnered an embrace from the Clinton administration, but lacks any Republican support.
- A flurry of news conferences, new bills and hearings on Wednesday brought Congress no closer to forging a national tobacco policy and sent the clearest signal yet of its dim prospects. All the effort without progress reminded one lawmaker of a military slogan referring to the scramble of a crew just before its ship is blown out of the water. "When in danger, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout," Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., told the Senate Commerce Committee.
- Publisher and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes on Thursday blasted tobacco settlement proposals as "a huge payoff" to the legal profession. . . . "That was simply a political payoff of the most appalling order," Forbes said. . . If somebody has done something wrong, then they should pay damages," he said. "What you have here, part of it, is really a huge payoff to the trial bar." Forbes said he was backing legislation in Congress which would limit lawyers involved in tobacco cases to collecting an hourly fee of $150 "which is still not a bad wage."
- Normally, when Congress considers legislation that would bring on big changes in society, there are two main sides: those who want the bill to pass because they favor change, and those who hope to block the measure to preserve the status quo. Tobacco legislation is an exception. No one favors the status quo. Everyone wants a bill passed this year. But few of the lawmakers and lobbyists involved are confident that the goal can be reached. . . Any measure passed by the Senate must be supported by Conrad and his allies as well as those backing the bipartisan measure, McCain insisted. "We have to move in lock-step," he said. "Otherwise, it flies apart. The whole thing is too fragile."
- "It is a good, tough bill," Clinton said in a speech to the National Association of Attorneys General. "I hope it gets wide support. This legislation will save lives."
- President Bill Clinton on Thursday endorsed a bipartisan Senate tobacco bill that takes a new tack on the vexing problems of industry legal protections and aims to slash teen smoking in half within three years. . . The industry rejected the bill as "both punitive and patently unconstitutional." Industry spokesman Steve Duchesne called the civil liability provisions "inadequate."
- However, McCurry noted that only one bill, legislation drafted by Sen. John Chafee, R-R.I., Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., has bi-partisan support.
- Now, I have said I would support any comprehensive bipartisan legislation if it meets five principles: I believe it must raise the price of cigarettes by up to $1.50 a pack over the next decade and impose tough penalties on companies that continue to sell to kids. It must reaffirm the FDA's authority to regulate tobacco products. It must get the tobacco companies out of the business of marketing to our children. It must further our other public health goals and it must protect the tobacco farmers and their communities. And I take it we're all agreed on that; I think that is very important. Today, I'm happy to report that Senators John CHAFEE, Bob GRAHAM and Tom HARKIN are introducing the first bipartisan bill that meets all five of these principles
- The nation's two premier public health leaders have decided to endorse a tobacco bill co-written by Sen. Bob GRAHAM. The bill, which will be unveiled today by Graham, D-Fla., and Sens. John CHAFEE, R-R.I., and Tom HARKIN, D-Iowa, attempts to forge a delicate compromise between the two contentious sides in the tobacco debate -- public health groups and the tobacco companies. It would raise the price of cigarettes by $1.50 per pack in two years and require the same tough marketing and advertising restrictions as last summer's national tobacco settlement. The bill does not give the tobacco companies the controversial legal protections from class-action lawsuits, but it sets an $8-billion annual cap on liability payments.
- The measure, sponsored by Sens. John CHAFEE (R-R.I.), Tom HARKIN (D-Iowa) and Bob GRAHAM (D-Fla.), would raise the price of cigarettes by $1.50 a pack over two years. And significantly, it would cap the tobacco industry's legal liability at $8 billion a year. The CHAFEE-HARKIN-GRAHAM BILL is the first embraced by the White House that includes legal protections for the tobacco industry. The president has said such protections do not need to be part of comprehensive tobacco legislation. But the industry says it needs such protections, and the president has said including them would not be a deal-breaker for him.
- With momentum growing in the Senate for tobacco legislation, a bipartisan group of senators is now pushing a measure that would boost cigarette prices an aggressive $1.50 a pack over two years. Republican John Chafee of Rhode Island and Democrats Tom Harkin of Iowa and Bob Graham of Florida, continuing to alter a draft of a bill they plan to introduce soon, said the bill also would place an $8 billion annual cap on the tobacco companies' legal payouts but wouldn't include other controversial legal protections that the industry wants.
- The bill, introduced by Democratic Rep. Vic Fazio of California, is similar to legislation sponsored by Democratic Sen. Kent CONRAD of North Dakota. Both bills would place greater financial burdens on cigarette makers than the industry's proposed national settlement of $368.5 billion over 25 years. Neither bill would provide legal relief.
- THE SENATE Labor and Human Resources Committee is scheduled to start marking up a tobacco bill today. The legislation is an effort by Chairman James Jeffords to codify Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate the product. The effect, however, could be to weaken the regulatory authority that the FDA already claims to have. The administration, leading anti-smoking groups and leading committee Democrats are therefore opposed, and in our view rightly so. . . . Better no bill at all than a bill that needlessly yields ground to this lethal product and remorseless industry.
- Attorney General Scott Harshbarger and attorneys general from across the country have joined President Clinton in urging Congress to pass landmark tobacco legislation.
- New Jersey Attorney General Peter Verniero on Friday called on Congress to pass a national tobacco settlement as soon as possible, warning that 3,000 new children start smoking every day.
- Listen to streaming audio containing the radio advertisement; comments from Steve Parrish, senior vice president, Corporate Affairs, Philip Morris; and comments from Geoff Bible, chairman & CEO, Philip Morris at http://www.newstream.com/r98-60.shtml
- President Clinton endorsed a new tobacco bill that, among other things,
denies the tobacco industry immunity from future lawsuits. Following a
background report, Margaret Warner and guests revisit the tobacco deal
and examine the new bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate
- All the signs from Clinton, however, are that he will be plenty flexible if it means actually enacting a settlement. . . Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore (D), who took a lead role in brokering a proposed settlement last year, said Clinton came up to him after his speech and declared, "I was born for this fight."
- President Clinton declared on Thursday that "Congress should not go home until it passes comprehensive tobacco legislation," and he said he could support a bipartisan bill that was introduced on Thursday in the Senate. Clinton, who sees a political bonanza for Democrats on the tobacco issue, has spoken out on it every day this week.
- Industry officials called the bill "punitive and patently unconstitutional." Tobacco industry spokesman Steve Duchesne said the bill "seems designed not to resolve the outstanding issues surrounding tobacco but to punish and even destroy the industry."
- The Massachusetts senator, at a Democratic luncheon, declares any tobacco bill by the Senate Commerce Committee as "dead on arrival." . . But Kennedy and others contend the committee, including tobacco-state Sens. Ford of Kentucky and Hollings of South Carolina, won't produce a tough bill. Some Republicans concede Kennedy's views could force the GOP to take a tougher stance on tobacco.
- President Clinton said Friday he was considering keeping Congress in session for as long as it takes to get tobacco legislation passed. 'I would certainly consider that. I don't think they should leave without resolving the tobacco thing,' Clinton said before a meeting with the Thai Prime Minister Chuam Leekpai.
- Tobacco growers and public health groups, adopting an agreement rooted in Virginia, set aside past hostilities and joined yesterday in endorsing 10 principles for a national tobacco settlement. The once-unlikely alliance called for restrictions on marketing and sales of tobacco products to teens, paired with a national program that limits leaf supply and sets a minimum purchase price to provide rural economic stability. "An unprecedented opportunity is before us to enhance the public health of this nation and to protect tobacco communities," said J.T. Davis of Halifax County, secretary of the Concerned Friends for Tobacco. "The 10 core principles. . . . will serve as a vehicle to accomplish this goal."
- Bill Novelli, president of Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said growers and health groups had created "a strong new alliance" to press Congress to act on smoking. Lawmakers have started work on a law using the proposed $368 billion settlement between states and tobacco firms as a beginning.
- Gingrich is considering a risky political strategy to punish the industry with an eye toward his potential run for the White House in 2000, according to one of his advisers. "Newt basically said that unless the President comes out and says he supports liability caps and does not disagree with how we allocate [a new cigarette tax], the [global settlement] is not going to happen," said one source at the meeting. "He said he told the White House just that."
- On March 17, 1998, former Major League player and noted baseball personality Joe Garagiola will testify before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on the issue of spit tobacco and its impact on the nation's youth.
- Frustrated Republicans on the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee publicly blasted their chairman, Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont, Wednesday by accusing him of "irresponsibly" and "unconscionably" restricting debate on his bill to prevent teen smoking. In an unusually open act of defiance, Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., denounced as "autocratic and inappropriate" a Jeffords decision to block consideration of certain staff-written amendments because they were outside the committee's jurisdiction.
- Senate Majority Whip Don Nickles said he would push for a limited tobacco bill featuring some antismoking measures and a tax increase if he doesn't see broad bipartisan support for comprehensive legislation. If there is no consensus on granting tobacco companies legal protections, "then you go a different route," the Oklahoma Republican said Tuesday. "I'm going to try to be sure there's some money in the budget ... to help pay for some ads to discourage teen smoking."
- Republican leaders skeptical that Congress will pass a national tobacco policy have crafted backup plans for a limited bill that would impose new restrictions on the industry. Assistant Senate Majority Leader Don Nickles, the chamber's lead Republican on the tobacco issue, told reporters Tuesday there is little support among GOP leaders for a bill that would protect tobacco companies from product liability lawsuits.
- State Sen. Catherine Abate, a Democrat from Manhattan, said a tobacco-funded advertisement campaign to promote passage of the settlement is misleading. "These ads should carry a warning label stating: 'This tobacco deal is hazardous to your health,"' Abate said. "Like all cigarette ads, these are nothing more than deceptive advertising designed to give a harmful product a clean image."
- A New York state senator wants New York's congressional delegation to reject a deal to resolve lawsuits against the tobacco industry. State Sen. Catherine Abate (ah-BOHT-ee) says the proposed settlement fails to deal adequately with teen smoking, makes it harder to regulate nicotine and shields the cigarette industry from future liability. Abate says she'll announce state legislation at an Albany, N.Y., press conference this afternoon to condemn the agreement.
- Popular ex-baseball catcher JOE GARAGIOLA Tuesday pushed Congress to pass legislation to curb "smokeless" or "spit" tobacco use among youth. "'Smokeless' is a nice, fuzzy insulated word that makes you think it's a safe alternative to smoking but it's not," Garagiola testified to the Senate Commerce Committee, whose Chairman John McCain of Arizona hopes to draft a tobacco bill by March 25.
- The artwork is on Business Wire's Web Site at URL: http://www.businesswire.com/photowire/pw.031798
- The Coalition for Workers' Health Care Funds, representing more than 2,500 union sponsored health funds nationwide, today applauded the stand taken by New Mexico Attorney General Tom Udall in opposing efforts by the tobacco industry to achieve immunity from lawsuits.
- A Senate panel on Wednesday finally managed to nibble around the edges of a tobacco bill, but its meeting was chock full of shouting, name-calling and gavel-banging, mostly among Republicans. Then, when the Senate Labor and Human Rights Committee stopped squabbling and began working, it had to disband for the second week in a row because an anonymous senator invoked an arcane Senate rule to halt the proceedings, for reasons that may or may not have anything to do with tobacco. The brouhaha -- which may provide a taste of what any eventual congressional debate on a tobacco bill may be like -- began when committee Chairman James Jeffords, a Vermont Republican, announced he would very strictly define what amendments would be germane.
- Legislators are beginning to wrestle with how they ought to treat America's 124,000 tobacco farmers if there is a comprehensive settlement between the tobacco industry and its critics. Two issues are paramount. Should America's tobacco farmers be compensated for diminished demand caused by steep new cigarette taxes? And should the government stay in the business of organising and administering the tobacco growers' lucrative cartel? . . If history is any guide, the tobacco farmers will do just fine.
- A 15-year-old student at Denver's West High School, [Nicole] Gallegos denounced tobacco companies and their billion-dollar advertising budgets during testimony before a House subcommittee. . . Gallegos, a leader of a ninth-grade project that aims to ban tobacco advertising in Denver, implored members of a House Commerce subcommittee on health and environment to "do the right thing -- take a controversial stand."
- Jacob Falwell, 18, is part of that debate. But the Western Kentucky teen-ager hardly fits into typical discussions about cigarettes and peer pressure or the influence of sexy advertising. . . "I think the farmers want to make sure the tobacco program, as it is right now, will stay in place," Falwell said. " ... We need to know we will have a future in tobacco farming."
- Straight-talking teen-agers from Virginia told Congress yesterday that raising cigarette prices won't make a dent in youth smoking. Some proposals before Congress for curbing teen-age tobacco use include a $1.50 price increase or an excise-tax increase per cigarette pack. But four teens challenged that premise before a House of Representatives subcommittee. "If money were a huge issue, then kids wouldn't be buying marijuana as much," testified Elisa Svensson.
- Is this sensuous woman an improvement over Joe Camel? Many members of Congress don't think so. That helps explain why they are pressing hard for an ironclad guarantee in the national tobacco settlement that the industry will voluntarily stop virtually all advertising.
- The chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee postponed a vote next week on tobacco legislation, blaming a Treasury Department official who didn't show up to testify about the administration's plan to raise cigarette prices.
- Fragile efforts to create a national tobacco policy suffered another blow when a Clinton administration official stood up a Senate committee struggling to forge a bipartisan plan in two weeks.
- One Senate committee chairman killed his own tobacco bill Tuesday and another fumed about being stood up by the Clinton administration in developments boding ill for enacting a new national policy towards cigarettes.
- The Senate Commerce Committee, whose chairman John McCain is trying to draft a comprehensive bill, postponed its scheduled March 25 consideration of a bill . . . Meanwhile, the Senate Labor and Human Resources panel dropped efforts to draft part of a bill late Wednesday after two weeks of unusually bitter debate and just one vote on an amendment. That bill had become less relevant after Republican leaders decided McCain's Commerce Committee should coordinate the Senate's efforts on crafting a tobacco law.
- The Senate Commerce Committee might not be able to start work as scheduled on a tobacco bill next week, partly because a high-level Treasury official did not show up to testify at a hearing Thursday, committee chairman John McCain said.
- The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Thursday postponed next week's planned consideration of a tobacco bill, after a hearing in which a U.S. Treasury official did not show up to testify. . . McCain said he was "deeply disappointed" by Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Jonathan Gruber's absence from the hearing, at which he was expected to testify about how cigarette prices would rise under the proposed settlement. But Treasury spokesman Howard Schloss told Reuters there had been a miscommunication about the schedule, not an unwillingness to provide data.
- Frustrated Republicans on the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee publicly blasted their chairman, Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont, Wednesday by accusing him of "irresponsibly" and "unconscionably" restricting debate on his bill to prevent teen smoking.
- Three Washington law and lobbying firms were paid the most, pulling down $12.6 million last year from the nation's five leading tobacco companies, after they were hired to garner support for the settlement in Congress and from the Clinton administration. One firm -- Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand, home to former Senate majority leader George J. Mitchell and former Texas governor Ann Richards -- took in $10.3 million from five tobacco companies, according to the most recent lobby fee disclosures filed in Congress.
- Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., point man in the Senate for the tobacco settlement, warned yesterday that failure to enact settlement legislation would lead to the bankruptcy of tobacco companies and "nobody gets any money." McCain . . . said his panel will begin the markup -- or drafting -- of legislation next week and settle differences then on cigarette company liability and other major issues. He predicted the panel would report out a comprehensive bill that the White House could accept along the lines of the $368.5 billion industry settlement with the states.
- Lawsuits against tobacco companies playing out in several states lend urgency to the drive to approve a tobacco settlement in Congress, said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who's responsible for marshaling any such legislation through the Senate. If a few more states win settlements, tobacco companies are in danger of going bankrupt, and "then nobody gets any money," McCain told reporters at a breakfast meeting Wednesday.
- Witnesses: Raymond Scheppach, Executive Director, National Governors Association Timothy Columbus, Counsel, National Association of Convenience Stores Martin Feldman, Smith-barney Analyst Chaired By: Sen. John Mccain (R-AZ) 9:42 A.M. (EST) Thursday, March 19, 1998
- This edition of Policy.com's "Issue of the Week" turns its focus to the impending tobacco settlement. It examines the proposed tobacco resolution reached last summer and highlights the key provisions of embryonic Congressional tobacco legislation, including the manner in which tobacco is to be regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, minors' access to tobacco products and restrictions on tobacco advertisements and the debate over immunity and special protections for the tobacco industry. Join Policy.com's moderated discussion on the tobacco settlement, Wednesday, March 18, at 4:00pm ET/1:00pm PT in the policy chat room. American Council on Science and Health President Elizabeth Whelan, Ph.D. , will join the discussion to provide expert commentary.
- Three thousand kids start smoking every day. That's a national emergency. We are going to hold tobacco companies liable for their efforts to endanger our children, and we will use the proceeds to pay for a nationwide campaign to stop any more of our kids from smoking. This I promise you is my top priority
- Sen. John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said a Treasury official's refusal to testify as scheduled before his panel Thursday showed a lack of commitment by the Administration to work with Congress. "Unfortunately, the White House has yet to provide the help necessary for Congress to do its job," the Arizona Senator wrote in his prepared Republican response to President Clinton's weekly radio address.
- They have fought for years to stamp out smoking and expose tobacco's sins, but some health groups now are joining forces with farmers to ensure survival of the government's 60-year-old tobacco-support program. "You've seen how dogs and cats are sometimes found to depend on each other? There's a little bit of that going on here," said Larry Wooten, vice president of the North Carolina Farm Bureau. There's nothing odd about the alliance to Scott Ballin, spokesman for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids: "What you want to do is control the production of tobacco as much as possible."
- Even the most staunch tobacco-industry opponents, including Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., support the growers. Save Lives, Not Tobacco, a coalition of organizations that oppose granting special protections to the tobacco industry, is united in its support of the grower. "One of the pieces of our platform is there should be some compensation to tobacco farmers and their communities to cover losses," said Joan Mulhern, legislative counsel for Public Citizen,
- By finding tobacco companies not liable Thursday, the jury bolstered the belief by some that secondhand smoke lawsuits may be better off being settled nationally than tried, Seattle-based attorney Steve Berman said. "I think big tobacco is going to say to Congress `Hey look ... this jury saw those documents and they still weren't convinced,"' said Berman, who serves as the lead private counsel for the attorneys general in their suits against the industry.
- The tobacco industry scored a win in the courts this week, but continued to struggle in Washington in efforts to grapple with liability for smoking-related health problems.
- The major tobacco marketers are striking back at critics with an ad campaign . . . that lays out Big Tobacco's views on the current regulatory debate. "I think it is fair to say that the tobacco industry does not have a lot of credibility on certain issues," said Steven C. Parrish. . . Gary Black, a tobacco analyst for Sanford Bernstein & Co., said the ads may have some effect. "The odds of a deal are very high, but a big problem is that there is a lot of misinformation. [The tobacco industry's] enemy is the misinformation campaign that zealots are spreading in an effort to quash the deal," he said. "The moderates in Congress, the more they learn about the deal the more they find it appealing."
- Boosting cigarette prices by $1.10 per pack over five years would cut U.S. youth smoking by 42 percent and prevent nearly one million premature deaths, according to a study released by the White House on Monday. The White House unveiled the Treasury Department study, and Vice President Al Gore promoted it in a conference call with state attorneys general, in an effort to push Congress to pass tobacco legislation this year.
- Washington Attorney General Chris Gregoire said new figures released by the White House today indicate passage of a comprehensive tobacco bill by Congress could cut the number of teen smokers in Washington by 48,000 over the next five years. . .
- Today Vice President Al Gore addressed joint concerns held with the National PTA such as underage tobacco use, Internet safety, television ratings and the V-chip, and school funding before a crowd of over 250 of the organization's leaders at its annual legislative conference.
- Hiking cigarette prices by $1.10 a pack over five years will cut teen-age smoking by an average 42% and prevent nearly 1 million premature deaths, says Vice President Al Gore. Campaigning for the Clinton administration's beleaguered anti-tobacco legislation, Gore on Sunday drew on a new Treasury Department analysis making the case that a pocketbook attack will encourage many young people to quit or never to take the first puff.
- State-by-state effects of tobacco legislation on teen smoking and premature deaths. Includes percent reductions of premature deaths in 2003, number of reductions of premature deaths from 1999-2003, cut in the number of teen smokers in 2003, and cut in the number of teen smokers from 1999-2003.
- Armed with new documents showing tobacco companies targeted African-Americans, Boston's black leaders will convene a symposium today aimed at securing money for health projects in Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan from the proposed national tobacco settlement. But behind the anger, there is a measure of chagrin. Tobacco companies have long stepped into the void to fund black causes ranging from the College Fund to Rev. Jesse Jackson's Operation PUSH to the Dance Theater of Harlem.
- Churches Organized To Stop Tobacco (COST) tomorrow joins U.S. Representative John Conyers of the Congressional Black Caucus, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and other religious leaders and government officials for a symposium called, "Suits, Settlements and the Impact on the African American Community." The public forum on the "Big Tobacco" settlement will be held on Tuesday, March 24 from 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. at the Owens- Roberts Education Center at Peoples Baptist Church, 830 Tremont Street in Roxbury.
- A tobacco/asbestos trust fund to compensate asbestos workers who smoked and developed lung disease enjoys overwhelming support from the American public, according to a new study released today by the ALLIANCE FOR A FAIR TOBACCO SETTLEMENT. The study, which examines the impact of including a trust fund for those suffering from tobacco asbestos disease, finds that 67% strongly agree that any tobacco legislation should use tobacco company money to compensate asbestos workers who smoked.
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'All the Planets Are in Alignment To Pass More Sweeping Tobacco Legislation This Year'
Interview with Bruce Reed, Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy
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People 'Poisoned By Tobacco' Deserve Day in Court
Sen. Edward Kennedy
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The Case for the Original Global Tobacco Settlement
By Sen. Orrin Hatch
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Our Plan Makes Fastest Cut of Kids' Tobacco Use: 50 Percent in Three Years
By Sen. Tom Harkin, Sen. John Chafee, and Sen. Bob Graham
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Cap Lawyers' Fees in Tobacco Deal at $125 Per Hour
By Sen. Lauch Faircloth
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Farmers Must Receive Their 'Fair Shake' From Deal
By Sen. Ernest Hollings
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Don't Start Negotiating With Tobacco 'Terrorists'
By Sen. Frank Lautenberg
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Retailers Have Been Locked Out of the Tobacco Talks
By Rep. Pete Sessions
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Tobacco Money Must Help Fund Medical Research
By Sen. Connie Mack
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My Legislation Is Healthy for Kids -- Not Industry
By Sen. Kent Conrad
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Tobacco Deal Must Protect the Power of States, Cities
By Hubert Humphrey III
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If We Don't Stop Being Mad, 'We'll Never Get Even' With the Industry, Writes the Tobacco Deal's Architect
By Mike Moore
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Big Tobacco Must Stop Targeting Kids Worldwide
By Sen. Dick Durbin and Sen. Ron Wyden
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The Food and Drug Administration Needs 'Sensible'
Authority Over Tobacco Products, Writes Sen. Jeffords
By Sen. James Jeffords
- SEN. LOTT: No. . . I do not support tax increases on working Americans at any point. . . The president has not shown leadership on this. He's shown no courage. He has sent us no legislation. All he does is, you know, take pot shots at our efforts in the Congress and say, "Oh, and, by the way, I want to spend it for all of these programs," none of which are related to health problems caused by smoking. . . But we want to work to discourage teenage smoking and drug abuse. MS. IFILL: And no tax? SEN. LOTT: Not a tax increase. If the price of tobacco goes up as a result of an agreement, you know, $1, $1.50, that's a whole different issue.
- The Clinton administration cranked up the pressure on Congress to craft a national tobacco policy Wednesday as a Senate panel came closer to agreement on a bill aimed at winning support from lawmakers in both parties. "It is coming to a climax here, one way or another, pretty soon," said Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Commerce Committee chairman charged by Republican leaders with developing a bipartisan bill.
- The Senate Commerce Committee honed in on Wednesday on a tough tobacco bill that would raise the price of a cigarette pack by $1.10 over five years . . . Talks were still under way late Wednesday and changes were possible, but the outline emerging was a much tougher bill than the settlement proposal the industry negotiated last June
- Treasury aides say a staff calculating error led Deputy Secretary Summers to overstate the life-saving effects of raising cigarette prices. Adding a dime to the price of a pack would lead 270,000 fewer teens to take up smoking over the next five years, not 700,000 fewer, as Summers said.
- The Texas Republican said Wednesday that lack of leadership on the issue from the White House has created a hostile environment for any package. "We're all curious and interested" in a tobacco bill being developed in the Senate Commerce Committee chaired by Sen. John McCain.
- Smoking costs the U.S. about $130 billion a year in shortened working lives and added health-care spending, according to a new Treasury analysis to be released Wednesday as part of a Clinton administration campaign to push tobacco legislation through Congress.
- As the Senate Commerce Committee vowed to complete the outline of a tobacco bill by week's end, a financial analyst told the panel Tuesday that the administration's tobacco proposal would be so costly that it could throw at least one of the biggest companies into bankruptcy. Martin Feldman, an analyst with Salomon Smith Barney, told the committee that the administration's proposal, which would raise the price of a pack of cigarettes by $1.50, would cost at least $644 billion over 25 years.
- Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the Republican point man on the proposed tobacco settlement, is moving to mold a bipartisan measure by early next week that could include a $1.10-per-pack price hike on cigarettes over the next five years, according to Senate sources. In his budget, President Clinton called for the $1.10 increase, which the industry opposes. Senate sources said McCain is negotiating with the White House and might agree to that figure if the administration is willing to make concessions in other areas of the complex legislation.
- Racing the clock to an Easter recess April 3, a Senate panel charged with crafting a national tobacco policy is preparing for all-night meetings to try to find a consensus that could win a majority of votes. "I'll stay as late as it takes," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
- Treasury Department Deputy Secretary Lawrence H. Summers on Tuesday told a Senate panel that Americans spend another $60 billion a year treating smoking-related illnesses. Smoking during pregnancy, he said, costs the country more than $3 billion a year. Fires cost another $500 million, and smokers with group life insurance push up premiums for nonsmokers in the same pool by $4 billion a year, Summers added. The Clinton administration today is releasing a study of the cost of smoking to the American economy.
- McCain, however, told reporters that although he was closing gaps with fellow committee members, key decisions had yet to be made. Commerce is a conservative committee, with several members from tobacco-growing states, and many members of Congress and their staffs have predicted it will be extremely difficult for McCain to draft a bill that can get a majority vote on the committee and still satisfy public health advocates.
- An administration official yesterday said continuing a production-control program for tobacco would help meet President Clinton's goal of protecting growers in any national tobacco legislation. Testifying before the Senate Commerce Committee, Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers repeated the president's call that tobacco farmers should be helped if Congress passes tobacco legislation that would reduce the demand for cigarettes -- and raw leaf tobacco -- in this country.
- Two top Treasury Department officials are scheduled to testify Tuesday before the Senate panel considering tobacco legislation. The Senate Commerce Committee is expected to hear testimony from Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Jonathan Gruber.
- The first official Republican response to President Clinton's poll-tested plans for new spending is a cautious fiscal 1999 budget blueprint that hews closely to last year's budget accord. The Senate Budget Committee approved the draft budget resolution March 18 in a 12-10 party-line vote after a two-day debate that focused mostly on a fight over how to spend tobacco-related revenue that may never materialize.
- The Coalition for Workers' Health Care Funds today announced it was endorsing a tobacco control legislative package introduced in the House by Rep. Vic Fazio (D-CA) as H.R. 3474. The Fazio bill is the House counterpart of the Healthy Kids Act, introduced earlier in the Senate by Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND). Both bills preserve the right of the union sponsored health care funds to proceed with class action lawsuits they have filed against the tobacco industry in some 32 states. H.R. 3474 is designed to cut youth smoking by two-thirds by the year 2007. It is the first major bill introduced in the House of Representatives this year stemming from the proposed tobacco settlement.
- Vice President Al Gore says increasing cigarette prices $1.10 a pack will reduce teen-age smoking 42 percent. Some teens say that isn't likely. "If kids want to smoke, they're going to do it whatever the cost, even if it means stealing," said Shanon Mueller, 16, of Anderson Township. "It's not going to make me quit because I've got a job and I'm making money to buy cigarettes no matter what they cost," said Zack Naugle, 16, of Covington, Ky.
- Vice-president Al Gore yesterday urged Congress to act quickly on the proposed multi-billion dollar tobacco settlement and released a Treasury study showing that a $1.10 price rise in tobacco prices over five years would cut youth smoking by over 40 per cent.
- The Save Lives, Not Tobacco Principles and Goals have provided Congress with a roadmap for fair and effective national legislation that does not give the tobacco cartel unprecedented special protections from responsibility for its deadly products. Public Citizen endorses the bills introduced by Senator Conrad and Representative Fazio which have followed the right approach to this important national issue: protect public health, reduce teen smoking, raise the price of tobacco products, and reject special protections. The popular support emerging across the country for these bills will make it harder for Congress to bail out the tobacco industry with an unprecedented, undeserved and undemocratic immunity deal.
- Tobacco companies on Wednesday fired off a strongly worded letter accusing the White House of reneging on terms of a giant tobacco truce and of trying to drive the price for peace so high that "it would almost certainly result in industry bankruptcies."
- The industry's warning, in a letter to White House domestic policy adviser Bruce Reed, came on a day of feverish behind-the-scenes activity in the Senate, where McCain is attempting to draft a bipartisan bill before Congress recesses April 3. McCain has been negotiating with the White House, top public health advocates and key Senate Republicans and Democrats on the Commerce Committee in the hopes of gaining consensus on the bill's many controversial elements.
- As Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the Republican point man on the proposed settlement, worked to draft a tobacco bill, the nation's major cigarette-makers made clear that they would pull their support from one that includes the $1.10 price increase and other "alarming" proposals. . . McCain said through a spokesman that he hoped the industry "would judge the entire package on its merits" when it is completed. He said he hoped to have a draft of the bill by today and begin full committee work on the bill next week. David Kessler . . . gave McCain a vote of confidence. "If anyone can do it, John McCain can," Kessler said.
- Industry lawyer Phil Carlton wrote to top White House aides blasting recent White House comments on cigarette price increases and civil liability and said, "If these proposals are ultimately incorporated in a proposed bill, it will be impossible for the companies to support such legislation, or to sign the protocol that contains some of the most important parts of the proposed resolution."
- Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain postponed until next Wednesday the committee's work on a tobacco settlement, saying he needed more time to complete negotiations on a bipartisan bill. McCain told reporters late Thursday he remained optimistic about reaching an agreement Friday or perhaps during the weekend but had not been able to finish the committee's work Thursday as he had hoped, with problems remaining on public health and liability issues.
- Disagreement over public health provisions slowed down a U.S. Senate tobacco bill, but its chief author remained confident that he would soon have a bill that would raise prices by $1.10 a pack over five years and give cigarette makers fewer legal protections. . . But by late Thursday night, he concluded it would take another day or two to finish, and he pushed back committee action by at least a day, until next Wednesday.
- In exchange for the higher payments, the [Senate Commerce] committee is now considering granting tobacco companies the following legal protection: a conditional annual cap on legal payouts, limiting the industry's legal exposure in any given year to about $6.5 billion, as long as the industry meets targets for reducing underage smoking; eliminating punitive damages in cases involving past misconduct, as the settlement would do; and allowing class-action suits for future industry misconduct, in addition to other kinds of consolidation of smokers' lawsuits.
- John McCain of Arizona, ran into trouble with the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Orrin Hatch of Utah. Hatch said the bill probably was unconstitutional and was so harsh it would prompt cigarette makers to declare bankruptcy. The Clinton administration weighed in with a counterproposal Thursday night whose details were not disclosed.
- "The difficulty is philosophical -- how much power you are going to give the FDA," said McCain.
- The chance for a buyout of farmers' production allotments under the federal tobacco price-support program improved yesterday as tobacco-state senators signed on to a plan for an optional buyout. Sen. Wendell Ford, D-Ky., announced that he had modified his aid plan [LEAF] for tobacco farmers to include a voluntary, $8-a-pound buyout as part of the national settlement of health lawsuits against cigarette companies.
- What's the ads don't reveal, however, is what's in it for them, the senior officers of the leading tobacco firms. According to the latest records, those officers now stand to make well over $200 million from stock options if the deal goes through.
- At a hearing on tobacco legislation, Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., was questioning Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers about the extent to which an increase in cigarette prices would lead to a reduction in teen-age smoking. This exchange occurred:
- However, both the tobacco industry and public health groups are sharply critical of the proposal and, by pulling negotiators in opposite directions, are undermining chances that there will be a tobacco law this year.
- Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) pushed back until Wednesday a planned bill-writing session on a tobacco settlement measure, as key members of his committee continued to struggle to find agreement on several major tenets of the bill.
- A sharply higher price tag and fewer legal protections for the tobacco industry are part of a draft summary of the Senate's key tobacco bill circulating on Capitol Hill. But Senate negotiators still were far apart Friday on nicotine regulation and planned to work through the weekend. Aides to the bill's sponsor, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, said the measure -- Congress' leading effort at national tobacco policy -- would die if not settled by early Monday.
- After a week of day-and-night negotiations on tobacco legislation, leading senators have agreed to drive up the price of a pack of cigarettes by $1.10 over the next five years, almost double what the cigarette manufacturers accepted in a settlement they reached last June with state attorneys general. But senators cautioned Friday that many other elements of the legislation had not been completed and that the negotiations, including the agreement on the higher price, could still come apart.
- "We believe that we have the overwhelming majority on both sides of the aisle," the Arizona Republican said at a news conference.
- Kessler said the outline of a Senate tobacco bill released on Sunday "does not measure up." Kessler told Reuters that the bill did not aim high enough for reducing teen-age smoking and the $1.10 per pack increase contemplated in the bill drafted by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain was insufficient.
- Negotiators on the Senate's main tobacco bill announced terms today that would include a $6.5 billion yearly cap on the damages tobacco companies could be forced to pay. The figure was a compromise between those who believe such a limit is necessary for making a national policy work and those who say the industry should get no protection at all.
- Despite the promise of a $28.5 billion buyout, North Carolina tobacco growers and their representatives said Monday the latest tobacco settlement bill falls short of meeting their needs. "We want some money up front," said Charles Harvey, executive vice president of the N.C. Tobacco Growers Association. "We simply can't wait ... for some of this money and have it do us any good."
- The tobacco settlement bill being drafted in the Senate includes a $28.5 billion plan to buy out thousands of tobacco growers and pay those who continue if demand drops. In addition, the measure drafted by Sen. Wendell Ford, D-Ky., would provide grants for education, for retraining displaced workers and for business creation to offset economic losses in tobacco-growing states.
- The White House Monday embraced Sen. John McCain's proposed tobacco legislation as a step in the right direction, but said the bill's public health provisions must be strengthened. White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles broadly praised a bill drafted by the Arizona Republican and offered sharp criticism only on the question of how it would punish the industry if it fails to meet targets on cutting youth smoking. "Senator McCain has (drafted) ... a bipartisan bill that will move us closer to enacting comprehensive tobacco legislation," Bowles said in a speech.
- Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Senator McCain has released a new tobacco legislative proposal. Unfortunately, this new proposal contains many of the same flawed elements of the June 20 deal. The June 20 deal was unacceptable and the new version proposed by Senator McCain is unacceptable. This new proposal is inadequate to protect public health, for our children it simply achieves too little and gives the tobacco industry far too much. The American Lung Association requests that you oppose this legislation.
- Negotiators on the Senate's main tobacco settlement bill are hung up on key provisions, such as how to spend the industry's money and whether to protect companies from lawsuits. Those sticking points kept round-the-clock negotiations from wrapping up over the weekend. Nonetheless, Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., declared other parts of the bill "a solid foundation for the debate that lies ahead."
- Negotiators on the Senate' s main tobacco settlement bill are hung up on key provisions, such as how to spend the industry' s money and whether to protect companies from lawsuits. Those sticking points kept round-the-clock negotiations from wrapping up over the weekend. Nonetheless, Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., declared other parts of the bill " a solid foundation for the debate that lies ahead."
- A key Republican senator yesterday produced a tobacco bill that would place a $1.10-per-pack fee on cigarette makers and provide broad federal regulation of tobacco, but the measure left open the issue of legal protections demanded by the industry.
- The Senate Commerce committee unveiled Sunday a tobacco bill that will serve as the starting point for Congress this year, but it lacked a solution to the problem of legal protection for the industry and got a muted reaction from public health advocates. "On the issues that matter most to reduce the number of children who smoke, the bill does not measure up," said former Food and Drug Administration chief David Kessler, whose views will have great influence on members of Congress.
- Unveiling Avoids Question of Legal Relief For Tobacco Firms That Faces Opposition
- Cigarette companies have offered $368.5 billion to settle smoking-related lawsuits if Congress will protect them from future class-action suits. Yet the tobacco companies were kept out of the room during marathon weekend negotiations that raised that ante to more than half a trillion dollars.
- When work formally begins this week on landmark tobacco legislation, Sen. John McCain will strike his usual arms-crossed pose at the center of the committee dais knowing that he is a pivotal player in the year's biggest battle and knowing that his handling of this fight could help shape his political future.
- With a framework for comprehensive tobacco legislation being proposed by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, the risks and costs to the industry are taking a definite, measurable form that investors can calculate.
- THE FLORIDA PETROLEUM MARKETERS AND CONVENIENT STORE ASSOCIATION (FPMA) confirmed its opposition to the McCain Bill currently under review in the Senate Commerce Committee. . . The bill allows the Secretary of Health and Human Services to determine which type of retail outlets could sell tobacco products. In short, it would be well within the Federal government's jurisdiction to prohibit convenient sotres from selling tobacco products. This power could usher in a new "Prohibition" era and a huge black market in cigarettes that would likely accompany any ban.
- A key senator proposed granting the tobacco industry a $6.5 billion limit on its legal liability each year, the final step in his bid to craft a bill that would cut youth smoking and transform the business of tobacco. As Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, an Arizona Republican, announced on Monday the last and most controversial section of his bill, the White House lauded it as an imperfect but good first step. The tobacco industry called it "fundamentally flawed" and threatened to fight it.
- Signed by coalition legislative director David L. Mallino, Sr., the letter said "Make no mistake about it, while the tobacco industry will publicly protest against the proposed liability caps, they will laugh all the way to the bank."
- In the congressional cauldron that is shaping tobacco legislation, one issue is vital to cigarette makers and to their enemies: how much legal protection should the government give cigarette producers and at what price? The tobacco bill offered on Monday by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., could raise the industry's potential legal bills by $1.5 billion a year, without giving producers any of the protections from lawsuits that they say are essential to gain their support for a bill.
- The bill quickly drew fire from several quarters: A top tobacco lawyer called it fundamentally flawed, and public health advocates labeled it weak and woefully inadequate. But the bill is the only centrist measure yet introduced in Congress and is the best offer the industry has received so far from lawmakers.
- A key Senate committee is poised to pass tough national legislation to regulate tobacco -- with terms far harsher than those the industry agreed to in a proposed settlement last year.
- Congress' leading tobacco bill contains few legal protections demanded by the industry, an election-year effort by both parties to cede little to companies they believe lied for years about hooking kids on smoking. Even before Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the Commerce Committee chairman, unveiled his compromise Monday, the industry called the bill an act of "vengeance" and threatened not to go along with any congressional curbs on tobacco advertising.
- It is not simply as bad as the June 20th deal between the attorneys general and Big Tobacco, it is worse. This is a sweetheart deal for the tobacco industry and a major setback for the union sponsored health care funds and the public health community.
- "It's 'Strike One' in the Congress' first at bat on producing meaningful tobacco legislation. The Republicans talk tough on tobacco, but their Senate bill fails the tests that are important to every American: it won't help prevent our kids from smoking or hold the tobacco industry accountable.
- Tobacco stocks rose on Monday as investors appeared cheered by the industry's tough stand. Philip Morris Cos. Inc. (MO - news) rose 3/8 to 43, while RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. (RN - news) was up 3/16 to 26-9/16. PaineWebber analyst Emanuel Goldman said the size and speed of the cigarette price increase was a key concern for the industry, because it could create a black market in contraband cigarettes. "You'll have a shift from legal cigarettes to illegal cigarettes, which will create havoc with the industry," he said. "That's why they're playing so hard-nosed." Phil Carlton, an attorney representing the industry, said in a conference call that the proposed bill would create, "the most massive contraband market that this country has seen in years. It will make the drug market pale by comparison."
- "The industry cannot support the fundamentally flawed proposal by the Commerce Committee and cannot take the voluntary actions needed to ensure that such legislation could withstand any Constitutional challenges that lie ahead. "The Commerce Committee proposal would put at risk all the benefits of the proposed tobacco resolution. It would also jeopardize the financial viability of the tobacco industry, cause economic dislocation among those who do business with tobacco companies, impose astronomical price increases on consumers, create a black market and potentially lead to prohibition.
- Senators negotiating a landmark settlement with the tobacco industry yesterday rejected the cigarette makers' demand for broad immunity from lawsuits brought by smokers and drafted legislation that would limit damages the industry could be forced to pay to $6.5 billion a year.
- The Tobacco Fairness Coalition, a lobbying group, plans to send ballots to about 15,000 Tar Heel leaf growers. The group is trying to gauge support for various proposals being floated in Washington to use money from the proposed settlement to help farmers and others involved in tobacco production. The group plans subsequent mailings to tobacco-growing interests in other states.
- A tobacco bill rolled into shape yesterday in the U.S. Senate would raise the price of a pack of smokes by at least 50 percent, which could be the straw that breaks Joe Camel's back.
- Canadian Jim Bray said boosting the cost of a pack of cigarettes didn't have much effect on smokers in his country, where prices eventually reached $5 a pack. "We've already gone through all of this," said Bray, a free-lance writer in Ottawa. "I said I'd quit when cigarettes got to be $3, then $4, but I never did." . . . Chris King, 47, an accountant, also commented in a random sampling of opinion on the proposal, "If the price of cigarettes increases, it may have an effect on kids."
- Wall Street voted "no" on Tuesday as tobacco stocks fell amid heavy trading. "The bill's dead," said Gary Black, a Sanford Bernstein stocks analyst. "It is a Frankenstein's monster that unfortunately the industry is going to have to slaughter."
- The tobacco industry stated "unequivocally" Tuesday that it will not accept a draft Senate tobacco bill and would fight it in court. If the bill drafted by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain was signed into law, the companies would "legally challenge the lookback surcharges (penalties) and marketing restrictions which are clearly unconstitutional unless accepted on a voluntary basis," industry attorney Phil Carlton said in a statement.
- A bill that would force the tobacco industry to pay $506 billion over 25 years, plus billions of dollars in fines if teen-age smoking rates do not decrease significantly was approved Wednesday by a Senate committee. The bill won the endorsement from an overwhelming majority on the Senate Commerce Committee, clearing the first legislative hurdle on the road to what members of both parties and the White House are targeting as a new national policy on tobacco. Only Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., voted against it. Ashcroft said he objected to giving cigarette makers legal protections not accorded other companies.
- "Because the state lawsuits made a national settlement possible, states must be full partners in drafting settlement legislation," said the 40-governor letter sent to Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Ranking Member Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.) today. "The ultimate success of a nationwide effort to reduce youth smoking will depend on state implementation, therefore states must be involved in designing programs that will work."
- We commend you and your staff for your tremendous work over the last few weeks to draft comprehensive tobacco legislation. . . We believe that the proposal needs strengthening in a number of vitally important areas.
- The 19-1 vote in the Senate Commerce committee paved the way for the historic legislation to go to the Senate floor, perhaps in May, and underscored once again the tobacco industry's eroding influence in Congress.
- Senate Republicans predict quick committee passage of Congress' leading tobacco bill despite dozens of changes lawmakers are proposing. "My guess is that it will pass the Commerce Committee this week," bringing it a step closer to a Senate vote before the June 1 deadline set by senior Republicans, said Assistant Majority Leader Don Nickles.
- With his majority holding firm, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain resisted many amendments to the bipartisan bill his staff and dozens of negotiators settled upon over the weekend in a bid for votes from most members of both parties. He and other Senate Republican leaders predict the committee will approve the bill this week. "This is not a perfect bill, to say the least," McCain said, opening the panel's consideration of dozens of amendments. "But our job is to get a bill that can pass the committee."
- Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., is saving fights over how to spend the billions a comprehensive tobacco bill will likely bring to the federal government until the bill hits the Senate floor.
- The leading tobacco bill in Congress would force Old Joe, the Barnum & Bailey dromedary on Camel cigarette packs since 1913, to join cartoon counterpart Joe Camel in retirement. . . The news drew dismay from Camel maker RJR Nabisco, whose lawyers confirmed Tuesday that the ban would erase Old Joe from Camel labels. "The name of the brand is Camel -- that's been its name since 1913 and for 85 years it has had a camel on the package front," RJR Nabisco spokeswoman Peg Carter said. "This is simply one of the reasons why this industry has indicated it will not sign away its First Amendment rights with the McCain bill."
- MISSOURI SEN. John Ashcroft likens the Senate to a demolition derby. Ideas roll into the arena and promptly begin smashing into each other, until all are wrecked and immobile. But then, someone materializes to put together one piece from this wreck, another from that one, until a working vehicle is assembled and driven off wobbily as the victor. . . And who is the master mechanic who is still capable of assembling the scattered parts into a working vehicle? His name is Bill Clinton.
- In some circles, it's called "Settlement II." But there's a stark difference between the comprehensive tobacco bill proposed this week by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and the settlement plan struck last June by tobacco companies and representatives of 40 state attorneys general. This time, the tobacco companies weren't at the negotiating table.
- If Congress wants to curb teenage smoking by effectively raising cigarette prices to about $3 per pack, it's probably on the right track.
- Congress is struggling to find money to cover President Bill Clinton's proposed increase in spending on scientific research that was to have been paid for out a national tobacco settlement, a top appropriations lawmaker said Wednesday. REP. JERRY LEWIS, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the National Science Foundation, said the administration's assumed revenues from tobacco companies may not materialize.
- Robert Lemons, president of BOMA/Boston . . . stated that second-hand smoke is a proven carcinogen, a fire safety hazard and a leading contributor to indoor air pollution. Its removal would protect building occupants and remove a liability concern for owners and tenants alike.
- A proposed tobacco bill before the Senate Commerce Committee could leave taxpayers holding the bag for 80 percent of court judgments levied against cigarette makers, former U.S. Surgeon Gen. C. Everett Koop said Tuesday. Koop said a $6.5 billion annual liability cap for the tobacco industry proposed by Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona was a far cry from the tough measures necessary to make cigarette makers toe the line on smoking. "That bill is not what we need," he said in an evening speech to the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia.
- It's April Fool's Day and Big Tobacco is trying to fool us again, warn the AMERICAN LUNG ASSOCIATION and PUBLIC CITIZEN. The two organizations today released a report, "Don't Be Fooled Again, A Report on the Tobacco Industry's Lies and Deception," that traces a clear pattern of continued tobacco industry lies and misleading statements.
- Encouraged by Gov. Locke's signature of a new youth access law just a week ago, Washington's neighborhood store operators today expressed alarm over the provisions of the tobacco bill being considered by the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee. "The McCain Bill isn't what we were hoping for in terms of a rational, comprehensive tobacco policy coming out of Washington, D.C.," said Amy Brackenbury, executive director of the Washington Association of Neighborhood Stores (W.A.N.S.), which represents the concerns of small retailers statewide.
- An alliance of asbestos companies, unions and groups representing people who got sick after being exposed to asbestos is mobilizing to get Congress to set aside $20 billion from any national tobacco settlement to compensate smokers who were exposed to the hazardous industrial fiber. The group is concerned that claims by asbestos victims who smoked will far exceed the $6.5 billion annual cap on damages from all suits that is now under consideration in a bipartisan tobacco bill offered this week by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain of Arizona.
- The industry "negotiated a deal with trial lawyers, attorneys general and the White House, and had no input from members of Congress that I'm aware of," said Sen. Majority Whip Don Nickles of Oklahoma. "They should have been more careful."
- The U.S. Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a symbolic resolution opposing legal immunity for the tobacco industry. Senators voted 79-19 for a nonbinding "sense of the Senate" resolution by New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg. "No immunity from liability will be provided to any manufacturer or a tobacco product," the resolution said.
- The resolution says the settlement should not include limits on lawsuits by state and local governments for health-related claims, nor any restrictions on individual or class-action lawsuits.
- Spreads on corporate bonds of major tobacco companies versus comparable U.S. Treasuries continued to widen Thursday on fears new tobacco legislation might hurt industry credit quality, traders and analysts said.
- Shares in B.A.T Industries PLC (BTI) are leading the blue-chip decliners table in midday trading Thursday after the company raised its estimated millennium costs, traders said. The stock was further dampened by the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee's overwhelming approval of a tobacco bill designed to keep under-age youths from smoking.
- Options on leading U.S. cigarette makers Philip Morris Cos. Inc. (MO - news) and RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. (RN - news) drew a flurry of activity on Wednesday as the underlying stocks tumbled to their lowest levels in two months amid renewed worries about the companies' legal liabilities. Philip Morris stock fell 1-1/2 to 40-3/16, while RJR dipped 15/16 to 30-3/8 at 1145 CST/1745 GMT following moves in the U.S. Senate this week seen as unfavorable to the tobacco industry.
- Spreads on corporate bonds of major tobacco companies ended significantly wider in Wednesday trade while mortgage lender, Cityscape Financial debt closed four points higher, traders said. Spreads on bonds of RJR Nabisco (RN - news) 10-year bonds widened 15 basis points to 230-220 from Tuesday's closing spread of 215-212 basis points, market sources said. Traders said the spread widening was triggered by a revised tobacco bill offered earlier this week by Sen. John McCain.
- Cigarette stocks plunged Tuesday as prospects for Congress' leading tobacco bill rose over industry opposition. A formerly skeptical Republican leader predicted committee approval within days. "My guess is that it will pass the Commerce Committee this week," bringing it a step closer to a Senate vote before June 1, said Assistant Majority Leader Don Nickles of Oklahoma. "We'll need to make big decisions quickly to determine where it's going to go."
- Former U.S. Surgeon GeneralsThursday threw their support behind colleague C. Everett Koop's efforts to rein in the tobacco industry. Seven of the nine living former Surgeon Generals endorsed a document which supports the minimum requirements for tobacco legislation as outlined in the Koop-Kessler report of 1997. . . Speaking to students at the Johns Hopkins Public Health School, Koop said it was difficult to beat back the industry. "When you deal with the tobacco industry, you're dealing with a corporate group that is as sleazy, as dishonest, as lying as any corporate group in America," said Koop.
- Armed with new evidence that teen smoking is on the increase, the White House told Congress on Thursday it wants tougher anti-tobacco legislation and a key Republican implored cigarette companies to go along or get rolled over. . . The Clinton administration urged Congress to quickly enact even tougher legislation, announcing that a startling 43 percent of the nation's high school students already use tobacco and that teen smoking is rising steadily. . . Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who authored the Senate bill, warned at a hastily called news conference that if tobacco companies that don't cooperate with the legislation could face "less than pleasant" alternatives.
- Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said on Thursday he expects the Senate to take up tobacco legislation in late May, probably in the last week of the month.
- "It is not true that we have withdrawn from the June 20, 1997, settlement," said Jan Smith, an RJR spokeswoman.
- First RJR sends out word that it wants out of the proposed tobacco deal -- then the industry's No. 2 player hastily denies it. But as John McCain's settlement bill in the Senate gets harsher and harsher, the signal was clear: Big Tobacco is thinking about a fight.
- RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. still supports far-reaching tobacco legislation by Congress, but it has a big problem: The deal it supports is no longer on the negotiating table. Bloomberg News reported yesterday that the company is pulling out of the proposed settlement because it is unhappy with the tougher deal that the Senate Commerce Committee approved Wednesday. It based the story on information from two unnamed RJR Nabisco officials. The company quickly issued a statement yesterday to say it supports the $368.5 billion settlement proposal it hammered out with 39 states June 20
- Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, an Arizona Republican, said his goal was to enact legislation that would fight youth smoking, not please cigarette companies.
- Sen. John McCain says the tobacco settlement will proceed, with or without the industry's cooperation. He spoke today after a false rumor swept Capitol Hill that corporate giant R.J. Reynolds was pulling out of the deal in protest over tough Senate legislation. . . Reynolds spokesman Nat Walker said: "Reports that we are withdrawing from the proposed national settlement agreed to last June are not correct. We remain committed to that proposed national settlement."
- RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. denied reports that it will formally withdraw from the proposed tobacco settlement. "We stand by the June 20 agreement," company spokeswoman Peggy Carter told Reuters. "We have no clue where this is coming from."
- Word from anti-tobacco attorney John Coale and others that RJR was abandoning the settlement sent waves of alarm through Washington, and a quick denial from RJR. Coale had told The Associated Press that he had been informed by a top tobacco executive that RJR planned to pull out of the deal, and he said he was glad to hear that RJR wasn't following through with that. An RJR pullout "was definitely run up the flag pole," he said. "Whether they've taken it down is a very good sign for the legislation -- maybe we can do something now," Coale said.
- The tobacco bill approved by the Senate Commerce Committee would retain the price support program for growers, an aide to Senator Wendell Ford, a Kentucky Democrat, said Thursday.
- How much smokers cut back will determine how well Big Tobacco would weather price hikes and penalties under the leading Tobacco bill in Congress. Estimates of the drop in smoking range as high as 43 percent. While the cost to tobacco companies is still in debate, the deal would definitely leave smokers with lighter pockets. "I would be upset by it, but I would still pay the price," said Ms. Harris, a 17-year smoker who took a smoking break at a Burbank, Calif., bar Thursday. "It's completely obnoxious. People are going to smoke, no matter what."
- A spokesman for B.A.T, whose Brown & Williamson subsidiary in the United States makes Kent and Lucky Strike cigarettes, echoed the battle cry of the industry. "On these terms, the deal is dead," he said. "We would be back to fighting the cases in court, and we have not lost one yet," he added.
- "This is the crossing of the threshold," said David A. Kessler, the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner who first proposed regulating cigarettes like a drug. "Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) and his colleagues have broken the hold the industry has had over the Congress."
- The enactment of the tobacco bill proposed by the Senate Commerce Committee on March 29, 1998 would significantly impact credit quality of tobacco companies, according to analysts at Fitch IBCA. Among the terms included in the bill are industry payments in excess of $600 billion over a 25-year period and very limited protection against future class action lawsuits and punitive damage awards. It is unlikely that the bill, as currently structured, will be enacted so taking any rating would be premature.
- No other measure before Congress this year would lead to such fundamental changes in society. If the sponsors are right, it could reduce the number of teen-agers who smoke by as much as 40 percent and prevent millions of early deaths from smoking-related illness.
- "This whole week has been a disaster for the industry," said a cigarette company lawyer involved in last year's negotiations. Some industry spokesmen have raised the possibility that cigarette producers might simply walk away from the table. But without getting federal lawsuit protection, legal claims could drive some producers into bankruptcy quicker than could falling sales of more expensive cigarettes . And Congress may simply decide to raise cigarette prices through taxes, though that option is hardly its first choice. With the price of tobacco stocks tumbling this week on Wall Street, the industry may soon have to decide how much to raise its offer. Making the problem more complicated is the fact that while some producers like Philip Morris Cos. are financial powerhouses, others like RJR Nabisco Holding Corp., the parent company of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, are saddled with debts from past mergers.
- "This is only the first round, and there are many other rounds to fight," said Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican. "But without us finishing the first round, there would have been no second round." The bill now moves on for complex negotiations among other Senate committees with jurisdiction over its provisions. If their concerns can be resolved, the bill would head to the full Senate, possibly as soon as next month.
- The tobacco industry is huffing and puffing and threatening to blow down tough anti-smoking legislation, but the once-malleable Congress does not seem very frightened.
- If the tobacco legislation hasn't made it to the Senate floor by June 1, "it's going to be pretty hard" to bring it to a vote this year, Majority Leader Trent Lott said Friday.
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If the tobacco legislation hasn't made it to the Senate floor by June 1, "it's going to be pretty hard" to bring it to a vote this year, Majority Leader Trent Lott said Friday. The key, Lott said, is figuring out whether the price tag on Sen. John McCain's bill would drive tobacco companies into bankruptcy, thereby pushing them out of reach of plaintiffs seeking to recover health costs related to smoking.
- President Clinton said today he hoped tobacco companies would put an "unforgiveable chapter behind them" and remain a party to the tobacco legislation making its way through Congress.
- President Bill Clinton said Friday he thinks the tobacco companies "will be convinced it is in their interest" to back Congress' leading tobacco bill.
- President Bill Clinton said on Friday he was confident of eventually achieving an agreement with tobacco companies to make billion-dollar payments and restrict their marketing practicies."I still believe in the end we will achieve an agreement which they will be convinced will be in their interest," Clinton told reporters at the White House.
- So will Big Tobacco's opposition snuff out legislation? Not likely. The industry may be forced to accept the McCain proposal as the best vehicle--still being offered--to rid itself of a growing backlog of civil suits. Tobacco's erstwhile GOP allies, worried that their industry ties will hurt them in this fall's elections, are in no mood to be generous. And lawmakers from both parties are eager for a deal now that they've made plans to spend the settlement windfall. "This is the best deal tobacco's ever going to see," concedes a tobacco-industry source.
- Here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about the tobacco legislation:
- Martin Broughton, chief executive of BAT Industries, the British insurance and tobacco group, said he doubted whether BAT's US subsidiary, Brown & Williamson Tobacco, would last more than a few years under the proposed legislation. But it would not be the first US tobacco company to go bankrupt, he predicted. That would be R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, part of the RJR Nabisco tobacco and food group, which is still heavily laden with debt after a highly-leveraged buy-out in the 1980s. "Under this proposal, I would think that RJR's US domestic business has a short life span, and I am not sure ours would survive many years thereafter," Mr Broughton said.
- The chief author of Congress' leading tobacco bill is cautioning cigarette makers to support it or face the possibility of even tougher legislation. . . "We have one obligation and that is to fashion a package that would ... (impose) the most effective way of preventing kids from starting smoking," McCain said Thursday. "If that is not acceptable to the tobacco companies, then we go back and find other ways to try and prevent kids from starting smoking."
- Some fellow GOPers grumpily compare the maverick Arizonan's performance to his push for campaign-finance overhaul: It's good for him, but puts pressure on his party. Finance Chairman Roth objects to losing control of the tobacco bill to McCain's Commerce Committee. But White House officials are jubilant over McCain's progress. Other GOP chairmen with tobacco jurisdiction are mostly congratulatory.
- The escalating tobacco wars set off alarms across several fronts of official Washington yesterday.
- When they ran into each other in a "senators only" elevator on Capitol Hill this week, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. JOHN KERRY, D-Mass., greeted each other with the ease of old chums -- not of two immensely ambitious politicians who may run for president in 2000. "We're getting mail saying we should run on the same ticket," McCain told his colleague with a sly smile. "Right," Kerry replied, rolling his eyes.
- The landmark $516 billion tobacco bill approved by a Senate committee this week advances some key protections sought by Virginia tobacco growers working in tandem with Sen. Charles S. Robb.
- SENATE TOBACCO For-79/Against-19 . . Although it carries no force of law, it signals difficulty for a key element of a pending agreement between tobacco firms and state attorneys general. Under that pact, tobacco companies would receive immunity from class-action suits. A bill soon to be debated by the Senate limits the companies' financial liability but provides no class-action protections. A yes vote advised against immunity for tobacco companies.
- Back then, Lott announced that he would recuse himself because his brother-in-law, Richard Scruggs, was a prime architect of the $368.5 billion settlement . . But last week, Lott cast two votes on tobacco. On Tuesday, he joined with 18 other senators opposing a nonbinding resolution that said cigarette makers should not receive immunity in a slew of lawsuits pending against them. Lott was in the minority; 79 senators supported the "sense of the Senate" resolution that opposes immunity.
- One day after delivering the nation's first comprehensive anti-smoking bill, Sen. JOHN MCCAIN reflected on the chaos that preceded it. "I call it the 'Perils of Pauline,' " declared the Arizona Republican. "Every time I thought we had rescued her, she was back lying on the tracks."
- After a long and tiring day of debate, the Senate Commerce Committee was taking its final vote on anti-tobacco legislation denounced by the industry as too tough and expensive. As it was announced that Senate Majority Leader Sen. TRENT LOTT, R-Miss., would support the measure, a tobacco lobbyist sitting in the back of the room uttered an expletive, a sentiment that captured the industry's frustration about how things are going these days.
- Moving from one domestic priority to another, the president called on tobacco companies to go along with the bill that was approved this week by the Senate Commerce Committee, even though it was tougher on the companies than the proposed settlement they agreed to last summer. "I am determined to seize this historic opportunity to pass bipartisan legislation to protect our children from the dangers of tobacco," he said. "This Congress can be the Congress that saves millions of children's lives." The cigarette companies, Clinton said, needed to "reverse the record of the past, to try to put this unforgivable chapter behind them."
- The tobacco industry, staggered by the prospect of massive new costs and regulations approved this week by a Senate committee, is threatening to launch a legal counterattack on three broad fronts. But constitutional scholars, lawmakers and public health advocates said that the challenge is unlikely to seriously erode the sweeping bill, which cleared the Senate Commerce Committee, 19 to 1, on Wednesday.
- "Mr. Glover cites an unpublished World Health Organization (WHO) study of passive smoking and lung cancer, whose results are mischaracterized as finding no meaningful increase. Also, I am misquoted as saying the study was "garbage science." A spurious interpretation of this WHO study was uncritically adopted by a London newspaper and by the Ottawa Citizen. The Ottawa citizen article misinterpreted my criticism of the tobacco industry as criticism of the study, which I had not seen.)
- Wednesday, April 8 NPC Luncheon, 12:30 p.m. Steven Goldstone, CEO, RJR Nabisco. Topic of discussion: "The Tobacco Settlement"
- It's time for Bill Clinton to do something wonderful. Past time, really. . . He now has an incomparable opportunity to show himself as the friend of children he has always claimed to be. The next generation is being stalked. Big Tobacco still tells kids that it's cool and sexy to smoke. . . The markup of the tobacco settlement bill of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) proves that these vast subjects can be moved around under the right auspices.
- After fighting back dozens of efforts to strengthen it, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., got his Commerce Committee to stamp approval last week on the Republican tobacco control bill. He described the result as "not a perfect document," which is a bit like saying that cigarettes aren't so good for you.
- On Tuesday, March 24, the nation looked with horror upon the shootings of four innocent children and their heroic teacher in Jonesboro, Ark. Less noticed, authorities estimate that on the same day, 14 young people died from suicide; 25 from other homicides; and 37 from traffic accidents. Now consider this: On that same day, an estimated 3,000 teenagers began smoking regularly, and of that group, tobacco will condemn no fewer than 1,000 to premature deaths. That's 200 times as many deaths as in Jonesboro! . . It's up to leaders in Washington to complete this deal. Senator McCain has done his part. The one leader who can now step into the breach is Bill Clinton, who could make an enormous contribution to both the country and his own stature by taking on this cause.
- It is good news that Senator John McCain's Commerce Committee has sent along his comprehensive - albeit perfectable - tobacco bill to the full Senate for debate. . . An annual cap on liability payments (ranging from $6 billion to $9 billion in various proposals) is a reasonable trade-off for industry cooperation on the marketing restrictions.
- This bill [McCain] represents a dramatic step forward. It would raise the price of cigarettes, give the FDA full authority to regulate tobacco products, ban advertising aimed at children, and protect tobacco farmers. We still have work to do on this legislation. Above all, we need to put in place tough penalties that will cost the tobacco industry if it continues to sell cigarettes to young people. Just this week the Centers for Disease Control released a disturbing report that found that more than a third of teenagers in the United States now smoke, even though it's illegal. It is time to hold tobacco companies accountable. Reducing youth smoking must be everybody's bottom line. Let's remember -- this is not about politics or money, or seeking revenge against the tobacco industry for past practices. We're not trying to put the tobacco companies out of business; we want to put them out of the business of selling cigarettes to kids. This week's progress in the Senate shows we have real momentum in both parties to do just that.
- President Bill Clinton will travel to Kentucky next week to push for national tobacco legislation and assure farmers they will not be driven out of business by any settlement, administration officials told CNN. The Thursday event was added to the president's schedule after Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman traveled to Kentucky Friday to lay the groundwork for the presidential visit. "The president will take his case for national tobacco legislation to the heart of tobacco country," said Clinton domestic policy adviser Bruce Reed.
- But the committee left some of the toughest decisions to be hashed out on the Senate floor. And for those minding seedbeds, that's where the real down-and-dirty debate on the crop's future is expected.
- TIME: How do you feel about SENATOR MCCAIN's tobacco compromise? CLINTON: While it doesn't go as far as we'd like in some areas, it's a huge step in the right direction. SPEAKER GINGRICH said he wasn't going to let me get to the left of him on tobacco. I guess that means he's prone to do something, and that's good news. I think we can build on this momentum and that the issue is rocking along pretty well.
- Why is this happening? Because the majority Republicans don't want to be known anymore as Big Tobacco's backstage pals. In domestic politics today, this is the worst possible image, and the GOP has the poll numbers to prove it. "The fact that the Republicans are abandoning the tobacco industry is the single biggest political development of the year," said Ethan Siegal, a Washington financial analyst who is tracking the politics of tobacco. "The bottom line is, there are congressional elections this fall, and they don't want to be tarred and feathered [by Democrats] as tobacco's sugar daddies." . . So here is the party of low taxes and less government, leading the charge for a tobacco policy that raises taxes and empowers the FDA.
- The tobacco bill is, in its own way, a big-government initiative that should be anathema to proponents of deregulation. It expands the regulatory power of the Food and Drug Administration to carry out a very intrusive effort to reduce teenage smoking. The bill also puts Republicans in the awkward position of repudiating one of the party's biggest financial backers: the tobacco industry.
- The Republican senator behind the anti-tobacco bill says he's confident a deal will emerge this year despite gripes from both sides that the legislation he has proposed is either too tough or not tough enough. . . "I think we proved last week that we can get Republicans and Democrats together to form a bipartisan package, working with the administration, the public health groups and the attorneys general, and come up with something that is very viable that will attack the problem," McCain said on CNN's "Late Edition."
- U.S. Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., declined Friday to take a position on it but questioned whether a major provision of a $506 billion tobacco package could attract enough votes to pass Congress this year. . . perhaps the biggest cause for pessimism on the senator's part is a $6.5 billion annual cap on liability for the industry. "I don't know if that will be held," he said. "My guess was always Congress won't have a cap or a limit (on liability), but McCain's committee vote gave it a pretty strong impetus."
- Planning to take his anti-smoking campaign straight to the heart of tobacco country, President Clinton assured cigarette-makers yesterday that he does not want to bankrupt them even as he suggested that a tough, $516 billion tobacco bill needed to be tougher.
- The president is planning a full week of domestic policy pronouncements: . . Thursday on tobacco . . . As public attention focused on Clinton and his legal difficulties, the president and House Speaker Newt Gingrich quietly carried on discussions aimed at finding common ground, particularly on Social Security and tobacco legislation.
- In fact, thanks to Mr. McCain's astute bill-writing, Congress may be able to take a big step against a serious threat to the health of the American people.
- Yet, while McCain, like Kerry a prospect for president in 2000, is being lionized as a brilliant bi-partisan maneuverer by the national news media, Kerry is getting only faint praise - and a lot of heat - from anti-smoking leaders on his home front. . . So tomorrow, in Kerry's Boston office, DAYNARD; Greg CONNOLLY, head of the state's Tobacco Control Office; state Rep. John BUSINGER (D-Brookline), leader of the anti-smoking legislative caucus; and others will meet with Kerry to vent their frustrations and seek his aid. Included on their wish list, Daynard said, are these items: Oppose any annual limit on damages from tobacco-industry lawsuits (the committee bill caps liability at $6.5 billion a year) and thus hit Big Tobacco where it hurts most. Scuttle a provision that gives the industry anti-trust immunity. Kill a section that lets parent companies of tobacco subsidiaries escape liability for the subsidiary's sins.
- "Everybody's talking about it," Carroll County Judge-executive Gene McMurry said . . Mr. Clinton is expected in Carrollton on Thursday to discuss the federal tobacco settlement with growers, and how to reduce teen smoking with students from Carroll County High School.
- Carroll County farmer Melvin Lyons would have plenty to say to President Bill Clinton if he had the chance. "I'd say tobacco has a place, and it's a free choice of adult people, and I definitely think they're wrong to raise the price up on this tobacco settlement," the owner of Kentuckiana Tobacco Warehouse Co. in Carrollton said Sunday.
- President Clinton will visit Kentucky on Thursday to discuss the national tobacco settlement and smoking among children, White House and Kentucky officials said. Details have yet to be completed, but Clinton wants "to go to a warehouse and/or a family-farm situation," probably at CARROLLTON or MAYSVILLE, said Andrew "Skipper" Martin, Gov. Paul Patton's chief of staff. Martin said Clinton plans to fly into CINCINNATI-NORTHERN KENTUCKY INTERNATIONAL Airport on Thursday.
- McMurry said he thinks the president will be treated courteously by tobacco farmers, even though many of them have been angered by his efforts to regulate nicotine as a drug. "I think as long as his message is positive to them, he won't have a problem," McMurry said.
- As a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, he made sure his imprint was on the tobacco legislation that emerged last week. While the bill is not perfect, Ford said, burley farmers should feel secure that they achieved as much protection as anyone could expect.
- "From a public health standpoint we think the president has taken a strong lead. He really does see it as a legacy issue," said BILL NOVELLI, president of CAMPAIGN FOR TOBACCO-FREE KIDS. "This is a nice way of redeeming his promise to do something for the American people on health and a nice way to do something substantive in the wake of all the scandals," added CHRISTOPHER FOREMAN, specialist on public health issues at the BROOKINGS INSTITUTION, a Washington think tank.
- Harsh words, strewn chairs and tobacco's lost G.O.P. friends mark a difficult negotiatio.
- Indian tribes would have to begin collecting state taxes on tobacco sales to nonmembers under a provision in the Senate's leading tobacco bill. . . "What is the purpose of comprehensive tobacco legislation and raising the price of cigarettes if Indian tribes will still be able to undercut prices in other parts of a state?" asked Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash.
- Tobacco-state Democratic Senators Ernest Hollings of South Carolina and Wendell Ford of Kentucky have moved to strike language that would constrain exports and cost jobs in farming and manufacturing here. . . Some legislators are appalled at the idea of exporting tobacco. California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi says, "How can we possibly say smoking is deadly for our kids but O.K. for foreign children?" Hollings and Ford argue that America has no right to dictate to other countries.
- The tobacco companies want to pay as little as possible and still be granted limits on liability payments. By contrast, the hard-liners in Congress want the bill to be as tough as possible against the industry. The rhetoric, especially from the tobacco companies, has given the debate an Alice-in-Wonderland quality. Senators say they can't be sure if the industry is truly unhappy or if it is posturing. "Every time there is a proposal, the tobacco industry says they can't live with it," said McCain, which makes him doubt their credibility.
- One of the tobacco industry's most staunch supporters in Congress said today that the Senate's tobacco bill is all but dead and that four House committees will soon begin work on their own version of the measure. House Commerce Committee Chairman Thomas J. Bliley Jr. (R-Va.), speaking at an impromptu news conference here, said of the Senate bill: "Well, if it's not dead, it's on life support.".
- Asked about RJR's stance that it will not cooperate with McCain's bill, President Bill CLINTON said, "I hope RJR will reconsider." "I don't think there is much in it for RJR or anybody else to walk away," Clinton said told reporters in Chicago.
- STEVEN GOLDSTONE, chief executive officer of RJR Nabisco Holdings Inc., was preparing to deliver a speech in Washington today saying that "politically, the June 20th agreement is dead," a R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company lobbyist wrote in a memo yesterday.
- STEVEN F. GOLDSTONE, the chief executive of RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp., will say today that the proposed $368.5 billion tobacco deal is dead and that the company cannot support a stricter proposal being considered by Congress, according to a company memo. Goldstone "will say that politically the June 20th agreement is dead and the process has become so unreasonable and expensive for manufacturers, growers and the thousands of Americans involved in the tobacco industry that we cannot continue to actively support its adoption," said Tommy J. Payne in a memo to leaders on Capital Hill yesterday. Payne is a senior vice president for external relations for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., the domestic tobacco subsidiary of RJR Nabisco. Goldstone is scheduled to speak at noon today at a National Press Club meeting in Washington about the company's opposition to a tougher tobacco-control bill put forward by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and chairman of the Senate commerce committee.
- "Today it is very clear to me that we have failed in our effort to achieve a comprehensive resolution of the contentious issues surrounding tobacco in our country," RJ Reynolds chief executive officer STEVEN GOLDSTONE told the National Press Club. Further, in prepared remarks for the press club, Goldstone said, "I have told my colleagues in the industry that effective today I no longer see any purpose in working toward the June 20th national settlement." He said he stands behind the agreement negotiated last year, "but I see no possibility in this environment to achieve it.".
- What this means is that suits against the tobacco companies will really be only 20% against Big Tobacco and 80% against the governmental and public health agencies that will divvy up the revenue from the tax increase. . . We believe the appropriate policy on tobacco would be to adopt what we call a modified European plan: Give the companies immunity from all class-action and punitive damage claims based on past actions. . . And if the public policy goal is to curtail smoking sharply, raise the tax by $1.50 a pack or more.
- That's why it's important that any tobacco bill includes some measures to limit tobacco's predatory behavior overseas. . . Some of these provisions [in McCain's bill] are modeled on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a precedent for U.S. regulation of companies' overseas behavior. But it's not clear whether they could apply to foreign subsidiaries, and even in their present form they're under attack from some senators and the tobacco industry. The Clinton administration should work with Congress in passing the strongest legally defensible provisions possible.
- Even a scolding from the tobacco industry's most influential executives won't prevent the bill they denounced from winding through the legislative process, industry observers said. "If this is baseball, we're in the fifth inning," said John Coale, a Washington lawyer involved with anti-tobacco lawsuits, implying the process is only half-way through.
- Senate Commerce Committee chairman John McCain said on Wednesday Congress must pass tobacco legislation with or without the support of the industry and that lawmakers had alternatives available to them.
- House Commerce Committee Chairman Thomas Bliley, a key player in tobacco legislation, on Wednesday said he would work for a "strong bill to reduce teen smoking" even without industry cooperation. After the tobacco industry declared the June 20 agreement they had endorsed "dead" in Congress, the Virginia Republican said, "Efforts in Congress to reduce teen-age smoking are not dead."
- "[W]hat are they going to do, start marketing to children?".
- U.S. President Bill Clinton on Wednesday said the position taken by major tobacco firms on tobacco legislation was a "huge mistake" and that he was determined to push forward with the issue. "We're going to get this done," Clinton told reporters. "They can be part of it or they can fight it," he said..
- "I've been working for two years on this and I don't intend to stop now," Clinton said. "I think we've got an excellent chance of passing a good piece of legislation to dramatically reduce smoking by young people and save lives. I don't there is very much in it for RJR or anybody else to walk away, so I hope they will reconsider that." (288K wav sound).
- In an interview with CNN . . . Moore said: "I don't think its time for anybody to panic." "The only way to get this thing done is the president of the United States himself needs to call a meeting of leaders in the Senate, the leaders in the House, the public health advocates that they trust and believe in, the tobacco industry and the attorneys general and bring them all together and work this final settlement deal out..
- 'I think what you heard today is more of a bargaining ploy than anything else. I think they are trying to influence the shape of the final legislation that passes,' Gore said.
- As the proposed national tobacco settlement wilts on the vine in Washington, the nation's tobacco growers are looking to salvage what they can from the deal before it is plowed under, farmers said Wednesday.
- "The president needs to stand up to Congress and to the public health community and to the country, and do what is right," Goldstone, chief executive of RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp., said in a speech at the National Press Club.
- Steven Goldstone, president of RJR Nabisco, parent company of R.J. Reynolds, today said his company is walking away from Capitol Hill negotiations because the Clinton administration has neglected the process, while Congress has "dissolved into a taxing frenzy." He told reporters at a National Press Club luncheon that the company will plead its case directly to the American public, in a series of town forums. He says the American people will bring "wisdom and common sense back to these issues.".
- "The only piece of legislation to come out of committee, Sen. McCain's bill is a good start. But we must do better. We should look toward raising the tax on tobacco to $2 per pack and making the 'look back' penalties much stronger for them to be effective in reducing childhood smoking.
- ROY BURRY, tobacco analyst at CIBC Oppenheimer, said if any investors were thinking about buying tobacco stocks, "Now is the time." "The stocks have performed very poorly over the last six to nine months and now we have the realization that if nothing comes out of Congress, it's back to litigation. That's fine. The industry was doing just fine with that.".
- The head of the nation's second-biggest tobacco maker said Wednesday he stopped smoking because he worried about his health. "I keep thinking of the juror who I once heard say after a trial, 'Yes, it's addictive, but you can quit,"' said Steven Goldstone . . . Goldstone answered reporters' questions after announcing that his company will fight proposed tobacco legislation in Congress.
- Tobacco stocks rose sharply on Wednesday as Wall Street eagerly awaited a speech by Nabisco Holdings Corp. (RN - news) Chairman Steven Goldstone, who was expected to reiterate his rejection of Congress's proposed tobacco settlement.
- "It has always been understood by all the parties that Congress needed to review and strengthen the June 20th agreement between the tobacco companies and the state attorneys general. That agreement was the first, not the final step in our fight to stop our kids from smoking. "RJ Reynolds' complete rejection of the McCain bill -- which in my opinion, fails to do enough to keep cigarettes out of kids' hands -- is an outrage.
- Good riddance! The sheer arrogance of the tobacco industry is amazing! . . Congress can enact strong legislation, like the Healthy Kids Act, introduced by Senator Kent Conrad (D- ND) and Representative Vic Fazio (D-CA), without the participation or permission of the tobacco industry.
- Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst Allan Kaplan said if the McCain tobacco bill becomes law, retail prices of cigarettes could go up as much $1.60 a pack. In an interview with on CNBC Wednesday, Kaplan said, "Congress has the power to raise taxes on cigarettes, and it looks like $1.10 will be added in excise taxes, which will cause cigarette prices at retail to go up something like $1.60 a pack."
- But at a news conference in New York today, McCain said: "This was never intended to be a deal with the industry. Our intention was to pass a bill to stop kids from smoking, and I would have hoped that all companies would stay engaged.".
- Sen. JOHN CHAFEE, one of the authors of an anti-smoking bill in the Senate, said on Wednesday Congress should look at imposing a direct tax on cigarettes if the tobacco industry refuses a deal proposed by Congress. . . "The industry will take some 'hits' for their announcements today. But no one ever claimed that the tobacco industry would win the 'charm' contest," Chafee said..
- Nobody can say for sure how much cigarettes will cost when the dust finally settles in Congress. Upward of $3 a pack? Quite likely. As much as $4 or even more? Even that is possible. And that's not all.
- What brought down Big Tobacco? For one, more adults have been exposed to research detailing the harmful effects of smoking, Mr. Wallace says. But more dramatically, industry documents made public by Representative Bliley and a Minnesota judge have sparked a round of rethinking. "As litigation has forced the industry to open its vaults on information concerning [the industry's] science ... and its own marketing, members of Congress and the American public have been appalled," Wallace says.
- Clinton has repeatedly cited a need to help farmers in any national tobacco legislation. But in an area where pickup trucks bear bumper stickers claiming "Tobacco Pays My Bills," the president's pledge to fight teen smoking and increase taxes on tobacco products has some saying attacks on manufacturers could hurt many small farmers.
- In Carrollton, the president will meet with a group of tobacco farmers and local officials at the Kentuckiana Tobacco Warehouse. From there, the president will go to Carroll County High School, where he will talk to students about the dangers of smoking and national efforts to reduce teen tobacco use. Gov. Paul Patton will accompany Clinton at both stops.
- Thursday, the 17-year-old senior honors student and shortstop at Carroll County High School will see his first president up close and personal. . . "I'm very excited about his visit. I get butterflies just talking about it." Coombs doesn't smoke but has friends who do. So the president, who has been against teen smoking, should expect some students will want his explanation on why they shouldn't smoke, Coombs said.
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