Though hailed as a breakthrough by public health groups, the measure faces an uncertain future because it was approved as part of a massive corporate tax bill that must still be reconciled with the House of Representative’s version. Those talks are expected to be long and complex.
Send a free letter to Congress asking them to vote no on the Kennedy/Dewine FDA regulation bill.
Senate Roll Call for FDA Tobacco.See how the Senate voted, send a note to your politicians!
Critical Analysis of S2461: FDA Tobacco Legislation.
Congress may snuff out tobacco subsidy.
Two Smokeless Tobacco Companies Join to Oppose FDA Measure; Letter to Congress says DeWine-Kennedy Bill Impedes Public Right to Know.
A buyout, but no FDA regulation? Senior tax writer in House offers tobacco compromise that scraps Senate 'marriage.'
Congress Fiddles While Tobacco Bill Burns. By Chuck Muth. Members of Congress will soon return to their districts, hit the campaign trail, kiss some babies and tell more whoppers than Joe Isuzu and Al Gore. And it'll be interesting to see what kind of tangled web they weave over this mess of a tobacco buy-out bill.
Free Speech Gets Smoked By Proposed Tobacco Law.Fortunately, the anti-tobacco campaigners don't trump the First Amendment.
Voters in North Carolina, Other Tobacco States Support FDA Tobacco Regulation But Tobacco Buyout is Far Less Popular, Poll Finds.
Empty Tobacco Fields. Buyout plan tempts farmers struggling to keep going.
Senate Passes Historic Tobacco Bill.Though hailed as a breakthrough by public health groups, the measure faces an uncertain future because it was approved as part of a massive corporate tax bill that must still be reconciled with the House of Representative’s version. Those talks are expected to be long and complex. (Readers comments at bottom of page.)
Senate OKs $12B Tobacco Buyout, Regulation. The measure empowering the Food and Drug Administration to oversee the sale, marketing and manufacturing of cigarettes was linked on the Senate floor Thursday to a $12 billion buyout of tobacco farmers. An unlikely coalition of anti-smoking advocates and tobacco-state senators pushed to secure the 78-15 vote to add the twin measures to a massive corporate tax bill that the Senate then passed on a voice vote and sent to a House-Senate conference committee.
Senate Approves Tobacco Buyout and Fed Regs. Unlike the $9.6 billion House version, the Senate's buyout is funded by a tax on manufacturers of tobacco products.
Should the FDA regulate cigarettes? RJR opposed the tobacco regulations proposed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1996 and the McCain bill in 1998 because they unduly restricted or eliminated our ability to compete for adult smokers' business. Cigarettes are clearly not foods, drugs or medical-delivery devices, the product categories over which FDA currently has regulatory authority. The food and drug laws governing the FDA make it very clear that unless food, drugs and medical devices are safe, they cannot be sold – a standard that cigarettes cannot meet. If cigarettes are to be further regulated by the federal government, they should be regulated as cigarettes – not forced into a regulatory category they do not fit.
“Altria Group and our domestic tobacco company, Philip Morris USA, enthusiastically endorse passage of a final FSC/ETI bill that contains the DeWine/Kennedy FDA proposal in its entirety, and we will strongly oppose any and all amendments to this language during the upcoming House/Senate Conference Committee” said Steven C. Parrish, Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs, Altria Group. “We look forward to working with all stakeholders in support of this legislation.”
Minority Cigarette Marketing Scrutinized. The latest cigarette-marketing efforts have caught the attention of health officials and anti-tobacco activists, who are accusing tobacco companies of using hip-hop images and attractive flavors to seduce minority youth into smoking.
Limiting tobacco ads. Farmers aren't the only ones who will be paying close attention when the debate over a tobacco buyout starts up again in Congress. National media, marketing and advertising groups are nervously watching to see what happens to a proposal that gives the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco advertising.
Remove subsidies. The letter writer failed to mention how this would help children, other than to say the targeting of minors would be more restricted. As far as I know, the FDA has nothing to do with advertising. Matter of fact, by the FDA's own bylaws, tobacco would have to be outlawed under the agency's oversight.
Philip Morris Ad Incites Tobacco Market Struggle. Small Manufacturer Questions Motive Behind Advertisement Supporting FDA Regulation Of The Tobacco Industry.
Let FDA do its primary job. Rather than tobacco, the FDA needs to focus on fixing problems raging with prescription drugs.
FDA Cigarette Regs Unfair to Convenience Stores. Congress obviously has no intention of outlawing tobacco. It's too afraid of the political fallout and too fond of the federal and state taxes paid by smokers. But pending legislation in Congress would treat anyone who sells tobacco like a criminal, including the many independent retailers who probably run your local convenience store.
New tobacco buyout proposed
Please click on Your State Info and contact your politicians today!
This would be connected to legislation giving the Food and Drug Administration power to regulate the sale and marketing of cigarettes and tobacco products.
A FEW REASONS WHY SMOKERS SHOULD OPPOSE THE FDA TOBACCO BILL
1. Basically Will Allow Power to Ban Existing Conventional Tobacco Products.
· FDA may adopt tobacco product standards at any level, as long as they are “appropriate for protection of the public health.”
· Standards can regulate any aspect of “the construction, components, ingredients, additives, constituents, including smoke constituents, and properties of the tobacco product . . . .”
· FDA can prohibit the use of any ingredients, or mandate reductions in smoke constituents that would make the products unacceptable to all or nearly all adult smokers.
2. Creates New Bureaucracy.
· In 2000 FDA bill, FY00 budget request for FDA tobacco regulation was $34 million.
· This bill includes a tax increase of $300 million in 2006, adjusted for inflation thereafter.
· The entire Bush Admin. FY04 request for medical devices was $185 million.
3. Limits the Ability to Communicate with Adult Consumers.
· The 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with state Attorneys General already eliminated the most youth-sensitive forms of marketing and advertising: it bans all outdoor and transit advertising (including billboards), limits the size of retail advertising, bans advertising in youth-oriented publications, limits corporate sponsorship, bans brand-name merchandise, and bans youth access to free samples.
· Additional restrictions potentially authorized by the bill, such as tombstone advertising and a ban on self-service displays, will, if constitutional, significantly impact adult consumers.
· The broad, unlimited authority in this bill to restrict advertising by any means and to any extent “appropriate for the protection of the “public health” will fundamentally limit communication to adult consumers.
4. Authority No Longer Tied to Reducing Youth Usage, but, Rather, to Adults.
· FDA bills originally required that restrictions on sale, distribution, advertising or promotion of tobacco products be “appropriate for prevention of, or decrease in, the use of tobacco products by children”.
· Under this bill, the authority to impose new restrictions requires only that the restrictions be “appropriate for protection of the public health.”
· Perhaps one reason for the switch is that HHS statistics show that youth smoking has fallen to a 27-year low.
Senate Tobacco Quota Buyout/FDA Legislation Would Hurt Growers, Industry
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – July 15, 2004 – R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. today reiterated its vigorous opposition to the Kennedy/McConnell tobacco quota buyout/FDA amendment debated by the U.S. Senate.
Tommy Payne, executive vice president of external relations, said, “The Kennedy/McConnell amendment is ill-conceived, imperils the viability of a tobacco quota buyout and creates an overwhelming competitive advantage for Philip Morris that is unprecedented in the modern history of Congressional action.
“This amendment fails to make U.S. tobacco farmers more competitive and would be financially disastrous for tobacco manufacturers, their employees, their business partners and adult smokers, many of whom are lower- and middle-income wage earners,” Payne added.
“If Congress is serious about giving tobacco growers financial relief, it will adopt the House version of the tobacco quota buyout bill,” Payne said.
Posted on Thu, Jul. 15, 2004
Senate Prepares to Vote on Tobacco Buyout
MARY DALRYMPLE
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The Senate is ready to vote on a compromise buyout of tobacco farmers that would be financed by cigarette makers.
The buyout would pay farmers $13 billion over six years to let go of government-guaranteed high prices to grow tobacco. It would be connected to legislation giving the Food and Drug Administration power to regulate the sale and marketing of cigarettes and tobacco products.
The agreement reached Wednesday to combine the buyout with new FDA powers broke weeks of deadlock between Republican and Democratic leaders over how to proceed with negotiations on a corporate tax bill.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said senators would vote Thursday on whether to approve the tobacco buyout and regulations.
"I just want to say, particularly on behalf of those of us who represent states in which tobacco farmers are slowly having their assets stripped from them, that this agreement gives the buyout a chance," said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. "It doesn't guarantee an outcome."
The House had attached a $10 billion federal tobacco buyout to its version of the corporate tax bill to secure votes from lawmakers in tobacco-growing regions. The House then voted this week to prohibit the taxpayer-financed buyout it had earlier approved.
Key senators said they could not allow a tobacco buyout to go forward without also giving the FDA authority to regulate the marketing and production of tobacco products.
Senators struck the agreement to consider attaching the tobacco issues to the tax bill the same day that the House's top tax writer said Senate delays could doom urgently needed tax legislation for the year.
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif., said the opportunity to work on the bill this summer, before lawmakers get distracted by the fall election, had almost disappeared.
The tax bill seeks to eliminate a tax break for U.S. exporters that international trade courts have declared an illegal export subsidy. Some goods exported to Europe face escalating tariffs until the offending tax break is dropped.
The tariffs now stand at 9 percent and increase 1 percentage point each month. They would grow to 13 percent by the November election and 15 percent by January if the tax bill isn't passed.
Thomas had blamed the delay on Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., who wanted assurances that some of the Democrats' priorities would be met before agreeing to send the tax bill into final negotiations.
"They have to be able to dictate the outcome, or they're not going to participate, and that is the absolute antithesis of what a conference is supposed to be about," Thomas said.
As part of Wednesday's agreement, Democrats secured promises from Republicans that they will not push through a final bill unacceptable to Democrats.
The House and Senate passed bills this year that eliminate the tax break for exporters and replace it with new tax cuts for American manufacturers. Manufacturers eager for the new tax breaks have urged Congress to pass the bill quickly, as have some industries hit with punitive tariffs.
The bills have also absorbed dozens of other items that include provisions on tax shelters, energy production incentives and the tobacco buyout.
Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, the House's top Democratic tax writer, said Republicans didn't get serious about fixing their tax problem until sanctions were imposed. "For more than two years, they sat on their hands without bringing a bill to the House floor until last month," he said.
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The House bill is H.R. 4520. The Senate bill is S. 1637.
ON THE NET
Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov/
June 6, 2004
Plan ends price supports, rejects FDA regulation.
House Republicans proposed a measure yesterday that would end federal price supports for tobacco and pay farmers $9.6 billion over five years to stop growing their crop.
Go to FDA 2 for more...
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