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Editorial -- Tobacco roadblock? Lott's warning should give anti-smoking crusaders pause Tuesday, June 02, 1998
If the Republican majority does the right thing, the U.S. Senate will soon vote on whether to cut off debate on a bill that would cost tobacco companies $516 billion over 25 years, raise the price of cigarettes $1.10 a pack over five years and allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate nicotine as a drug.
We think the Senate should cut off debate, so that there is a Senate tobacco bill to goad the House into action.
If both chambers pass tobacco legislation, a conference committee can hammer out a compromise with a greater chance of enactment than the Senate bill. The Senate legislation, as altered through the amendment process, is probably too much of a good thing -- or a bad thing, from the tobacco industry's perspective -- to be written into law.
Indeed, according to Majority Leader Trent Lott, the bill sponsored by Sen. John McCain of Arizona might not even come to a vote in the Senate. Sen. Lott explained that the legislation was in danger of collapsing of its own weight because of two amendments.
One does away with the protection against lawsuits that the tobacco industry was to receive in exchange for curbing advertising and making payments to the government. That eviscerates a tradeoff that was an essential element of the settlement announced last year by the industry and 40 state attorneys general who had threatened to go to court to recover the costs of tobacco-related Medicaid expenses.
The second potentially crippling amendment would increase the fines companies would pay if youth smoking does not decline by a specified amount in a specified time. Never mind that there is no precise and reliable way of determining how many cigarettes are sold to minors, since the transaction is by definition illegal.
As we have observed before, Congress is well within its rights to raise the tax on tobacco products or anything else, and there is plenty of precedent for using the tax system to discourage undesirable behavior. If Congress believes higher tobacco taxes will discourage spending (without creating a black market in cigarettes), more power to it.
But while the White House has indicated the president would sign a tobacco bill without significant lawsuit protection for the industry, it's doubtful whether such a bill will be able to clear both houses of Congress. On the other hand, the White House has indicated that it could live with a compromise that combines higher cigarette taxes and significant liability protection for the industry.
The Senate should end debate so that this initiative can move forward. But supporters of costlier cigarettes need to remember that the political appeal of the original tobacco deal was that it was a compromise endorsed by an industry whose product Congress steadfastly has refused to outlaw. Take away the compromise, and all that may be left are some Joe-Camel-bashing sound bites.
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