On May 20, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee approved, 15-8, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (S. 982). The House approved a similar measure (H.R. 1256) on April 2 (see The Source, 4/3/09).
In a prepared statement, Chair Edward Kennedy (D-MA) said, “The need to regulate tobacco products can no longer be ignored. Used as intended by the companies that manufacture and market them, cigarettes will kill one out of every three smokers. Yet, the federal agency most responsible for protecting the public health is currently powerless to deal with the enormous risks of tobacco use…Nationally, cigarettes kill well over 400,000 people each year. That is more lives lost than from automobile accidents, alcohol abuse, illegal drugs, AIDS, murder, and suicide combined. Congress cannot continue to ignore a public health problem of this magnitude. And Congress will not ignore it.”
Ranking Member Mike Enzi (R-WY) said, “Tobacco is a scourge on our society…My fierce opposition to smoking is a result of smoking killing my dad and my mom and my mother-in-law and from second-hand smoking conclusively affecting me.” He continued, “We, as a nation, currently ask the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] to be responsible for so many things: ensuring that new drugs and medical devices are safe and effective; safeguarding the nation’s food supply; regulating the manufacture and distribution of food additives and drugs that will be given to animals; and increasing the security of our blood supply…FDA approves cures, not poisons. Forcing the FDA to regulate tobacco, but not letting them ban it, as some of my colleagues propose, would undermine the long history of the agency protecting and promoting the public health.”
The legislation, sponsored by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), would authorize the FDA to regulate the manufacturing, marketing, and distribution of tobacco products, including requiring the disclosure of harmful ingredients and mandating larger health warnings. The FDA began drafting a framework for regulating tobacco products in 1996, but the Supreme Court ruled in FDA v. Brown & Williamson (2000) that it lacked the authority to do so.
During debate on the measure, the committee adopted, by voice vote, an amendment by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) to require larger warnings on cigarette packages, with graphic images, and to make clear that the FDA does not endorse the safety of cigarettes.
A substitute amendment by Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) was defeated, 9-13. The substitute would have established a “tobacco harm reduction center” to regulate tobacco products instead of the FDA. It also would have increased market access for “reduced harm” tobacco products, such as smokeless tobacco. The FDA would have been prohibited from mandating changes to tobacco product ingredients; however, manufacturers would have been required to disclose all ingredients.
