WASHINGTON
Cigarettes would be subject to government regulation for the first time ever under a bill passed yesterday by the U.S. House.
Supporters say that the bill, HR 1108, will encourage work to make tobacco products less harmful. According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 400,000 Americans die each year from smoking.
The legislation, which has divided the tobacco industry, would give the Food and Drug Administration the power to curtail marketing further; control nicotine levels; and enlarge government warning labels on all tobacco products.
But the bill, which passed the House with a veto-proof 326-102 vote, faces an uphill climb in the Senate, where a similar bill has been stalled since last August.
"You don't start celebrating when the ball is on the 10-yard line," said M. Cass Wheeler, the chief executive of the American Heart Association. "This will all be for nothing if we don't score a touchdown with a win in the Senate."
Susan Ivey, the president of Reynolds American Inc. in Winston-Salem and an opponent of the bill, said she doesn't think that will happen.
"We really don't think it will reach the Senate floor," Ivey said. "We continue to have dialogue to talk about potential alternative regulation. And we prepare ourselves for any implications of this current FDA bill."
Philip Morris USA, the nation's leading cigarette manufacturer, is the only cigarette-maker to support the FDA regulation bill publicly.
"We think today's vote by the House of Representatives is an important step forward on this legislation," said Bill Phelps, a spokesman for Altria Group, the parent company of Philip Morris USA. "Such regulation could benefit consumers, shareholders and other stakeholders."
However, Reynolds and other opponents of the bill have argued that by limiting marketing it would protect Philip Morris' position as market leader.
The bill -- titled the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act -- would ban most flavored cigarettes, except for menthol, a provision aimed at preventing teenagers from smoking.
Even though approval from the full House marks the most significant legislative action this bill has ever had, the Senate Democratic leadership has made no decision on whether it will get a vote in the waning weeks of a congressional session already overshadowed by the November elections.
The Bush administration, congressional Republicans and several tobacco-industry lobbyists said that an overburdened, underfinanced FDA is the wrong agency to oversee tobacco. Yesterday, the White House threatened a veto.
The House minority leader, Rep. John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, a longtime smoker, called the bill a "boneheaded idea."
"There is not a smoker in America who doesn't know smoking isn't good for them," Boehner said. "Do we need the government to tell us?"
The FDA's new regulatory duties would cost about $2.2 billion over five years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The bill includes a tax on cigarettes that would increase from 1 cent pack this year to at least 5 cents a pack by 2018.
If the Senate and House fail to pass the same tobacco-regulation bill and get it signed it into law, then legislators will have to restart the process with a new bill when the new Congress begins in 2009.
Both presidential candidates, Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama, are co-sponsors of the Senate version of the bill.
■ Neil H. Simon is a staff writer in Media General's Washington bureau.
■ Journal reporter Richard Craver contributed to this report.
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