Lott declares tobacco bill DEAD IN THE WATER: Sunday June 7 11:48 PM EDT:
Washington: (Reuters)- Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott Sunday declared tobacco legislation that has been stalled since last month "dead in the water", saying its many add-ons were obscuring the goal of curbing teen-age smoking.
Lott's grim assessment came a day after President Clinton said the Senate had reached a critical moment of truth and should pass the measure sponsored by Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain this week.
At this point it's "dead in the water" and there may never be a vote on the McCain bill, "Lott, a Mississippi Republican, said on CNN's " Late Edition" program.
" The problem is GREED has set in, he said. It's the usual addiction in Washington to taxes and spend. This has gone way beyond trying to do something about teenage smoking. This is now about money grubbing."
The bill, the most ambitious ant-smoking measure ever considered by Congress, would raise cigarette prices by $1.10 a pack, strengthen Food and Drug Administration authority over tobacco and nicotine, and subject cigarettes to new health, marketing, advertising and labeling regulations.
Lott, a leading critic of the measure, said he expected Senate votes on several amendments to the bill this week, but said it was " not very likely" that there would be a vote on its final passage.
Clinton in his weekly radio address Saturday accused a few members of the Senate of acting on behalf of the tobacco companies to stall the measure, which he said would save the lives of 1 million American children.
"The American people will not stand for it", the president said. "The Senate should do nothing else until it passes tobacco legislation and it should pass it this week."
But Lott accused the bill's backers, a coalition of liberals, moderates and a few anti-smoking conservatives like McCain, of using the bill as a vehicle to tack on other measures to further their own political agendas.
" If the goal is to have a campaign to discourage teen-age smoking and drug abuse, we can get that done," he said.
Last week one of Lott's fellow Republicans, Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, proposed spending a third or more of the funds that would be raised by the tobacco bill to reduce the so-called marriage penalty, a tax code quirk that forces some couples to pay more than they would if they were single.
Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle has said that proposal would gut the tobacco bill by eventually taking up to three-fourths of the money away from states, public health, medical research, anti-smoking programs and aid to farmers. But he acknowledged that Gramm's proposal may win.
McCain, who finds himself isolated from the right-wing of his party on tobacco, is trying to hold together the coalition backing his bill.
The paradox he faces is that even with broad support, he may not be able to rally enough backing to overcome monumental procedural hurdles that will determine whether the Senate ever does vote on the overall bill.
If the bill dies, presidential adviser, Paul Begala, said it will probably become an issue in this fall's congressional elections.
"They are either going to have a bipartisan accomplishment, which is what the president prefers, or they're going to have a partisan election year issue," Begala said on "Late Edition." |
