Senate Tobacco Bill Still Faces Major Obstacles
By Saundra Torry and Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 12, 1998;
washingtonpost.com
The national tobacco bill has survived a series of near-death experiences and moved this week a long way toward approval in the Senate. But it faces a perilous course -- complicated by hostile House Republicans and the simple passage of time -- that threatens its demise before the 105th Congress adjourns this fall.
Only a few days after Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said the bill was "dead in the water," the Senate -- struggling to keep from collapsing under the weight of its own disarray -- broke a stubborn stalemate by adding a big election-year tax cut.
By yesterday, a huge list of potentially lethal problems had been whittled to just a few, including a fight over competing proposals to compensate tobacco farmers and a battery of amendments crafted by conservative Republicans intent on sinking the bill. The bill has been toughened in some respects and weakened in others, but despite some misgivings about its most recent turns, public health advocates are still satisfied that its passage would be a historic leap in the fight against underage smoking.
"What a difference a week makes," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said yesterday as he and several other key supporters predicted that the measure would win Senate approval sometime next week. Even some opponents conceded that eventual approval is likely. "Probably in despair, [the Senate] will do whatever it has to to get a bill out," said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah).
Time is short, and the bill's opponents have been counting delay as a major weapon. Much may depend on whether the Senate, which already has spent nearly three weeks on the bill, can avoid further protracted delays.
One of the keys is Lott. With his long and close ties to the conservatives who dominate the Republican side of the Senate, he is expected by associates to give the bill's critics ample time for substantive amendments. But if the bill is to move, he eventually would have to crack down on the delaying tactics of his allies by forcing it to a vote.
Pressure is building on Lott to bring the debate to a close. It comes not just from Democrats and other backers of the measure but from the backlog of other business, including defense, higher education and spending bills for the next fiscal year that must be passed shortly to avoid being trampled in the rush to adjournment. Only 12 weeks of work time remain before the targeted Oct. 9 adjournment.
Lott opposed Democratic efforts to force action this week but did not rule out the possibility of doing so on his own at another time.
Those following the bill have found Lott's intentions impossible to read. The majority leader has played an enigmatic role throughout the debate. With a brother-in-law who participated as a lawyer in settlement negotiations with cigarette makers, he has voted "present" on some key amendments. But as majority leader, he plays a critical role in moving all legislation, including scheduling, deal-making and massaging egos, and the tobacco bill is no exception.
He has made no secret of the fact that he believes the bill taxes and spends too much. But according to many colleagues, Lott has worked behind the scenes to keep it from falling apart -- an outcome that could damage Republican candidates in this fall's elections and tarnish his own reputation for keeping the trains running on time.
The White House has kept a low profile with the occasional exception of President Clinton brandishing the possibility that Democrats could use the failure to pass a tobacco bill as a weapon in the November elections.
Even if it means swallowing some unwanted elements, White House officials say the main object is to get a strong bill out of the Senate, believing that will transform the otherwise hostile politics of the House. "There is a small faction that wants to stop this bill at any cost, and we're not going to give them that satisfaction," an administration official said.
The House has not even begun to tackle the issue. House GOP leaders, who have called the Senate bill a big tax-and-spend measure, are pushing for a far narrower approach, focused tightly on teenage smoking and drug use. A bipartisan bill similar to McCain's has also been introduced and could gain support from Republican moderates.
The Senate bill, sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), is an ambitious vehicle that would impose the largest price increase ever on cigarettes -- $1.10 per pack over the next five years -- and broad restrictions on a $50 billion industry once considered politically invincible.
The bill would reshape America's smoking culture by giving the Food and Drug Administration broad power to regulate tobacco, placing restrictions on tobacco marketing and advertising, funding medical research and curtailing smoking in most workplaces and public buildings.
But as conservatives and anti-smoking forces have amended it, the measure has become a strange amalgam that now attacks underage smoking, illegal drug use and the so-called marriage penalty in the tax code.
Supporters have misgivings about the current product, but many key senators are looking for those problems to be negotiated away in an ultimate House-Senate conference, with heavy input from the White House.
"We'll have plenty of leverage in conference and you can't forget that this remains an extraordinarily tough tobacco bill," an administration official said yesterday.
This is precisely what worries some of the bill's critics, who, according to Sen. Paul Coverdell (R-Ga.), are increasingly apprehensive about what may come out of a conference.
But if there are huge differences between House and Senate versions, consensus may be difficult to achieve -- and take longer than the pre-shrunk election-year schedule allows.
The fact that the Senate bill has survived so many close calls for so many days with so much intact leads many to believe it will eventually pass, but not without further struggle.
"This is a textbook case in the use of every legislative trick in the book," said Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), one of the bill's most staunch supporters. Opponents have tried to "talk it to death, amend it to death, use tactical maneuvers and use the clock. . . . You've seen it all, and you'll probably see more before we're done."
A small group of conservatives, including Majority Whip Don Nickles (R-Okla.), essentially Lott's deputy, remain determined to derail the measure, despite the tax-cut and drug-prevention amendments that were attached at their urging. Asked yesterday whether the bill was going to live or die, Nickles raised his arms rifle-like and joked, "I'll get my gun."
The bill's supporters are even more worried about the split over how to help tobacco farmers, which has bubbled beneath the surface for weeks. One proposal, by Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), would pay farmers $18 billion over three years and end the government support program. The other, sponsored by Sens. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.) and Wendell H. Ford (D-Ky.), would cost less and keep the program alive.
The three senators have been unable to reach a compromise, and Ford said he has as many as 70 amendments ready to swamp the bill if his proposal does not succeed.
Each day, the measure's vulnerability is underscored. While the bill's proponents reluctantly accepted the tax cut at the insistence of Republicans, its inclusion has angered other supporters. Public health groups and the National Governors' Association are concerned that billions of dollars in tobacco revenue, destined for state coffers and anti-smoking programs, have been diverted to pay for the tax cut.
Staff writer John F. Harris contributed to this report.
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