Senate Continues Skirmish Over Tobacco Bill

The Senate wrestled inconclusively Monday with a plan to cut tax breaks for tobacco companies that advertise to children as President Clinton and Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) sparred at a distance over a bill to curtail teenage smoking.

In a session as muddled as the lengthy debate on the tobacco bill itself, lawmakers tentatively adopted the advertising proposal by Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) that would deny tobacco companies regular tax deductions for advertising, promotion and marketing expenses unless they obey FDA rules designed to curb sales pitches to underage smokers.

Later, though, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chief architect of the tobacco bill, indicated he will call for a revote, likely to occur today.

The skirmishing came as Clinton sought to spur the GOP-controlled Senate to action and as Lott suggested revising the measure to bring it more into line with the agreement that major tobacco companies reached with the state attorneys general to settle lawsuits.

“Every day the Senate delays plays into the hands of the tobacco industry, which wants desperately to kill this bill,” Clinton said at the White House as the Senate began its fourth week of debating the bill.

Appearing before a group of presidential scholars, he added: “I don’t see how any senator can now stand in the way of a bill that fights drugs, cuts taxes and protects people from a habit that kills.”

But Lott offered a different assessment during his weekly news conference at the Capitol. “There are big problems in it,” he said, adding that the measure has mushroomed in size far beyond what is necessary to attack teen smoking.

Lott said he was holding out hope for a slimmed-down bill that is more in keeping with the settlement the tobacco companies reached with state attorneys general more than a year ago.

Lott also spoke by telephone with White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, but there was no indication whether they were exploring possible grounds for a compromise.