Senate Paves the Way for a Federal Tobacco Lawsuit

The Senate on Thursday scuttled an effort to prevent the Justice Department from suing the tobacco industry.

After the states won billions of dollars through similar tobacco suits, President Clinton announced in his State of the Union speech that Justice would explore a lawsuit of its own.

Government lawyers are now exploring a legal strategy for recovering billions of dollars spent by Medicare and other federal health programs to treat sick smokers.

But last month, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) added a provision into a bill funding the Commerce, Justice and State departments that would have barred Justice from spending money on such a lawsuit.

Democrats balked, and Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) introduced an amendment Thursday removing the offending language.

“To allow the tobacco industry to escape responsibility . . . would be totally irresponsible, a surrender of our fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayer,” Graham argued.

Graham withdrew his amendment after Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Gregg introduced language into the Senate record nullifying the ban.

Democrats felt confident they had the votes to pass the amendment and had hoped to stage a public defeat of the industry.

“I want to make certain that the tobacco companies know that they have lost and the American taxpayers have won. We are not going to accept any half-hearted compromise,” said Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), a vocal opponent of the industry.

Durbin and Graham recalled the Senate’s success in preventing the federal government from taking a share of the money states won in their tobacco settlements. At the time, several people said that the federal government should file a suit of its own if it wants a piece of tobacco money.

A spokeswoman for Gregg did not return repeated calls Thursday.

The dispute moved the Senate back into the tobacco wars of last year, at least for a few weeks.

“It never stops,” said Bruce Reed, Clinton’s chief domestic policy advisor, who welcomed Thursday’s action. “It’s hard to believe that Congress would side with the tobacco companies over the taxpayers.”

But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce joined the tobacco industry in lobbying to keep the ban.

Although Democrats prevailed, the Senate bill does not give Justice an extra $20 million requested by the president to work on the lawsuit. Justice officials decline to say whether they’ll be able to move forward without the extra money.