Senate panel OKs bill to regulate cigarettes

A Senate committee Wednesday embraced legislation that would for the first time allow federal regulation of cigarettes.

The bill, approved 13 to 8 by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, would give the Food and Drug Administration authority to restrict tobacco advertising, regulate warning labels and remove hazardous ingredients.

The agency also would be given the authority to set standards for products that tobacco companies advertise as “reduced risk” products.

“This is an enormous step forward,” said Matt Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. “This could end up being the signature public health action this Congress takes.”

The bill has broad bipartisan support in the Senate, where more than 50 senators have signed on as cosponsors. A similar bill passed the chamber in 2004 but was blocked in the House.

“The bipartisan legislation will save millions of lives and save others from a lifetime of addiction and certain death,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who sponsored the bill.

The tobacco legislation was crafted through several years of negotiations led by Kennedy and former Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), with input from health groups and tobacco giant Philip Morris USA, which broke from its competitors to endorse FDA regulation.

The bill would allow the FDA to reduce the amount of nicotine in cigarettes, but only Congress could permanently ban them.

The committee adopted an amendment by Sen. Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyo.) that would ban clove cigarettes in the U.S., reversing a controversial decision by Kennedy to allow the FDA to decide.

Kennedy, the panel’s chairman, said he was responding to several senators who contacted him with concerns that a ban on clove cigarettes could not be compliant with World Trade Organization rules. But Kennedy agreed to the ban after several senators objected.

Most cloves are marketed in Asia, and Philip Morris International recently launched a Marlboro cigarette flavored with cloves in Indonesia.

Kennedy said at the meeting that Philip Morris had “nothing to do with our decision” and that he supported the clove ban as long as it complied with WTO rules.

Philip Morris’ competitors are strongly opposed to the overall bill, saying it would lock in Philip Morris’s dominant market share. The panel rejected several amendments by Republican Sen. Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, whose state is home to R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. Kennedy said that Burr’s amendments would undermine the legislation.