S6406 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE June 10, 2009 people don’t notice it. It has become so keting and sale of tobacco products to tioned earlier, I am sure Senator DODD commonplace, nobody even registers kids. We require tobacco companies to will join me saying we wish one of our with the message it delivers. disclose the ingredients on their prod- colleagues were with us here today, For the longest time, we have argued ucts. We require the Food and Drug Ad- and that is TED KENNEDY, who is home that tobacco should be regulated, that ministration to evaluate any health recuperating. TED KENNEDY was our the products that are sold in America claims for scientific accuracy and pub- champion and inspiration for years on should have an agency with oversight lic health impact. We give the FDA the this issue. He hung in there and fought keeping an eye on them. The tobacco power to require companies to make for this when a lot of people gave up. companies fought it off year after year. changes to tobacco products to protect TED never gave up. When it came to Finally, with this new President, public health. And we require larger, the issues in his heart and soul, he with this new Congress, we have stronger warning health notices on to- fought as long as he possibly could. reached the moment where we have a bacco products. These are common- We continue that fight today and he chance to pass this important legisla- sense reforms that will start to reduce handed the banner to Senator DODD, tion. This is a bill that will protect the terrible toll tobacco has taken on who has done an extraordinarily good children and will protect America, and families all across this Nation. The job on this bill. He has been called into it will reduce tobacco use. The House FDA is the right agency to do this. It action in the Senate repeatedly. Just a passed their version last month with a is the only agency that can bring to- few weeks ago we passed the Credit wide majority, and now it is time for gether science, regulatory expertise, Card Reform Act after more than 20 the Senate to act. Every day that we and the public health mission to do the years of trying. We finally got it done. don’t act, 3,500 American kids—chil- job. Through a user fee on tobacco It was a dramatic change in the law to dren—will light up for the first time. companies, the bill gives the agency protect consumers and families across That is enough to fill 70 schoolbuses of the money it needs to conduct its new America. kids who will try cigarettes every sin- responsibilities. Today, with the passage of this—at gle day for the first time. A thousand This is a strong public health bill, least the movement of this bill forward of those 3,500 will then become regular and it is a bipartisan bill. After more toward passage this week—we are smokers. The addiction will begin. than 10 years of effort, we have never going to be able to protect millions of Tobacco companies spend nearly $40 been so close to giving the FDA the au- children and Americans from deadly million every day to lure this new gen- thority it needs to regulate tobacco. I tobacco-related disease. eration of customers with blatant de- urge my colleagues to resist any I thank Senator DODD for his leader- ceptive advertising—promotions of amendments that will weaken this bill ship. I commend this bill to our col- candy-flavored cigarettes and adver- or add provisions that might stop it leagues. This is our moment in history. tising that is aimed directly at kids— from becoming a law. FDA regulation Let’s not miss it. Let’s seize this op- all the while they are loading their of tobacco products is long overdue. portunity to create protection for a lot products not just with tobacco leaf but I can recall arriving on Capitol Hill of young people who will otherwise find with chemicals. They put in extra nico- as a new Congressman years and years you are compromised by this deadly to- tine, incidentally. If there isn’t enough ago. In the first orientation meeting bacco product. nicotine naturally occurring in to- we had as new Democratic Congress- I yield the floor. bacco, they load it up so that your ad- men, one of the older Members of the f diction becomes stronger, your craving House came in, closed the door, and grows, and your body demands more said: I want to tell you something. CONCLUSION OF MORNING and more tobacco. It is time we put a When tobacco issues come up, we vote BUSINESS stop to this marketing and give the with the tobacco companies. That is The PRESIDING OFFICER. Morning Food and Drug Administration the au- for your friends in tobacco-producing business is closed. thority to regulate this industry. States. You give them a helping hand, There are 43 million Americans who and someday they may give you a help- f smoke today. People often say to me: ing hand. That is the way it works. FAMILY SMOKING PREVENTION Well, why don’t we just ban this prod- Well, that was one of the first things AND TOBACCO CONTROL ACT uct? If I thought that would end smok- we were told about being a Member of ing in America, I might consider it. Congress; tobacco was that important The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under But we know better. With 43 million on the political agenda. Certainly for the previous order, the Senate will re- Americans currently addicted, they are some Members from tobacco-producing sume consideration of H.R. 1256, which not going to quit cold turkey tomor- States, it may have been the most im- the clerk will report. row. A black market would emerge, portant thing that brought them to The bill clerk read as follows: and then the next thing you know the Capitol Hill. However, over the years, A bill (H.R. 1256) to protect the public underground economy would be sus- some of us wandered off of this agenda. health by providing the Food and Drug Ad- taining tobacco. That would not be the ministration with certain authority to regu- I offered an amendment to ban smok- late tobacco products, and to amend title 5, result we are looking for. ing on airplanes and had the opposition United States Code, to make certain modi- In my home State of Illinois, about of all of the leaders in the House of fications in the Thrift Savings Plan, the one out of five kids smokes. That Representatives, Democrat and Repub- Civil Service Retirement System, and the means that every year 65,000 kids in Il- lican. But it turned out that so many Federal Employees’ Retirement System, and linois try a cigarette for the first time, Members of the House flew in airplanes for other purposes. and almost 20,000 become regular daily and couldn’t stand this fiction of smok- Pending: smokers. These kids consume 34 mil- ing section and nonsmoking section Dodd amendment No. 1247, in the nature of lion packs of cigarettes a year. There that they supported my amendment. a substitute. are 8.6 million people in the United So over 20 years ago we banned smok- Schumer (for Lieberman) amendment No. States who currently suffer from to- ing on airplanes. 1256 (to amendment No. 1247), to modify pro- bacco-related disease. It is responsible FRANK LAUTENBERG was my cham- visions relating to Federal employees retire- for 90 percent of lung cancer deaths, pion over here in the Senate and to- ment. one-third of all cancer deaths, and one gether we started a Federal policy that The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen- in five deaths from cardiovascular dis- I might say kind of tipped one domino ator from Connecticut is recognized. ease. Approximately half of all con- over and people started saying if sec- Mr. DODD. Madam President, as I tinuing smokers will die prematurely ondhand smoke is dangerous on air- understand it, we are going to have a as a result of the disease. Sadly, in Illi- planes it is dangerous in other places. vote at 12:30. I ask unanimous consent nois, 317,000 kids alive today will even- That movement has grown in inten- the time between now and 12:30 be tually die from the smoking addiction sity. We have seen the kind of leader- equally divided between the minority which they started as kids. ship at local and State levels that has and majority. Here is what the bill does. We put continued to make it a potent force. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without teeth in the law to restrict the mar- But today is our chance. As I men- objection, it is so ordered. VerDate Nov 24 2008 00:01 Jun 11, 2009 Jkt 079060 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 0624 Sfmt 0634 E:\CR\FM\G10JN6.017 S10JNPT1 wwoods2 on PRODPC68 with SENATE June 10, 2009 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S6407 (At the request of Mr. DODD, the fol- tobacco products are so deadly that we needs broad authority to regulate the lowing statement was ordered to be must empower America’s premier pub- sale, distribution, and advertising of printed in the RECORD.) lic health protector—the FDA—to com- cigarettes and smokeless tobacco. ∑ Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, bat tobacco use. For decades the Fed- The tobacco industry currently later today, the Senate will vote to ap- eral Government has stayed on the spends over thirteen billion dollars prove legislation that should have been sidelines and done next to nothing to each year to promote its products.