WASHINGTON — The Senate approved landmark legislation Thursday that would give the government sweeping new power to oversee tobacco, which is used by 20 percent of Americans but has been largely unregulated since the country was founded.
The 79-17 vote virtually ensures the bill will become law. It now goes to the House, which passed a nearly identical version in April, for a final vote early next week. President Barack Obama, himself a smoker who has struggled to quit, has said he will sign it.
Congress has been trying for more than a decade to regulate tobacco, coming close several times but faltering in the face of tobacco-lobby opposition, White House objections or procedural hangups. But over the years, changing social attitudes toward smoking have helped transform the idea of regulation from controversial to common sense.
“There’s been a fundamental sea change in attitudes about tobacco in both the Congress and the public,” said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco- Free Kids, which led a coalition of more than 1,000 public-health and faith organizations that supported the legislation. “A bill this broad, comprehensive, this strong would have been unimaginable even five years ago.”
The legislation, which comes 50 years after the surgeon general first warned about the health effects of tobacco, gives broad new authority to the Food and Drug Administration to regulate the manufacturing and marketing of cigarettes, cigars and other tobacco products.
“Miracles still happen,” the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said in a statement. Kennedy, who had worked for years to push the bill, is battling brain cancer and missed Thursday’s vote.
Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., whose state is home to R.J. Reynolds Tobacco and Lorillard Tobacco, tried to kill the measure, arguing that the FDA cannot handle additional duties. But in the end, he could not gather enough support for a filibuster. His colleague from North Carolina, Sen. Kay Hagan, was the only Democrat to vote against the bill.
Phillip Morris, the country’s largest tobacco maker, supported the legislation, saying that it hopes to develop new reduced-risk tobacco products. The rest of the industry opposed the measure, saying it would freeze market share and give Phillip Morris an unfair advantage.
The very idea of tobacco regulation strikes some as nonsensical: Take a product that, if used as directed, will kill a third of those who use it and place it under the control of an agency charged with protecting public health. But health advocates argue that FDA oversight is the best hope for reducing the 400,000 deaths each year from tobacco use.
Under the bill, the $89 billion tobacco industry will have to disclose the ingredients in its products for the first time, and the FDA could ban the most harmful of the estimated 6,000 chemicals used in cigarettes, cigars and other tobacco products. It also could reduce the amount of nicotine, perhaps to a point where tobacco is no longer addictive and smokers who want to quit can break free more easily.
The legislation requires tobacco companies to expand the size of warning labels so that they cover 50 percent of a pack of cigarettes and to include graphic images of the health effects of tobacco, such as images of diseased lungs.
Advertising and promotion also will be restricted. Tobacco manufacturers will be unable to use the terms “light,” “mild” and “low” unless they can scientifically prove that the product so labeled is less harmful than standard tobacco.
Many of the new restrictions are aimed at preventing children from starting to smoke. Cherry and other fruit flavorings that appeal to children will be banned, along with marketing aimed at younger smokers, such as the use of Joe Camel and other cartoon characters.
The legislation creates a new tobacco center within the FDA that will be funded by fees from the industry. Those fees are projected by the Congressional Budget Office to reach more than $500 million annually by 2013.
How they voted
Colorado’s senators, Democrats Michael Bennet and Mark Udall, both voted to give the government extensive new powers to regulate how tobacco companies will make and market their products.
“As we work to fix our economy, reducing health care costs needs to be at the top of our list,” Bennet said in a statement. “Prevention is one of the smartest ways to lower the cost of health care and this legislation will do just that.”
