Providing for the consideration of the Senate amendment to the bill (H.R. 1256) to protect the public health by providing the Food and Drug Administration with certain authority to regulate tobacco products, to amend title 5, United States Code, to make certain modifications in the Thrift Savings Plan, the Civil Service Retirement System, and the Federal Employees' Retirement System, and for other purposes.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would like to congratulate Henry Waxman and Senator Kennedy and others with regard to their tenacity and persistence over the years. What is unfortunate is that we were not able to incorporate harm reduction strategies. It is also unfortunate that we are continuing to place more burdens and responsibilities upon FDA.

What I had sought to do is to regulate tobacco. I do not smoke, I do not encourage anyone to smoke. The health risks associated with smoking, I believe people recognize them and are cognizant.

Tobacco is an adult product. It's legal. And we are faced with this question of moralism versus pragmatism. And you have to be careful when you go down this path in weighing the balance of moralism versus pragmatism. So what I had sought to do was choose the pragmatic side of the equation and to incorporate a harm reduction strategy with the abstinence approach in the Kennedy-Waxman legislation.

While the authors of the bill, Madam Speaker, would say, Well, Steve, we have harm reduction in the bill. Well, it is mentioned in the bill, but there is a 2-tier standard in the bill that has been cleverly written in a manner to be an entry barrier to new innovative tobacco products. And that 2-tier standard is one that first must be achieved at the individual level, and then you must achieve this standard at the public at large. And the purpose is truly an entry barrier.

Now, if we wanted to work together and truly have a new scientific, pragmatic approach to improve the public health of our country, we would be doing both; we would be doing abstinence along with harm reduction. You see, that's exactly what Henry Waxman and others in this body do when it comes to teenage sex. They say, okay, by this body, Democrats and Republicans enjoin, we have both; we promote abstinence while also we have policies that promote harm reduction in our efforts to lower sexually transmitted diseases.

With regard to HIV, there are needle-exchange programs while we also try to promote abstinence. But all of a sudden now, when it comes to tobacco, approaches that we take in other forms of public health, whether it's in sanitary issues or whether it's in teenage sex issues or in HIV issues, all of a sudden we don't want to apply it to tobacco. It is a curious thing for me that we don't want to apply harm reduction strategies to tobacco.

So I would say to my good friend, Mr. Waxman, I think where we are is that you can have your day in the light, you have earned it, but we are going to have to come back to the table because what we have done is we have locked down the marketplace. You have given a big checkmark to Phillip Morris and said that your market share is okay. And when you lock down the marketplace, and we then stifle innovation and we do not have competition in that marketplace, we truly don't have the ability, then, for these companies to track at-risk capital to make investments in a harm reduction strategy whereby we can migrate people down the continuum of risk.

So if this bill becomes law, we've got some real challenges in front of us. One of them is how do we stand up this new mission within FDA, an agency that is already very stressed and underresourced, and we're already going to be addressing issues in the committee regarding food safety and drug safety while we pile on more missions.

So I would say to my good friend that as soon as this bill is signed into law, a couple of things are going to happen. Number one, the lawyers will make a run to the Federal courts, and the Supreme Court will be back sitting in judgment over the provisions on advertising restrictions, not only potential unconstitutional provisions on the First Amendment with regard to the regulation of commercial speech, but also in the Fifth Amendment with regard to whether it's a constitutional taking or not.

So while that is going on, I will introduce legislation, I'll work with Ms. Harman, I'll work with others, I'll work with the chairman, on how we can best incorporate these harm-reduction strategies to truly improve public health.

Madam Speaker, I embrace the sincerity of Mr. Waxman and Mr. Kennedy that they truly want to improve public health in the country, but this legislation, when we lock ourselves down to only what is presently available and that these nicotine replacement therapies only have a 7 percent success rate, I don't believe anyone here would endorse a 7 percent success rate as a good thing. It's failure. So we are going to have to go back to the drawing board here and figure out how we do a harm-reduction strategy to improve public health.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to respond to my good friend Mr. Waxman.

To say that harm-reduction strategies are best left to the FDA gives me great concern. If you truly believe that, then you should have never set a 2-tiered standard and built a paradigm in which they are to make judgments, if you truly believe that they're the ones who should have designed the strategies to improve public health. So I would be more than happy to work with the gentleman to repeal the 2-tiered standard if we're going to let them set the standard based on sound science to improve public health.

Madam Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Platts).

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

It is nicotine that causes the consumption of tobacco. So I understand how truly, in my words, outraged then Chairman Waxman was and still is with regard to testimony that occurred years ago when he was the chairman of the Subcommittee on Health.

Now, if it is the nicotine from which adult users receive their satisfaction, the real issue is how do they gain access to nicotine in a manner that reduces their health risk? That's the issue. That's my passion.

I am not a smoker. I don't advocate for people to smoke. My charge and challenge is how do we improve public health in our country? And I don't want this abstinence-only approach. So if it's nicotine for which people want to gain access to and it's an adult product, then shouldn't we be trying to figure out methods or products where people can gain access to nicotine that is less harmful?

During the debate on the rule, Madam Speaker, I would share to my colleague, Chairman Waxman, an individual brought up a head of lettuce and said that there is more regulation on a head of lettuce than tobacco. And I guess it was an effort to be cute, but the real point here is what I shared, Madam Speaker, and to my friend Mr. Waxman, you could have smoked that lettuce and you would still end up with the same problems. You could cut the grass in your yard, dry it and roll it up in a cigarette and smoke it, and you're still going to have a lot of problems. It is the smoke that kills, not the nicotine. It's the smoke.

So when you look and you say, well, if the smoke is the killer because of the inhalation of the tobacco smoke, that's responsible for the pandemic of cancers, heart disease, respiratory disease, and these deadly results.

So I'm going back to this harm reduction. So despite decades of intense efforts to eradicate smoking, more than 40 million adults continue to smoke cigarettes, and they're likely to continue because we don't have this ability to migrate them to other products. It's extremely important, when we talk about a harm-reduction strategy, that not only is it the access to a particular product, it is the education of the people at large as to what type of products that they can avail themselves to that have less harmful health results. That should be our goal and that has been embraced.

The American Association of Public Health Physicians noted last year, Enhancement of current policies based on the premise that all tobacco products are equally risky will yield only small and barely measurable reductions in tobacco-related illness and death.

So in the public debate, there is sort of this presumption that all tobacco products are harmful. Well, all tobacco products have a degree of health hazards, but some are more harmful than others. So cigar and pipe are not subject to this legislation; yet they are the most harmful to the human body of all of the carcinogens that can be inhaled.

So how do we migrate people? And I think that's what is extremely important. And let's stop this premise that all tobacco products are equally risky; that Swedish snus, even though it's 98 percent less harmful than an unfiltered cigarette, should not be treated as though they're both just as harmful. They're not. If you're able to pasteurize and take away the nitrosamines, yet people can gain access to their nicotine, you know what? That ought to be something we should talk about. That ought to be something we should promote.

And the reason, Madam Speaker, that if we just turn this over to the FDA, like Chairman Waxman has just suggested, and let them come up with these strategies, it's not going to be able to get into the hands of the American people because of the 2-tiered standard that has been set in this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

It is with great disappointment that I hear the words of the Speaker because she is truly endorsing a 7 percent success rate as an acceptable level of success for those who are trying to quit smoking. Also, if we really wanted to try to help children, then she should have endorsed what I sought to do; that is, put tobacco on an equal plain as alcohol to make it illegal to possess. But we're not doing that today.

I also said that the States, with regard to the MSA, the Master Settlement Agreement, the States are not spending the money like they should. In the last 10 years, States have spent just 3.2 percent of their tobacco-generated revenue on prevention and cessation programs. In the current fiscal year, no State is funding tobacco prevention programs at levels recommended by the CDC. So I had offered an opportunity here to the body to strengthen and truly protect children, yet it was not adopted by this body. So be very careful about coming to the floor and saying we're doing it for the children when, in fact, the opportunity was there and you did not.

I now yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul).

(Mr. PAUL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield myself 30 seconds.

I would say that the gentleman and I are not always in total agreement. The substitute that I brought to the floor actually sought to regulate tobacco, and I know you did not agree with my substitute. I believe in the regulation of tobacco. I sought to do that. I just don't believe it should be done in FDA. We tried to create a harm reduction center to do that. But I respect the gentleman's views.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock).

Madam Speaker, there are a couple of issues that I would like to address that I mentioned in my opening. The last two issues that I will address are, one, on the constitutionality, and, secondly, is the FDA the right agency.

While we all agree that steps need to be taken to help lessen the use of tobacco products by underage youth, we must not do so in ways that clearly violate the First Amendment. Unfortunately, the bill in front of us I believe fails to meet that test.

The speech restrictions in this bill are clearly the most sweeping in the history of the United States for any legal product. Numerous top legal experts from every point of the political spectrum have looked at these provisions and declared that they will not meet First Amendment scrutiny.

During the debate on the rule, I questioned the responsibility of this body. I believe it is irresponsible for us to pass legislation that is prima facie unconstitutional.

What we are doing in this body is two things: we are taking the regs from the 1996 rule that the Supreme Court found unconstitutional and we are making them statutory, which means, attention to lawyers in America: you have an access and avenue right back to Federal Court immediately upon the President's signature of this legislation.

Also under the Constitution, private speech, private speech and the regulation of private speech among individuals, that is, companies, if individuals seek to restrict their speech between themselves or how they seek to communicate, they can do that in the private marketplace between themselves. Where the First Amendment comes in is when governments, States, municipalities or the Federal Government then step in and begin to regulate speech.

In this case, it is commercial speech, and that is what we are doing. When we take the MSA, the master settlement agreement, and also place these restrictions and then make them statutory, bang, we are right back to the Supreme Court. And I just find that very bothersome.

Larry Tribe, the noted constitutional expert and Harvard University law professor, commenting on the types of provisions in this legislation, stated, ``Given the extensive regulation of tobacco manufacturing (for example, the creation of manufacturing standards, the regulation of cigarette ingredients, and so on) elsewhere in the proposed legislation, and the mandates for new and improved warnings, it would be difficult to defend the sweeping restrictions on advertising as being narrowly tailored to an important governmental interest. The paternalistic view that tobacco advertising must be restricted because consumers might find it pervasive is antithetical to the assumption on which the First Amendment is based.''

Wow. Now you are going to find me quoting the American Civil Liberties Union. You may want to listen to this, because it is probably the first time I have ever cited the ACLU.

They also said in their testimony on identical language contained in this legislation, they stated if this type of legislation were to be passed, it would be ``wholly unprecedented'' and ``will most likely fail to withstand constitutional challenge.''

On the other side of the spectrum, the Washington Legal Foundation and Judge Bork also have called these proposals ``patently unconstitutional.'' Numerous other legal scholars have taken similar positions.

Now, in our zeal here to restrict tobacco products, there have been these comments by some, Madam Speaker, to say we are doing it for the children. It is wonderful. We can say we are doing it for the children. What does the Court say about that?

The Supreme Court has already examined one of the provisions in the FDA proposal, and that is the 1,000 foot ban on outdoor adds, and has suggested it violates the First Amendment because it is not narrowly tailored.

The Supreme Court rejected the efforts of the Massachusetts Attorney General to ``childproof'' the flow of information in our society. Children deserve to be protected from inappropriate or harmful material, but the government may not use the guise of protecting children to impose sweeping restrictions on information intended for adults.

So we come to the floor and we say we are doing it for the children. Yet we are taking provisions which the Supreme Court has already found to be unconstitutional, i.e., commercial speech that is not merely tailored to a legitimate government interest.

In Bolger v. Youngs Drug Products Corporation, the court stated that efforts to restrict advertising cannot lower disclosure in society ``to the level of the sandbox,'' and cited in the case Butler v. Michigan that ``government may not reduce the adult population to reading only that which is fit for children.''

So the type of drastic speech censorship that is contained in this legislation is almost certain to lead to challenges in the Federal courts, and I find that troubling and counterproductive.

Let me move to the FDA. This bill establishes a general standard that actions by FDA are in the best interest of public health, that they're the ones, that they can reasonably be likely to have measured scientific results.

What do we mean by results?

Substantial reductions in morbidity and mortality rates among smokers. That's what we seek to achieve.

So the great challenge that I have here is that, in the committee, we are now looking at legislation with regard to food safety and drug safety. The FDA is charged with approving medical products based on scientific evidence that benefits of the products outweigh the risks. Tobacco products are inherently risk products that cause disease when used as directed.

Now, we're going to turn to the FDA and say, we want you to regulate the tobacco product. So we take the gold standard of the FDA now, and apply it to tobacco, and now there is this inference that somehow the FDA has said that tobacco's a safe product. That is something we should not be doing. It's why I sought to create a separate agency, rather than the FDA, creating a mission that is counter to their present mission.

You see, if you use a cigarette and follow the instructions, and you do

that every day, it will kill you. Now, think about that. It will kill you. We don't want the FDA to create some type of inference into society that somehow it's okay.

President Obama stated on March 14 of this year that 95 percent of America's 150,000 food processing plants and warehouses go uninspected each year. Wow. Each year, 74 million people in the United States are sickened by tainted food, and about 5,000 die, according to the CDC. That's on food alone.

Then, with regard to drugs, I look forward to working with Chairman Waxman, Madam Speaker, and with Mr. Dingell, with regard to drug safety because right now we have 11 international mail facilities by the United States Government. You count the three private carriers that also have international mail facilities, and they are taking up to around 30,000 drug packages that are coming into our country by people who are going on to the Internet. Every time we do an inspection of those mail packages, we find that 80 percent of them are either counterfeit knockoffs or adulterated drugs. When, in fact, you do the math and you say, okay, wow, take that 14 times 30,000 times 365, then times 80 percent, we are looking at 96 million. Think about that. 96 million drug packages coming in. So what we're doing now is we're lumping this onto FDA, and FDA is a challenged, a very challenged agency.

I urge individuals to vote ``no'' on this legislation. There is a better way to regulate tobacco.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 532 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina, Dr. Foxx. All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material into the Record.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 532 provides for consideration of the Senate amendment to H.R. 1256, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule, House Resolution 532, and the underlying bill, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. I thank Chairman Waxman and my colleagues who serve on the Energy and Commerce Committee for their leadership in this bipartisan effort.

This legislation, which passed the House by a margin of more than three to one last July and again passed the House by a vote of 298-112 this past April will finally give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate the advertising, marketing and manufacturing of tobacco products, and it will also allow them to take additional critical steps to protect the public health. Putting a stop to the tobacco industry from designing products that entice young people and developing programs to help adult smokers quit is the first step in prevention.

Tobacco is currently the number one cause of preventable death in America. It is responsible for about one in five deaths annually, or 443,000 deaths per year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Smoking-related deaths account for more deaths than AIDS, alcohol, cocaine, heroin, homicide, suicide, motor vehicle crashes and fires combined. Approximately 8.6 million Americans also suffer from chronic illnesses that are related to smoking.

And yet every day, more than 3,500 youth try a cigarette for the first time and another 1,000 will become new, regular, daily smokers. One-third of these youth will eventually die prematurely as a result. America's youth face intense pressure every day from friends, fancy advertisements, and irresponsible adults to make bad decisions that will affect their long-term health and their families.

A 2006 study conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that 90 percent of all adult smokers began while

they were in their teens or earlier, and two-thirds of adult smokers became regular daily smokers before they reached the age of 19. A shocking number of American children are at least casual smokers before they can even drive a car.

As a cosponsor of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, I am strongly committed to seeing this figure drastically reduced, and this bill is an important step. Congress must work to help make our children's lives safer and their daily choices easier.

The history of low tar cigarettes illustrates the grave danger to public health caused by fooling consumers by making false and unsubstantiated claims that one kind of cigarette is substantially safer than another.

Millions of Americans switched to low tar cigarettes, believing they were reducing their risk of lung cancer. Many were convinced to switch instead of quit. It wasn't until decades later that we learned through the deaths of those smoking low tar cigarettes that low tar cigarettes were just as dangerous as full tar cigarettes.

Mr. Speaker, as you may recall during the last debate, I spoke of my fellow Coloradan, David Hughes, who as a teenager began smoking and then died last year at the age of 52. I had the chance to speak to his widow.

In 2002, after his first cancer diagnosis, throat cancer, he immediately quit smoking and became one of Colorado's fiercest anti- smoking advocates. His optimism and strength never went unnoticed as he volunteered for Smoke-Free Loveland. His mission was to prevent others from dying from cancer due to smoking, prevent others from making mistakes, prevent others from making the wrong choices that ultimately cost him his life.

David and so many others of our friends, our brothers, our sisters, our cousins, our relatives personify the humanity of tobacco addiction, and this is why we must ensure that protections are put in place and this bill is passed and sent to President Obama so that we can fulfill David's mission and honor the way that so many others have lived and died.

Under this legislation, by empowering the FDA to regulate tobacco products, we will not have to wait until the deaths of millions of more Americans to learn whether a so-called safer cigarette is really what it claims to be. The bottom line: we have an interest in making sure our constituents know the facts, all of them, before making potentially deadly choices.

America must also be made aware of the dramatic health risks associated with smokeless tobacco. Many still believe that chewing tobacco and snuff are safe alternatives to smoking cigarettes.

This bill will require warning labels that indicate that smokeless tobacco causes mouth and gum cancer, serious oral diseases and tooth loss.

A study by Brown University reveals that just a few weeks of chewing tobacco can develop leukoplakia of the cheeks and gums, which is the formation of leathery patches of diseased tissue on those parts of the mouth. The most shocking figure is that one in 20 of these cases of leukoplakia develop into oral cancer.

The American Dental Association, who strongly supports this legislation, calls tobacco use the number one cause of preventable disease in the United States. It should be a no-brainer to responsibly regulate such a dangerous product.

I also want to stress that the bill fully funds FDA tobacco activity through user fees on tobacco product manufacturers. All tobacco product-related FDA costs are allocated among the manufacturers of cigarettes, cigarette tobacco, and smokeless tobacco products that are sold in the United States based on the manufacturer's respective share of the United States market.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates if this bill is passed, we will reduce youth smoking by 11 percent over the next decade and adult smoking by 2 percent, a small step in the right direction; but there is much more work ahead of us.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen).

Will the gentleman yield?

I'm asking you the source.

Will the gentleman yield for a moment?

I'd like to yield to ask your source.

I'd like to ask your source.

That's from another country?

Is the gentleman aware the Congressional Budget Office estimates it will reduce youth smoking by 11 percent over the next 10 years, and adult smoking by 2 percent? Those are our own estimates.

Mr. Speaker, currently a head of lettuce receives more regulation than tobacco products. I would

simply ask: Which is more dangerous to the American people? I would like to quote from The New York Times today, which endorsed, through an editorial, this bill, and it has been supported in the past as well.

``It has now been proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that cigarette makers have spent decades making false statements, suppressing evidence of harm, and manipulating the design of cigarettes to increase their addictiveness. Federal regulators should be able to stop many of these abuses--and we hope help prevent more Americans from losing their lives to smoking.''

This bill is the first step.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green).

Mr. Speaker, I think that one of the differences between smoking lettuce--and I have to admit that this is the first time I've heard of smoking lettuce--and smoking tobacco is that tobacco, because of its nicotine content, is highly addictive. Again, there is evidence, undisputable evidence, that companies have deliberately increased the levels of addictive nicotine within those products and that American lives have been lost as a result.

One of the other important aspects of this bill is ending the practice of many of these tobacco products which are targeted specifically to children--barring the sale of flavored tobacco products, such as fruit and cloves and chocolate, with names that entice children, like ``Very Berry.'' This would ensure that those are properly regulated.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman).

I want to highlight that this legislation is supported by over 1,000 public health, faith, and other organizations, including the American Cancer Society Action Network, the American Heart Association, American Dental Association, and American Lung Association. I would also like to think that the recent dialogue between the Representative from California and the Representative from Indiana, that, of course, this bill is just a start.

With regard to many strategies that need to be used and employed to reduce youth smoking, certainly the banning of targeted marketing towards youth and tobacco products that clearly have names that affect youth, creating a regulatory structure for the first time around tobacco products, are constructive steps; and I would agree with the gentleman from Indiana not mutually inconclusive steps, mutually inconsistent steps with many other things that we need to do for the common goal that we share to reducing youth smoking.

Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Quigley).

Madam Speaker, this bill is not a hostile trade action. Every sovereign State, every country has the full ability to regulate public health issues. Tobacco is a killer: 443,000 deaths per year. Smoking-related deaths, as I mentioned earlier, are more than the deaths caused by AIDS, alcohol, cocaine, heroin, homicide, suicide, motor vehicle crashes, and fires combined. It is a matter of national sovereignty, a concept that I know the gentlewoman from North Carolina is also a strong supporter of, that countries have the ability, in fact a duty, to regulate public health issues.

Madam Speaker, this bill specifically achieves critical public health goals. This legislation would ensure that tobacco products are not advertised or sold to children. And as I mentioned, 90 percent of adult smokers start before the age of 19.

Addiction to tobacco begins almost universally in childhood and adolescence. Tobacco companies have long taken advantage of this vulnerability by promoting their products through cartoon advertisements, free, tobacco-themed merchandise that appeals to kids, and sponsorships of sports and entertainment events.

By reinstating the FDA's 1996 rule, we will be able to ban all outdoor tobacco advertising within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds. Again, common sense. We will ban free giveaways of any nontobacco items with the purchase of a tobacco product that appeals to children; we restrict vending machines and self-service displays to adult-only facilities; and require retailers to verify age for all over-the-counter sales and provide for Federal enforcement and penalties for retailers who sell to minors.

Barring the sale of certain flavored tobacco products, such as fruits and chocolate, will protect the health of children who are lured to smoking by these candy-like flavors with little, if any, impact on adult enjoyment of tobacco.

The opponents of this legislation often cite the American value of individual or personal responsibility. Certainly informed adults are responsible for making their own choices and dealing with the consequences, including the choice of whether to smoke. Where we differ is our treatment of the fact that 90 percent of the Americans who smoke began as teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17. Opponents ask kids to make grave, health-related choices with incomplete information and hold those kids responsible for childhood mistakes with their lives. When 80 percent of kids smoke the most heavily advertised brands, it's easy to infer the influence of advertising on children.

Big Tobacco claims they don't market to kids. Nevertheless, they do a remarkably and suspiciously good job of getting kids to use their products. This has to change.

This legislation will also require that tobacco products marketed as safer and claims to be safer are in fact demonstrated to be safer by scientific proof. No more will consumers be duped into believing there is such a thing as healthy cigarettes, light or low tar. By imposing scientifically backed, new labeling requirements for such products, this bill will ensure that tobacco consumers not only receive accurate information about what is in such products, but also are protected from poisonous substances that are injurious to health.

Madam Speaker, I would like to inquire as to how much time remains.

Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

I would like to thank the gentleman from Virginia for bringing up another important issue that is no longer included in this bill, and hopefully he and other of our colleagues can work to ensure that we have a competitive workforce for our Federal Government.

Madam Speaker, tobacco is the deadliest product on the market today. It kills over 400,000 Americans every year. Despite that grim statistic, tobacco companies have enjoyed a great deal of influence over public policy--indeed, a privileged state--avoiding the appropriate oversight of their dangerous business. By giving the Food and Drug Administration the authority to exercise their proper oversight duties, we strip Big Tobacco of their special privileges and power.

We owe consumers the same levels of protection with regard to tobacco use as we do with food and drink consumption, prescription and over- the-counter drugs, and even makeup and cosmetics. Why should tobacco, such an obviously harmful product, not be subject to the same scrutiny as a head of lettuce or mascara or a drink?

The FDA is more than capable of handling this new responsibility. We entrust the most sensitive regulation and oversight efforts already to the FDA: the regulation of what we put in our own bodies. We must give this agency the opportunity to succeed, providing the necessary resources to get the job done; and this bill does that.

By providing the Health and Human Services Secretary with the authority to regulate tobacco product standards and product testing based on scientific evidence, this legislation will promote and protect the Nation's public health. And as my friend and colleague and Representative from California, Ms. Harman, said, this is an important nexus in the health care debate in reducing costs and helping ensure that Americans are healthier.

For far too long we have not followed doctors' orders with regard to tobacco use. Science tells us a great deal about the causes of disease and the risks of certain behaviors. This legislation puts those scientific findings at the forefront of policymaking for the Department of Health and Human Services.

Yes.

Thank you for clarifying.

This bill also promotes public health by requiring the Health and Human Services Secretary to consider placing tobacco replacement product on a fast-track FDA approval process. If we want Americans to stop smoking, we must

provide them with the help they need to kick the habit. Holding up these smoking cessation aids, in an age of bureaucratic red tape, is no longer an option. I believe that that's a concept that's consistent with the harm-reduction strategy that my colleague from Indiana had discussed earlier.

By creating a special category of small tobacco product manufacturers, the bill will ensure that small businesses have the assistance they need from the FDA to comply with the new regulations. Supported by over 1,000 health and faith-based groups from across the country, including the American Cancer Association, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, and the American Dental Association. This bill also preserves States rights by not preempting State tobacco laws. It's extremely important to respect that many States, including my own home State of Colorado, already recognize the dangers of smoking and the role that regulation can play and have excellent laws on the books that keep cigarettes out of the hands of children and also regulates second- hand smoke.

I'm very proud to say that my home State of Colorado is recognized as a leader in tobacco control, as demonstrated by our leadership in enacting a comprehensive smoke-free law that includes casinos. Additionally, Colorado is working on enacting a youth-access policy statewide. A senator from my district, the State senator, introduced a bill last year that required ID checks for tobacco purchases and prohibited youths from possessing tobacco products.

I would like to highlight, in conclusion, a story of a hero in the cancer awareness movement from my district, a type of heroism that, unfortunately, is all too common.

Susan DeWitt was a typical soccer mom from Superior, Colorado. She made a DVD video about the struggles of her family during her 8-year battle with cancer that ultimately cost her her life. She had earlier worked as a reporter in Boulder County. She had been a light smoker in her teens and continued into her twenties, and she quit in 1992, in her early thirties.

She passed away at the age of 42 from lung cancer. She created ``Through My Children's Eyes'' as a legacy, and her family founded the Susan DeWitt Foundation to continue her work.

How many more Susan DeWitts must there be in this country? This plague has touched almost all American lives. How many of us have lost a friend or relative to lung cancer and to smoking?

This bill is a critical important first step in finally creating a regulatory structure to discourage young people from ever beginning to smoke and regulating the safety of tobacco products.

Madam Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule and the underlying bill.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

The previous question was ordered.

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Herbert Hoover in the last century referred to the Volstead Act as a noble experiment. It was grounded on the sincere desire to rid society of the ills of alcohol. It was designed to improve health, cut crime and relieve taxpayers of a portion of the burden of subsidizing prisons. The problem is we know it as Prohibition. It failed to take into account human nature and the truism that things are apt to go wrong when government tinkers too much with personal choices.

We are about to repeat history. There will be speeches here on the floor, I just heard one, about how this bill is going to help children, how this bill is going to improve public health. Unfortunately, the Kennedy bill that has now just come from the Senate back to the House here is not going to be able to achieve the goals which it desires.

What I will do here this morning, and as I also manage the bill itself, is bring up some of the highlights and concerns. The first highlight and concern is that Members need to do their due diligence and read the legislation that is coming to the floor. Please. There is a herd mentality that is occurring right now whereby there is blind faith that is given to leadership, and people are just voting for things. They have no idea what is truly in the legislation.

So I'm going to highlight some of the great concerns, because we need to be a responsible legislative body. A responsible legislative body is one that doesn't kick or punt the tough questions to the Supreme Court, and that's exactly what we're doing.

I'm going to address the Supreme Court in the First Amendment and Fifth Amendment issues. I'm going to address the same ``quit or die'' strategies of abstinence that are being applied to smoking. I'll also address harm reduction that should have been incorporated, claimed to be incorporated but is not. I'll also mention how this bill further burdens the FDA and its core mission while, at the same time, the majority is talking about how the FDA cannot protect the American people with regard to tainted food and adulterated and counterfeit drugs. I also would like to mention how this bill actually locks the marketplace to prevent innovation and competition. We are truly on the wave of socialism in this country.

So, first let me refer to the First Amendment. The Kennedy bill directs the Secretary of HHS to promulgate an interim final rule that is identical to the FDA's 1996 rule which legal experts from across the political spectrum have stated would violate the First Amendment. While these expert views should carry great weight, even more dispositive of the fact that the United States Supreme Court has also weighed in on various provisions of the rule, finding them already unconstitutional-- they've already ruled--yet we're going to go ahead and put them right back in legislation. Not very responsible.

So before Members get down here and start pounding their chests as though they're doing great things, this is irresponsible for this body.

In Lorillard Tobacco Company v. Reilly, the United States Supreme Court struck down a Massachusetts statute that was similar in many ways to the FDA's proposed rule. The statute banned outdoor ads within 1,000 feet of schools, parks and playgrounds, and also restricted point-of- sale advertising for tobacco products. The Court held that this regulation ran afoul of the tests established in the Central Hudson case, which defines the protection afforded commercial speech under the First Amendment, as it was not sufficiently narrowly tailored and would have disparate impacts from community to community.

The Court then noted that since the Massachusetts statute was based on the FDA's rule, the FDA rule would have similar unconstitutional effects on a nationwide basis. As Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for the Court, ``the uniformly broad sweep of the geographical limitation demonstrates a lack of tailoring.''

Additionally, the proposed rule in the Kennedy bill would require ads to use only black text on white background. Again, the United States Supreme Court found a similar provision unconstitutional in Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel. In that case, dealing with advertisers for legal services, the Court held that the use of colors and illustrations in ads are entitled to the same First Amendment protections given verbal commercial free speech.

Justice Byron White, in his opinion for the Court, wrote that pictures and illustrations and ads cannot be banned ``simply on the strength of the general argument that the visual content of advertising may, under some circumstances, be deceptive or manipulative.''

There are numerous other speech restrictions in this legislation that raise serious First Amendment issues and will create a swarm of lawsuits that will only divert us from trying to develop more effective approaches to tobacco use in the United States.

To put forward speech restrictions that a broad range of experts have stated is almost certain to be struck down would be highly counterproductive, and should not be done by this legislative body. Actually, there probably will be a record time between when this bill is signed into law and when lawsuits begin to be filed in Federal court.

Now, I referred in my opening to these ``quit or die'' strategies. The ``quit or die'' strategy, the reason I call it that is this is an abstinence approach to tobacco, meaning, you either quit or, if you continue to use the product, you die. That's their abstinence approach.

The previous speaker even talked about, well, this bill is going to promote nicotine therapies, and we're going to move people toward these nicotine therapies and they'll get a chance to quit.

Nicotine therapies work for less than 7 percent of the American smokers who use them to quit smoking. Each year, approximately 20 million smokers use nicotine replacement therapies in an attempt to quit smoking.

Now, think about this. You've got over 40 million smokers. Two million try to quit, and there's a 7 percent success rate. This bill locks in the 7 percent success rate and does not allow the marketplace to exercise innovation as a gateway of smokers to smokeless-type products in a harm reduction strategy to lower in a continuum of risk.

Seven percent? So individuals are going to come here to the floor and claim that a 7 percent success rate is wonderful; 7 percent success rate is failure. Failure. Why should we, as a body, embrace failure? We should not.

This legislation, the Kennedy legislation, locks down the marketplace. It locks it down. And it says whoever has what particular market share, that's it. That's where it's going to be.

With regard to introduction of new products, oh, no, no, no, no, no. We're going to create a 2-tier standard. You have to be able to show, with regard to that product, its impact upon the individual and then the population at large. In order to do that, that is a hurdle. It is called a ``bridge too far.'' When you create a 2-tier standard that is a barrier, as an entry barrier of new products to the market, you lock down innovation. You secure competition in a present pattern, and then, with regard to these therapies, we're saying okay, this is cool, this is good. We're doing something great for public health. We're going to lock in a 7 percent success rate. Wow.

Now, Members are also going to come to the floor and say oh, this is really great. We're really going to be helping people quit smoking.

Are you kidding me?

You know what this bill does?

This bill increases the success rate, now, of quitting smoking by two-tenths of 1 percent. Two-tenths of 1 percent. You're proud of that? Two-tenths of 1 percent.

Now, let's talk about what is two-tenths of 1 percent? Well, let's go to our friends, one of our strongest allies in our transatlantic alliance, Great Britain. The Royal College of Physicians, also looking at this issue in their report, and they're looking also to solutions to the smoking epidemic, they write, in their review of other countries, it indicates that the best conventional tobacco control measures reducing smoking prevalence is between .5 and 1 percentage point per year. Whoa. Great Britain went out there and looked at all these other countries around the world and found that other countries that are taking aggressive measures are able to reduce smoking prevalence by .5 to 1 percentage points per year. And none of them have even taken into account what Mr. McIntyre and I presented to the floor for harm reduction strategies.

So, great. The rest of the world is at .5 and 1, and we're going to be at two-tenths of 1 percent, and you're going to claim that's success. We're doing great things to improve public health.

Are you kidding me? We are not. We're continuing failure. Failure. So don't come to the floor and act like someone is the champion here, because we're not. Two-tenths of 1 percent.

I'll yield to help you with math.

It's two-tenths of 1 percent.

Two-tenths of 1 percent, 2 percent. You think that's great.

What?

Sure. It's the Royal College of Physicians.

Absolutely.

The Royal College of Physicians, I'm indicating, with regard to the reduction of prevalence of smoking of .5 and 1 percentage point per year of places around the world. Two percent CRS? Yeah, this is CBO. I don't know where you're getting your facts. This is CBO. Last time I checked, CBO is in the United States, you think? Yeah. CBO is in the United States.

Now, let me also move to harm reduction strategies. Here's why I'm really upset. I'm upset because what we really should be doing, if we really had an interest in improving public health, we should be migrating populations, moving populations. And when you move populations, you also want to inform people with regard to choices and the risk associated with products. We do that every day in the types of automobiles which we buy, whether you're going to wear your seatbelt. I suppose, I don't know, if you want to wear a helmet--did you wear a helmet to work when you drove your car today? I guess that's a choice you could make. People make harm reduction choices every day. In the foods we eat, what we drink, whatever we consume, we make these decisions every day. But how come we don't apply harm reduction strategies to tobacco? We should.

So, in the marketplace right now, there are many types of products. Now, what is unique about what's happening here is that this legislation doesn't even touch that which is most harmful, which are cigars and pipes. Cigars and pipes, you can directly ingest these toxins and carcinogens in a far greater strength into the body, and it is more harmful. But that's not even touched in this legislation.

So let's just talk about what's touched. If you look at the continuum of risk and the choice of available products that are out there today, the most harmful, which would be under this bill, are the non-filtered cigarettes. That's why I put them at the 100 percent.

Next is if you actually put a filter on that cigarette. We're beginning to reduce the harm.

Then you've got tobacco-heated cigarettes. But we don't understand all the science about the tobacco-heated cigarettes.

Then you have an electronic cigarette, whereby it's a nicotine delivery device. Yet we know that when you don't ingest the smoke, that you have a less harmful product.

Then there are the U.S. smokeless products. Now we can reduce the risk by 90 percent and say to an individual that you can obtain your nicotine you want, but guess what? You can reduce the harm by 90 percent. But these are still all harmful products.

Then you can go to a Swedish snus, and now you can reduce almost 98 percent of the risk. The difference here is one is fermented, and the other is pasteurized.

Then you can go to dissolvable tobacco products that have no nitrosamines. And then you can go to almost a 99.5 percent reduction of the risk. So you can actually get your nicotine by either an orb or a strip you lay on your tongue, or you can have a stick that kind of looks like a toothpick and you can roll it and you can obtain your nicotine, and you can remove 99 percent of the health risk. Ninety-nine percent.

But this legislation is going to say no to these types of innovations. No; that somehow we're going to lock into that which is the most harmful, instead of permitting a migration.

Now, what we want is, as individuals migrate, and you've got then the therapeutics and medicinal types of nicotine, what you really want is them to quit. And when you migrate them, you migrate them to eventually quit smoking.

What we have in the bill is abstinence. It mentions harm reduction, but because there is a two-tiered approach to the approval process for the introduction of new tobacco products, it is truly an entry barrier, so we've locked down the marketplace. When you lock down the marketplace, you do not improve public health in this country, and that is the greatest concern that I have here today.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to bring up two points.

During my presentation, the gentleman brought up the 11 percent issue. After I gave my remarks, I immediately went to the Congressional Budget Office. It was a very clever attempt, Mr. Speaker, of the Rules Committee to try to confuse the American people, so I'll read directly from the CBO report so the record is clear.

``Based on information from academic and other researchers, CBO estimates that H.R. 1256,'' which is the Waxman bill, which is not being heard here--it is the Kennedy bill which is being referred to here--``would result in a further reduction in the number of underage tobacco users of 11 percent by 2019.''

Here is the other part, the rest of the story, that the Rules Committee did not share with the country.

``CBO also estimates that implementing H.R. 1256 would lead to a further decline in smoking by adults by about 2 percent after 10 years.'' Wow. Wow.

Now let me refer to the other. Too often, we should be careful about being cute here on the House floor. ``Cute'' means the reference with regard to lettuce, so I'll follow your logic. If you were to take that lettuce, dry it, roll it, and go ahead and smoke your lettuce, do you realize that you would end up with similar problems than if you were smoking tobacco? It's not the nicotine that kills. It's the smoke that kills. It's the inhalation of the smoke. That's what causes and is responsible for the pandemic of cancers, of heart disease, of respiratory disease, and of other factors. It's the smoke. So, as for the migration of people from smoke into smokeless and into other forms of therapies, if they want to obtain their nicotine, it's okay. Mr. Waxman, himself, would say, I do not want to outlaw tobacco.

Mr. Speaker, I would just say to my good friend from California that I am not an advocate of smoking at all. What I'm trying to do here on the floor is to help improve the public health of our Nation, and this is a bill that actually locks down the marketplace.

To the speaker, as to my reference to Ms. Harman, I want you to know that that is my sincere effort here. How do we improve public health?

Other nations around the world are all struggling, like we are, for good, sound public policy in how we regulate a legal product by adult users. There are restrictions with regard to access to children. Then, with regard to adult users, countries around the world are beginning to look at harm reduction and at applying those strategies to tobacco.

We had an opportunity to do that. It failed here on the floor, and I recognize that. It's probably something that's new. I welcome the opportunity to join with the gentlewoman from California, as we've worked really well together our entire time we've been here, and I would love to work with you on harm reduction strategies. I'll just read this from the American Association of Public Health Physicians. Since, Mr. Speaker, the Rules Committee doesn't want me to cite the Royal College of Physicians, I'll cite an American institution.

The American Association of Public Health Physicians found, In practical terms, the enhancement of current policies based on the premise that all tobacco products are equally risky will yield only small and barely measurable reductions in tobacco-related illness and death. The addition of a harm reduction component, however--and that's why I want to work with Ms. Harman--could yield a 50 to 80 percent reduction in tobacco-related illness and death over the first 10 years and a likely reduction of up to 90 percent within 20 years.

That's why I'm so passionate about a harm reduction strategy. I embrace your personal story, and that's why I am so sincere about a harm reduction.

I would yield to the gentlewoman.

Reclaiming my time, I will embrace that, and probably what we need to do if the President signs this bill into law, I offer to work with the gentlelady and we'll introduce a bill to incorporate harm reduction. I agreed earlier when I had spoken with Chairman Waxman, he recognizes that a pragmatic approach is truly incorporation of harm reduction with abstinence. And when we're talking about teenage sex or the use of tobacco, if we really, truly want a hand, four fingers and a thumb don't make a hand without a palm. So you have to use pragmatism along with new science.

And I will welcome the opportunity to work with the gentlelady.

Will the gentleman yield?

I want to make sure the record is clear.

Earlier in your remarks you referred to the issue on spiking. Spiking was an allegation that was made in a newspaper article; the investigation had taken place. Former FDA Commissioner Kessler found that spiking allegations of nicotine were found to be false.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 532, I call up from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 1256) to protect the public health by providing the Food and Drug Administration with certain authority to regulate tobacco products, to amend title 5, United States Code, to make certain modifications in the Thrift Savings Plan, the Civil Service Retirement System, and the Federal Employees' Retirement System, and for other purposes, with a Senate amendment thereto, and I have a motion at the desk.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

It is hard to believe that we have finally reached this day. After more than a decade of effort and with countless delays and defeats along the way, at last we are about to enact truly historic legislation to protect the public health and to end the tobacco epidemic.

I am proud that we have made it to this point, but it has taken us far too long. It has been more than 45 years since the landmark Surgeon General report that found that cigarette smoking was responsible for a 70 percent increase in the mortality rate of smokers over nonsmokers and a 10 to 20 times greater risk of developing lung cancer. Forty-five years. That delay is a tragic testament to the power and influence of Big Tobacco in our country and on Congress. But that power is fading. Times have changed. Public opinion has changed. And the tobacco industry's ability to block essential public health legislation has come to an end.

Today is a day when strong and effective regulation finally is established as the crucial counterweight to the efforts and even deceptive practices of this industry. This is the day when Americans can begin to truly kick the habit with the full force of our laws marshaled to protect consumers, and especially our young people.

Many of us remember vividly the milestones that have led us to this moment. In 1994, tobacco executives stood up before my subcommittee and swore under oath that nicotine was not addictive. In 1996, the FDA tried to regulate tobacco products, but the Supreme Court told them they needed Congress to give them that specific legal authority. And now, 13 years later, here we are finally giving FDA that authority to regulate the leading preventable cause of death in America.

Regulating tobacco is the single most important thing that we can do right now to curb this deadly toll. And FDA is the only agency with the right combination of scientific expertise, regulatory experience, and public health mission to oversee these products effectively.

I am pleased that the Senate acted quickly and sent us back legislation nearly identical to what we passed 2 months ago with overwhelming support in this House. This legislation will direct FDA to end marketing and sales of tobacco to kids, to stop manufacturers from calling cigarettes ``light'' or ``less dangerous'' when they're not, and to require changes to what is in a cigarette, like toxic ingredients such as formaldehyde, benzene, radioactive elements, and other deadly chemicals.

Some have objected that this bill is too big a challenge for an already overburdened FDA. I disagree. It's clear to me that FDA's recent struggles are primarily a result of years of chronic underfunding and a failure of leadership in the last administration.

This history does not mean that FDA, with the strong and committed leadership it now has, cannot take on this critical role of protecting the country against the harm from cigarettes and other tobacco products. It simply means that when we give the agency this new responsibility, we must also give it the resources necessary to do the job and to do it well.

We have ensured that this will happen. The tobacco program will be fully funded through new user fees paid for by the industry. That money will go exclusively to the new tobacco center and will be enough for FDA to handle this task well. Furthermore, by setting up this system, we have ensured that the new tobacco program will have no impact on other vital programs at FDA. In fact, the agency's new commissioner, Dr. Margaret Hamburg, has expressed her enthusiastic support for the bill as a ``major advance in protecting the public health.''

In a recent letter to Senator Kennedy about this legislation, Commissioner Hamburg made clear that FDA is eager to begin carrying out its new responsibilities under this law. President Obama has also praised this legislation as both historic and common sense, describing it as an integral part of his plan to protect America's children and reform our health care system. It's clear that this administration and FDA itself are more than ready to take this on, and we just need to give them the law that will allow them to begin.

In the bill, we have provided everything necessary to take this historic step: a comprehensive and flexible set of new authorities and full, certain funding. The final ingredient is the political will to do the right thing. For the first time in many years, we have finally got that, too.

The breadth of support for this bill is remarkable; it includes over 1,000 medical, public health, faith and community groups from AARP to the American Academy of Pediatrics, from the Southern Baptist Convention to the Islamic Society of North America. It is supported by the American Lung Association, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, the groups that are best situated to understand the damage caused by tobacco and to recognize that a renewed FDA can and must take on this new authority.

The diversity of support for this bill shows just how critical it is to all Americans. Tobacco does not discriminate when it robs people of their health, their productivity, and their lives. That is why we must come together to rob tobacco of its influence over Americans.

Finally, I want to note that this bill reflects a number of changes made throughout the process to respond to specific concerns that we've heard. In committee consideration of this bill over the past 2 years, we made changes to ensure fairness and flexibility for convenience stores, tobacco growers, and small manufacturers. We worked with Republican colleagues to incorporate their suggestions. We worked with members of the Congressional Black Caucus to ensure that menthol cigarettes will be an early focus of attention by the agency, and that the agency has the authority to deal with these and other products.

I know that the Senate also has made changes to further strengthen the bill in response to input from both sides of the aisle. I want to thank my colleague, Representative Todd Platts, for his strong leadership on this legislation, as well as Representatives John Dingell and Frank Pallone for their diligent work in moving this bill forward over the years.

I also want to thank Representatives Ed Towns, Stephen Lynch and Ike Skelton, all of whom were critical in getting us to this point. Each of these individuals made this possible and produced a great victory for public health.

Today is a tremendous day. I am proud to be part of this historic moment when Congress finally stands up to Big Tobacco and stands up for the health of all Americans. That is the task before us as we send this bill on to the President of the United States.

Madam Speaker, I wish to reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I want to inform my colleagues that there is a section in this bill that gives the FDA authority to develop harm- reduction strategies, and I think that's where it ought to be, in the hands of people who will follow the science in order to protect the public health.

Madam Speaker, I yield, at this time, 2 minutes to the chairman of our Health Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, who has been a staunch supporter of this legislation and has looked after all the health matters that come before the Congress, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my esteemed colleague from the State of Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar).

Madam Speaker, I am pleased at this time to yield to one of the people without whom this bill would not even be possible, and that is the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who has been such a strong leader for advancing the public health.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased at this time to yield 3 minutes to the very distinguished chairman emeritus of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), who has played an essential role in fighting against tobacco and getting us to this day today.

(Mr. DINGELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield an additional 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), a member of the Health Subcommittee.

May I inquire how much time each side has.

We have no other requests for speakers and I would like to close the debate. We continue to reserve our time.

So, Madam Speaker, it's come down to this, a musing that perhaps FDA is not the right agency; we ought to create a brand new one, but don't give them any power to do anything.

Or what we need is harm reduction, even though this legislation gives the FDA the ability to look for ways to reduce the harm from cigarette smoking.

But the best way, the best way is not to smoke. And the best way is to make sure that people don't start smoking. And if they do smoke, to give it up.

And then the next argument, it's not constitutional. And my colleague has cited the fact that he believes the Supreme Court, when they ruled on the issue of the regulations being proposed by the FDA, that they said that those were unconstitutional.

Well, the truth of the matter is the Supreme Court said FDA did not have the legal authority and that Congress had to vote to give them the legal authority to adopt those regulations. That is what we are about to do today.

I've been working on the issue of tobacco for over three decades, and in fact, I thought about this issue as I prepared a book that's going to be coming out on a lot of different issues in the next couple of weeks.

And I remember the hearings we had where the tobacco industry had so- called scientists argue there really wasn't any harm from cigarette smoking. It was just coincidental.

I remember well when the CEOs came before our committee, and that was a real turning point. And they took an oath to tell the truth, and they said, no harm from cigarette smoking; it's not connected to cancer; it's not connected to heart disease; it's not connected to all these other problems; it's only a coincidence. They said cigarette smoking was not addictive because nicotine is not addictive. They swore that under oath. They said they didn't manipulate the nicotine to make it even stronger and more addictive a product. And they said, with righteous indignation, they certainly wouldn't target kids to smoke.

Well, after that appearance in 1994, we pierced the veil that hung over the industry and started to find out what they were saying in their own corporate boardrooms and what their own scientists understood the case to be.

We later had a hearing where a scientist that worked for the tobacco industry told us he understood the harm. The industry wanted to know what harm it did, and they knew that, in fact, it caused a tremendous amount of death and disease in this country. They were looking at ways to patent new ways to raise the nicotine levels so they can keep people smoking, because they were very well aware of the fact that nicotine was addictive and they could, in fact, make sure that nicotine grabbed on to those smokers and kept them captive to that habit.

And the Joe Camel advertising campaign was marketed in France to see if it really got kids to be loyal to that brand. And in their boardroom they discussed how important it was to get kids to start smoking at 14 or 15 years of age because then they would be loyal to that brand, let alone addicted to the product.

We later found out how the tobacco industry spent millions and millions of dollars on a phony operation to say that they were studying whether the harm was there from cigarette smoking, and what they did was manipulated the media, deceived the American people, to argue the science wasn't really there to claim cigarettes was a problem. The science is still out.

By the way, we hear this about global warming today. Even though the overwhelming consensus was there from reputable scientists, they tried to make people believe, don't worry about it, you can continue to smoke; it's not going to do you harm.

And they tried so hard and successfully, for decades, to keep secret the fact that nonsmokers were harmed by simply being in the presence of smokers.

I remember the power of the tobacco industry that kept the Congress from acting, and it was by one vote that the House of Representatives decided to try and experiment to see if we could have airplane flights, commercial airplane flights of an hour or less, without any smoking permitted. And Members stood up on the floor of the House and said smokers would never tolerate such a thing.

Well, it was so widely popular that it's hard to find any airline in the world that allows smoking on airplane flights of whatever length it may be.

The public has come to understand this industry, and they know the dishonesty of this industry, and they know that the clout of this industry kept the government from acting for decades.

But people now don't realize how it was 30 years ago. Thirty years ago people who smoked felt they had the right to light up a cigarette, no matter where they were.

We've heard the argument that the Court may look at the constitutionality of any free speech matter that might relate to advisories about cigarette smoking.

Well, it's hard for me to believe that a Supreme Court that once said the Constitution does not mean that the freedom of speech allows people to yell ``fire'' in a crowded room would now come to the point where they'd say it would be unconstitutional to prohibit an industry from trying to get children to smoke a product that's illegal for them to buy in any State of the Union.

I think we are, today, at the last gasp of the tobacco industry's efforts to protect their profits at the expense of the health and lives of the American people and to get children to take up this habit. We're moving away from it fast in this country. The FDA will help us succeed in ending this tobacco epidemic.

My heart goes out to people around the world as American tobacco companies are telling people in other countries, be like Americans. If you're a woman, you can smoke--don't let your culture keep you from taking up this habit. As they tell children around the world, start smoking. You can be more like Americans who you so admire. You can be cool, and all the stuff that was blabbered out in the decades in the United States to get so many millions of people to smoke.

Madam Speaker, this bill, authored by Senator Kennedy in the Senate and by myself in the House, has come a long way. It took us a long time to get here. But we're here now, and I urge my colleagues to vote for passage of this legislation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank my good friend and colleague, the chairman of the committee, Mr. Waxman; and I commend him for his leadership on this matter. I am also delighted that we have this bill on the floor today. I urge my colleagues to support the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. I would point out that we will be shortly following it up with legislation to protect Americans from dangerous foods and to give the Food and Drug Administration the authority and the money which it needs. That will be followed by additional legislation to address the question of pharmaceuticals.

I urge my colleagues to recognize that this not only does what needs doing, but it also gives to the Food and Drug Administration the authority and the money which it needs and the personnel which it needs to carry forward its mission as it goes about its business. I would point out, for too long we have starved them for authority, resources and personnel. It is time something be done about this. I am not going to give you an argument about this situation--that will be in my written extended remarks--but I want to tell my colleagues that the graveyards are full of people who occupy those places because they smoked and because we tried volunteerism.

Well, volunteerism filled the graveyards, and the constant attacks that have been made on the Food and Drug Administration and the deprival of proper authority to carry forward its responsibilities and the personnel it needs have brought us to the situation where we have to do the kind of thing that we are saying.

So don't talk to me about volunteerism. Understand that it has failed calamitously and people are dying every day because they have smoked.

Having said that, I want to tell you a little story about when we passed the first legislation to begin to warn people about the dangers of tobacco that were found by the Surgeon General in his report to the United States and to the Congress.

A little guy came before the committee, and he testified before my dear friend John Moss and I, who were the major proponents of that particular legislation at that time. He said, Now, you don't know me, but I am a pathologist and an internal medicine man. That means that I can tell you why you are going to die, or I can tell you why you did die.

He said, I don't have a prepared statement here today, but I do have a number of exhibits I would like to present to the committee.

So he reached in his briefcase and he pulled out a human lung. He said, Now, this is a normal person's human lung. It had a certain life to it.

The next exhibit he pulled out was one of a fellow who had died of squamous cancer. He said, These are squamous cells. It looked like a bowl of caviar, a painful way to go.

He then showed us the lung of somebody who had died of emphysema. It was white. It lacked life. He said, This man literally strangled because he did not have the ability to derive the oxygen from the air.

I thank the gentleman.

He pulled out another lung. He said, Now, this is the lung of a smoker. It was black, dirty and nasty, and you would not want to have it inside of you.

He said, Now, my message to the committee is very simple. If you smoke long enough, you are going to die of cancer of the lung or you are going to die of some other kind of ailment which is induced by your smoking, whether it is of the lung or whether it is of some other organ, including the mouth, the throat, or another part of the body as far away as the fingertips.

I just want my colleagues to understand, finally we are doing something. If a person wants to be silly enough to smoke, he can still do so; but he is going to get a warning, and the tobacco companies are going to have to provide proper, decent, honorable behavior, and they are going to have to do the things that warn the American people of this.

We have a responsible agency which this legislation will properly fund and finance. We will give them the authority and the personnel and the capabilities of doing what they need to do. We are going to follow it with other legislation.

I urge my colleagues to support this and support the other legislation when it comes.

I rise today in strong support of the Senate Amendment to H.R. 1256, ``Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act''.

The decision to vote in favor of today's bill is a very easy one. It was an easy one, because I am convinced that the ``Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act'' will go a long way in regulating the most unregulated consumer product on the market today. A product which:

Is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States;

Kills more than 400,000 Americans annually; and

Accounts for more than $96 billion in health care costs every year.

Every day, approximately 3,500 kids will try a cigarette for the first time, and another 1,000 we become new, regular habituate smokers.

The legislation will restrict marketing and sales to youth; grant FDA authority to restrict tobacco marketing; require detailed disclosure of ingredients; and allow FDA to require changes to tobacco products to protect the public health.

I commend Chairman Waxman and my dear friend, Senator Kennedy, for their persistent leadership on this legislation in the Congress. I am honored to have my name associated with the legislation and for the opportunity I had to work with them on this issue.

Madam Speaker, I know firsthand that the ``Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act'' is good piece of legislation. I had the distinct pleasure of shepherding it through the Energy and Commerce Committee last year. Today's legislation largely reflects the work we did then.

Madam Speaker, this legislation has been in the works for a long time. Nothing stands in our way to send it to the President's desk. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the ``Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act''--the American people need it and they deserve it.