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Excerpts from ANTI-SMOKERS WILL PUSH BILL GIVING FDA POWERS TO REGULATE TOBACCO

By New York Times News Service in The Chicago Tribune [03/24/00]

Against long odds, anti-smoking advocates expect to push next week for legislation to overturn Tuesday's Supreme Court decision that bars regulation of the tobacco industry by the Food and Drug Administration.

Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who is also a heart surgeon, said Thursday that he was "likely" to introduce legislation next week drawn from the 1998 bill that died in a Senate filibuster.

Frist had drafted the part of that year's tobacco bill giving the FDA the regulatory authority the Supreme Court ruled the agency had improperly assumed for itself.

White House aide Bruce Reed said President Clinton would get involved in the issue after his return from Asia and Switzerland.

Reed said that even though the FDA provisions of the 1998 bill had bipartisan support, it would be hard to get them through the current Congress, which he said had a "lousy record" on tobacco.

Spokesmen for the Republican majority leaders in both houses of Congress reiterated Thursday their opposition to any FDA tobacco legislation.

An aide to GOP Rep. Dick Armey of Texas said Armey believed "the FDA already has too much power."

Except for two Democrats from tobacco-growing states, the only senators who voted to kill the bill were Republicans, who for years have received the bulk of contributions from the tobacco industry.

An analysis released Thursday by the Center for Responsive Politics showed that pattern was continuing.