Regulation of cigarettes, tax boost likely

By Duff Wilson - New York Times News Service

The new Congress plans to move aggressively against the tobacco industry in coming months by regulating cigarettes, raising per-pack sales taxes and ratifying an international anti-tobacco treaty, according to analysts and aides for key lawmakers.

The measures are ones that the Bush administration opposed, vetoed or declined to act upon.

The steps include legislation giving the Food and Drug Administration broad authority over cigarettes for the first time.

"We hope for early action on the bill in the new Congress," Melissa Wagoner, a spokeswoman for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, said of the landmark legislation, which Kennedy has promoted for years.

Robert Gibbs, Obama's spokesman and incoming press secretary, said by e-mail Sunday that Obama supported the measures when he was in Congress but had not made any decisions about actions on them from the White House.

Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a Washington group that has taken a lead in promoting the legislation, said Monday, "I think that 2009 has the potential to be the most historic year in making progress on tobacco at the federal level since the first surgeon general's report in 1964."

In the House, Rep. Henry Waxman of California, a Democrat and chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, plans to move quickly with the FDA legislation, said his spokeswoman, Karen Lightfoot. A majority of House and Senate members are co-sponsors, and Waxman's former chief of staff, Philip M. Schiliro, has been named Obama's White House liaison to Congress.

Democratic leaders in both houses of Congress, whose new members will be sworn in on Tuesday, have also said they hope to pass legislation to raise federal cigarette taxes by 61 cents, to $1 a pack. That may even be among the economic measures awaiting Obama's signature as soon as he takes office Jan. 20, according to congressional aides and anti-smoking lobbyists.

President Bush vetoed the cigarette tax increase in 2007.

The projected $35 billion in new tax revenue over five years would help finance the State Children's Health Insurance Program. As a senator, Obama co-sponsored the measure, and his campaign lists it among planned actions for revamping health care.

"That should go quickly," said Edward L. Sweda, senior lawyer with the Tobacco Products Liability Project at the Northeastern University School of Law in Boston. "It's easy to do first on a fast track and provides the additional benefit of health benefits for millions of children."

The legislation empowering the FDA to regulate tobacco had passed by wide measures in the Senate in 2004 and in the House last July, but faced White House opposition.