Hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee

Federal News Service

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE SENATE COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE

SUBJECT: STATE SPENDING OF TOBACCO SETTLEMENT REVENUES

CHAIRED BY: SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ)

WITNESSES:

MIKE MOORE, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF MISSISSIPPI;

MATTHEW MYERS, PRESIDENT, CAMPAIGN FOR TOBACCO FREE KIDS;

RAYMOND C. SCHEPPACH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL GOVERNORS ASSOCIATION;

DEBORAH HUDSON, DELAWARE STATE LEGISLATURE;

DR. CHERYL HEALTON, PRESIDENT AND CEO, AMERICAN LEGACY FOUNDATION

SEN. RICHARD DURBIN (D-IL): Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me here. I'm not a member of this committee. I came to testify and you were kind enough to let me take a seat and Bill Nelson was kind enough to let me precede him in questioning and I'd like to make my statement a part of the record with your permission.

SEN. McCAIN: Without objection, and you're welcome here, Senator.

SEN. DURBIN: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, let me start by saying thank you. We don't talk about tobacco any more around this place. There hasn't been a good conversation about tobacco on Capitol Hill in a long, long time. Thank goodness you're an exception, and were willing to step out and continue to lead on this issue. It really is a matter of life and death, and the fact that you're showing this political leadership is not lost on this Senator and a lot of your colleagues and people who are following these hearings.

Tobacco has been an important part of my life personally and politically. When I was a sophomore in high school my father died of lung cancer. He was 53-years-old. I didn't stand by his bedside as he gave his last breath and say, I'll get even with those bastards. But when I was elected to Congress and started facing these tobacco issues, whether it was wasted money on a so-called safe cigarette research, or some of the things we're doing to promote tobacco in other places, it wasn't lost on me that there were a lot of people around America who shared the same life experience that I did and my family did.

And that's why I joined Senator Lautenberg. We were successful many, many years ago now, Frank, in banning smoking on airplanes, and why I stood and watched with real admiration, Senator McCain, as you led the way in trying to show some federal leadership on this issue. Today we are discussing the obvious. We are not putting money in tobacco prevention, and more children are becoming addicted, and those addicted children, will ultimately one of the three of them, die from this addiction. That's the simple fact of the matter.

We've talked about the lack of money that's there, but in my mind it is not so much a depletion of revenue, but a depletion of resolve. A depletion of resolve at the state and federal level. Attorney General Moore, thanks for your leadership, you have been a national leader on this issue, and Matt Myers, you and I have been colleagues on this for a long, long time. I would just say your Prince William Sound/Exxon Valdez analogy, I'd take it a step further for Mr. Scheppach and the governors.

How many of these governors are willing to walk away from earmarked funds, from gasoline taxes and highway trust funds, and say, no, we're going to spend those on Medicaid. You know what would happen in my state capital, and most others? The contractors and the labor unions and the mayors would all be there screaming bloody murder. Wait a minute, that money was for highways, that money's not for Medicaid. And yet, when it comes to the tobacco money to save the lives of people in those states and to prevent death and disease among children, there isn't this same level of anger.

And at the federal level I was afraid, when Senator Hutchison offered her amendment, that we'd be sitting here five years later saying, they didn't keep their word, the states didn't spend the money as they were promising they would. And we let them off the hook, we let them off the hook here on Capitol Hill. And that is sad and unfortunate. Dr. Healton, I want to tell you something, I really admire what Legacy's done and I watch those Truth ads and think, right on. If we could get those ads on the air and the right programming across America, it'll have as great an impact as raising the cost of the product as it does on children.

I read your testimony and hear that you may be going away. Is that a fact?

MS. HEALTON: Well, our revenue source has declined by 90 percent because of a provision in the Master Settlement Agreement that required that the participating manufacturers collectively represent 99.05 percent of the market for us to receive a payment. If they represent 99.04 we do not receive a payment.

Which is in essence is a sunset clause though Mike Moore may want to comment a little more on it.

So our existence is threatened. But because the board wisely set aside some of the payments to us, we will operate at a level, but it will be so substantially below the current level that we will be unable to provide a national ad campaign. And I would just comment, Senator Durbin, that I want to thank you for coming to the events that we had here on the Hill for staffers about the Truth campaign. And just also point out that presently spending about $75 million in the advertising marketplace for the Truth campaign and bringing it to the highest risk kids, it has been enormously successful and is probably responsible for half of the decline that has been observed in youth smoking.

If the rates stayed where they were in 1997, when you folks were talking about this issue here on the Hill, two million more young people would be regular smokers than are today, so I think we should all collectively be proud of the successes we have had, while we remain vigilant about what still needs to be done, and I thank you for your interest in the program and your support for at times, a controversial campaign that's intended to grab the hearts and minds of our most at risk adolescents.

SEN. DURBIN: Mr. Chairman, the voice of Truth, the voice of the Legacy campaign is a small voice against the roar of tobacco advertising, but it's so good that we can't let it go away. I don't know what I can do. I hope that you'll join me, Frank Lautenberg and Bill Nelson and any other senator. We can't let this go away. If this is all that we make a commitment to do, we can't force governors to spend this money at this point, but we can't let this go away, and I hope we can find a way to find the revenue to keep you on the air. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.