Tobacco

Floor Speech

TOBACCO -- (Senate - July 13, 2007)

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, there is hardly a family in America that hasn't had an experience with tobacco and cancer. My family is no exception. When I was 14 years old, my 53-year-old father died of lung cancer. He smoked two packs of Camels a day. He was hopelessly addicted to tobacco, and we lost him at what I now view as a very early age. I can recall, as a student in high school, being in his hospital room when he drew his last, labored breath and
November 13, 1959. I didn't walk out of that hospital room vowing I would get even with tobacco companies, but I never escaped the memory of that family experience. Many other families have a similar story to tell.

The day came many years later when I had an opportunity, as a new Member of the House of Representatives, to do something. There is another story leading up to that experience. It involves the customary race of Members of Congress for airplanes. We spend most of our life racing through airports. In this particular instance I was in Phoenix, AZ trying to fly to Chicago, long before there were transportation security agencies and people taking off their shoes and X-ray machines. I got to the airport 20 minutes before the plane was about to take off. I raced to the United Airlines counter. A young woman was there and I gave her my ticket.

She said: I will get your boarding pass, but you will to have run to the gate. She gave me a boarding pass. This was 20 years ago. She handed to it me. I looked, and it was a middle seat in the smoking section of the airplane. I knew this was a long flight. I said: I know I have to get down to the gate, but can't you give me a different seat in the nonsmoking section? She said: No, it is the last seat. There is nothing I can do about it. Then she looked down at my ticket and my title and she said: But, Congressman, there is something you can do about it.

I got on the airplane. I sat between two what I now characterize as chain-smoking sumo wrestlers and spent several hours in misery breathing in their secondhand smoke. I looked around the airplane and thought to myself, what about that elderly lady who is up there in the smoking section two rows away; what about that woman with the little baby? This can't be healthy.

I came back to Washington and said to my staff: I want to introduce a bill banning smoking on airplanes. There was silence in the room. Then they said: You are crazy. Nobody beats the tobacco lobby. The entire leadership of the House of Representatives, Democrats and Republicans, doesn't want any tobacco amendments for a lot of political reasons.

Naive and undaunted, I went forward with my quest to ban smoking on airplanes. I had a lot of help along the way. Congressman Bill Young of Florida, who still serves, had been one of the early pioneers in dealing with tobacco and smoking. He courageously stepped forward and said: I will make it a bipartisan amendment, but we don't have a chance. We were both on the Appropriations Committee. I managed to at least create an opportunity for a vote on the floor of the House.

I reached the floor of the House because of another great Congressman, now deceased, Claude Pepper. Claude Pepper served in this Chamber as a Senator. He was defeated and went over and served in the House of Representatives. Claude Pepper was chairman of the Rules Committee. He came to my rescue when I was about to lose in the Rules Committee. I never appreciated why he did that, why he gave me a chance to get a vote on this issue, until later when somebody told me that as a Senator in the 1930s, Claude Pepper of Florida had pushed for the creation of the National Cancer Institute. He didn't talk much about tobacco, being a southerner, but it meant a lot to him personally. He more than anyone gave me my chance to bring this amendment to the floor.

So on July 13, 1987, 20 years ago today, I got my chance to offer the amendment to ban smoking on flights of 2 hours or less. In the galleries of the House were seated uniformed flight attendants from major airlines. They were on my side. They were sick and tired of breathing in all the smoke on the airplanes. We came to the floor expecting to lose. I didn't realize at the time that the House of Representatives, and you can add the Senate into the equation, was the largest frequent flier club in America. We spend more time on airplanes than most people. As the amendment was debated, Congressmen started coming forward to speak on behalf of the amendment--some of the most liberal, some of the most conservatives, Republicans, Democrats from all over the country. I could feel the momentum building. The debate went on for a long time, and the vote was finally taken. The vote was 198 to 193. My amendment passed.

After it passed, I called over to the Senate and contacted the man who was chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Transportation, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. I said to Frank Lautenberg: Would you consider offering this same amendment in the Senate? He said he would, and he did, successfully.

That amendment changed America. I didn't know it at the time and I don't want to take more credit than is due, but at the end of the debate to ban smoking on airplanes, people started asking obvious questions. If secondhand smoke is dangerous on an airplane, why isn't it dangerous in a train, on a bus, in a hospital, in a school, at a Head Start center, in an office building?

We know what has happened 20 years later. It has now become customary for people not to smoke and unusual to see anyone smoking in an enclosed space that is not their own home. That is a dramatic change. I think it is a change for the better. As a result of that law, which was a challenge to me, America is a healthier place. Our attitude toward tobacco and smoking is much different today than it was.

Last year in my home State of Illinois, a record-breaking 36 cities and counties enacted smokefree laws, more than any other State in the Nation. I am very proud of that. This was a milestone for another reason. We learned the mighty tobacco lobby is not invincible. We proved it on the floor of the House and the Senate 20 years ago. We are proving it now in city councils and State legislatures across America. This was one of the first times the tobacco industry had ever lost an important rollcall vote on the floor of the House. It showed that Congress could stand up against special interest groups, the wealthy and the powerful, those financing campaigns, and instead vote for the health of all Americans. Twenty years later, smoking is banned on almost all commercial flights worldwide.

I had a funny experience a few years after we passed our law. My wife and I were flying to Portugal through London. We changed planes in London to Air Portugal. The British travelers got on the plane and I was shocked to find they had a smoking section on the airplane. I couldn't believe it. It turned out it was a sign that was put on a seat that said ``smoking allowed behind this sign.'' A group of British tourists got on and saw this sign and couldn't believe it and said to the flight attendant: What is this all about? She answered: If you want to be in a nonsmoking section, you sit on this side of the sign; smoking section is on the other side of the sign. One of the ladies said: This will never do. She grabbed the sign and went to the last seat in the plane and put it on that seat.

My wife turned to me and said: Look what you got started.

I don't want to take credit for getting that started, but I am kind of proud of being part of it. I congratulate a number of pioneers in this area. Air Canada was way ahead of us on this issue. Northwest Airlines was one of the first in the Nation to move toward smokefree flights--they deserve special recognition--even before a Federal law was passed.

We need to remind ourselves from time to time about tobacco and cancer and heart disease. We have been lulled into the feeling that this problem is under control. Tobacco-related disease is the No. 1 preventable cause of death in America today. It still is an issue. There are still too many children who take up smoking, I mean literally children. Tobacco companies know that the way to ensnare someone into tobacco addiction is to get them started as kids. Kids, rebellious and curious, turn to tobacco, developing an addiction they don't even understand, finding it hard to quit. They become early, lifelong smokers, and chances are one in three will die because of that habit.

This is still an issue. It is an issue we are going to face soon here in the Senate, because the Finance Committee is considering increasing the tobacco tax on America. I am sure there will be screams that that is unfair to smokers. But I have reached the point now where I have to tell them that there is a great expense associated with their addiction. We also know that increased cost of product reduces the likelihood that kids will use tobacco products. So there is a positive that will come out of it.

We know when it comes to cancer, heart disease, diseases that affect virtually every organ in the human body and, most importantly, impact the life of virtually every family, tobacco is a negative factor.

In 2006, the Surgeon General's report entitled ``Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke,'' reaffirmed previous findings. Secondhand smoke causes heart disease, cancer, respiratory problems, and even death. What was once considered impossible is now industry practice. What was once unknown is now conventional wisdom. It is time for us to take the next big step.

Next week my colleagues, as members of the HELP Committee, led by my friend Senator Ted Kennedy, will debate giving the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco.

Most Americans do not know that tobacco has a curious place in the law. It is not considered a food or a drug. If it were a food or a drug, it would be regulated. Those who make the product would have to disclose its contents and would have to put meaningful warning labels on the product. Tobacco has had carved out for it a niche in the law so that requirement does not apply. Nearly every other industry in America that puts public health at risk is regulated by some Federal agency, but not tobacco.

If we are going to continue the fight against big tobacco, and the death and disease which this product creates, if we are going to secure the ability of all Americans to breathe air that is free from secondhand smoke, if we are to affirm the right of all of us to lead healthy and productive lives, we have to take this next step and allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate this product. We must allow the FDA to regulate an industry that continues to cost us the lives of more than 43,000 Americans and over $100 billion in health care costs and lost productivity every single year.

Today, there will not be any cakes or parties, but we celebrate the 20th anniversary of a vote in the House of Representatives which has been an important part of my legislative career. This vote, to ban smoking on airplanes, 20 years ago, played an important role in launching the smokefree movement in America. I urge my colleagues to move us closer to finishing the work we have started. We stood up to the tobacco industry then, and we can do it again now.

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