Providing For Consideration Of Senate Amendment To H.R. 1256, Family Smoking Prevention And Tobacco Control Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, you know, in many cases, the titles of bills here since the Democrats have been in control have been backwards from what they do, but this bill I think does have a partially appropriate title. It is called the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

I think it is emblematic of the concern and the attempt by the majority party to control every aspect of our lives. Everything that we do in this country, they are trying to control. They think they have the answers to everything and that what they want us to do is what should be done. So the emphasis should be on control, because that is what they are trying to do, is control our lives.

We know that this legislation will have little impact on overall tobacco use. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that if this bill is enacted, smoking by adults would decline by only 2 percent after 10 years. This marginal reduction does not warrant this legislation's significant intrusion on free speech rights and expansion of government-run regulatory bureaucracy.

I strongly oppose this bill and this rule and urge my colleagues to vote against both of them.

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out a couple of issues.

It seems to me that, if a head of lettuce has more rules than tobacco, then I think we should reduce the regulations on lettuce. I think we're going in the wrong direction in terms of this issue.

The other thing I would like to point out is something that my colleague from Indiana pointed out. This bill focuses totally on the issue of abstinence. It's interesting to me that I've been in so many debates where the majority party completely puts aside abstinence education when it comes to sex education in the schools. They say abstinence education has absolutely no benefit, and we know the research shows the opposite. Yet, on this issue, they'd like to go totally for abstinence education.

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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I want to say that Mr. Buyer has brought up again the issue that the Republicans have alternatives that are proven more effective. But those alternatives are not being properly considered by the majority party. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Levin has noted that this legislation could be also viewed by foreign countries as a hostile trade action.

Many of the cloves and other flavored cigarettes that are banned under this bill are manufactured in foreign countries. However, this bill expressly permits production of menthol cigarettes. This could lead Indonesia or other foreign governments to file complaints at the World Trade Organization claiming discrimination against their products. Ultimately, retaliatory measures could be taken against American-made products which could lead to unnecessary trade disputes with a negative effect on economic growth.

As Mr. Buyer again pointed out earlier, most of us do not want to encourage smoking. But we oppose this bill on the basis that it is establishing a new Federal authority for the regulation of the tobacco industry in putting the FDA in charge of this. The tobacco industry should continue to be regulated at the State level. We should not expand the Federal Government to add another layer of bureaucracy to the already overburdened Food and Drug Administration and another layer of regulation to American consumers and lives. This is not the direction we need to go, but it is the direction, again, that the administration and the majority party want to go, that is, more and more control of the lives of Americans.

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