Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. REED. Mr. President, I am glad to join with several of my colleagues to talk about electronic cigarettes and the Food and Drug Administration's, FDA, role in regulating these products.

Over the last year, e-cigarette use among high school students has tripled from 4.5 percent to 13.4 percent, according to recent CDC data. In fact, research from the University of Michigan's annual Monitoring the Future survey shows that in 2014 more teenagers reported using e-cigarettes than traditional tobacco products. One year ago, the FDA took an important initial step by proposing to regulate e-cigarettes, but more must be done to strengthen this rule and ensure that the same practices used by Big Tobacco for years to promote smoking are not used by e-cigarette companies to create a new generation of smokers.

I am pleased that the FDA has proposed prohibiting e-cigarette sales to minors, as well as prohibiting vending machine sales and free samples, to prevent sales and use by minors. Further, the proposed FDA rule requires e-cigarette manufacturers to list product ingredients and for tobacco products containing nicotine to carry an addiction warning label. While I commend FDA on proposing these important steps, the rule must be improved to address the marketing of these products to children and e-cigarette flavorings and be finalized as soon as possible. Indeed, I sent a letter last week with nine of my colleagues--many of whom are also speaking about e-cigarettes today--urging the FDA to strengthen and finalize this rule.

E-cigarette companies are taking a page out of the Big Tobacco playbook, using celebrity endorsements of their products, cartoons, and advertising in magazines with youth readership and at music festivals and sports events targeted at children. According to a 2014 study in the journal Pediatrics, exposure to e-cigarette marketing by children aged 12 to 17 increased by 256 percent between 2011 and 2013, exposing 24 million children to e-cigarette advertisements. In this context, it is unsurprising that youth use of e-cigarettes has skyrocketed during the same timeframe. It is well known that tobacco advertising influences consumer behavior, especially that of children, so it is my hope that the final e-cigarette deeming rule will address this issue.

As for the use of candy, soft drink, fruit, and other flavors in e-cigarettes, the FDA itself acknowledged in the proposed rule that children are the most likely to be attracted by and use these flavored tobacco products. The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act prohibits these kinds of flavorings from being used in traditional cigarettes and that same scrutiny should be applied to e-cigarettes and refill liquids so that children are not attracted to these products.

We have come a long way since I proposed legislation in the late 1990s to deny tobacco companies tax deductions for advertising to children. I was an original cosponsor of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which became law in 2009 and incorporated the goals of my bill to keep the tobacco industry from targeting children as new customers. This law provides the FDA with the explicit authority to protect the public from deceptive cigarette advertisements, prevents the targeting of minors, and removes certain harmful ingredients from cigarettes.

This was an important effort. But we must be ever vigilant and continue to address new tobacco-related concerns as they arise, such as e-cigarettes. Until the deeming rule is finalized, e-cigarettes will continue to operate completely unregulated, with an increasing number of children taking up this addictive habit every day. I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on the issue and I join them in strongly urging the FDA to strengthen and finalize the e-cigarette deeming rule quickly so that the agency can begin regulating these tobacco products.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time until 5:25 p.m. today be equally divided in the usual form and that it be in order to call up the following amendment: Barrasso No. 1147; further, I ask that following the use or yielding back of time, the Senate vote on the amendment; that there be no second-degree amendments in order to the amendment and that there be a 60-affirmative-vote threshold for the adoption of the amendment.

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