A Senate committee yesterday embraced legislation that for the first time would allow federal regulation of cigarettes.
The bill, approved 13-8 by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, would require the Food and Drug Administration to restrict tobacco advertising, regulate warning labels and remove hazardous ingredients.
The agency also would be given the authority to set standards for products that tobacco companies advertise as “reduced-risk” products.
“This is an enormous step forward,” said Matt Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. “This could end up being the signature public health action this Congress takes.”
The bill has broad bipartisan support in the Senate, where more than 50 senators have signed on as co-sponsors. A similar bill passed the chamber in 2004 but was blocked in the House.
The tobacco legislation was crafted through several years of negotiations led by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, involving health groups and tobacco giant Philip Morris, which broke from its competitors to endorse FDA regulation.
The bill would allow the FDA to reduce the amount of nicotine in cigarettes, but only Congress could permanently ban them.
The committee adopted an amendment by Sen. Michael B. Enzi, Wyoming Republican, that would ban clove cigarettes, reversing a decision by Mr. Kennedy to allow the FDA to make that decision.
Mr. Kennedy, the panel’s chairman, said he was responding to several senators who contacted him with concerns that a ban on cloves would not comply with World Trade Organization rules. But Mr. Kennedy agreed to the ban after several senators objected.
Most cloves are marketed in Asia, and Philip Morris, a Richmond unit of Altria Group Inc., recently introduced a Marlboro cigarette flavored with cloves in Indonesia.
Mr. Kennedy said Philip Morris had “nothing to do with our decision” and that he supported the clove ban as long as it is WTO-compliant.
Philip Morris’ competitors are strongly opposed to the bill, saying it would lock in Philip Morris’ dominant market share. The panel rejected several amendments by Republican Sen. Richard M. Burr, who represents R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in his home state of North Carolina. Mr. Kennedy said Mr. Burr’s amendments would undermine the legislation.
After the hearing, Mr. Burr said he would not rule out trying to hold up the bill on the Senate floor.
Mr. Enzi, the top Republican on the panel, also opposes the legislation and has objected to Philip Morris’ involvement.
“If this bill is good for big tobacco, how can it be good for public health?” he asked after the hearing. “The fact is, it can’t. This bill is nothing more than a ’Marlboro Protection Act,’ written to keep Philip Morris at the top of the tobacco market.”
Mr. Enzi has introduced his own bill that would aim to greatly shrink the size of the tobacco market over the next 20 years.
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