Bill contains loopholes that benefit Big Tobacco

Recently, Congress passed Sen. Ted Kennedy's Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act and President Barack Obama signed it into law on Monday. At face value, this bill sounded like a good idea and it gained overwhelming support in both the House and Senate.

However, its biggest support came from Big Tobacco, the very companies whose product the Food and Drug Administration will be asked to regulate. That fact gave me pause. When I looked at the fine print, I discovered that this bill increases one company's domination in the market, has little effect on reducing deaths and disease associated with tobacco, and places the authority of regulation of tobacco in the wrong hands.

When I became the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, I learned about the difficulties that the FDA faces. Giving that agency the assignment to regulate tobacco products is poor management on the part of the federal government.

The former head of the FDA, Andrew von Eschenbach, M.D., said that associating the FDA with a harmful product would give people the false impression that tobacco products approved by the administration are safe and effective. This added burden on the FDA will also tangle up the approval process of safe drugs that can help improve the quality of life for many Americans.

Implementing stricter regulations on tobacco products is the right action, but FDA is the wrong agency for the job.

Why did Big

Tobacco endorse it? Because it will lock in a percentage of a monopoly for Philip Morris, the largest cigarette maker in the world. The smaller companies cannot absorb the costs associated with regulation, so Philip Morris is able to create the perception that it is taking steps toward protecting the public's health while really protecting its domination of the market. The Kennedy bill allows Philip Morris to continue marketing its tobacco products without changes, thus grandfathering in many of the most harmful products.

I'd still have voted for it if I had thought it would protect public health by focusing on prevention to reduce death and diseases associated with tobacco. However, reports indicate that the bill will achieve only modest results in improving public health.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Kennedy bill will reduce adult smoking by only 2 percent over the next 10 years and youth smoking by just 11 percent, which is about the same reduction experts expect to occur even if nothing were done.

Discouraging the use of tobacco and dissuading young people from taking up this harmful and addictive habit is something that I wholeheartedly support, which is why I voted for an alternative measure introduced by Sen. Richard Burr.

The Burr proposal would have created an independent agency within the Department of Health and Human Services to regulate tobacco products, including cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, as the secretary determines. The Burr plan focused more on preventive measures, which is the best way to reduce smoking long-term. It would have provided standards on misbranded products and required manufacturers to reveal all ingredients in their tobacco products. Philip Morris didn't like that idea because their position of market dominance would not have been protected.

So let me be clear that my vote against the Kennedy bill does not mean that I do not support the intent of the bill. I opposed it because after reading the fine print, I was convinced we would do better if we told Philip Morris to stay out of the process of writing tobacco legislation.

Sen. Bob Bennett , a Republican, represents Utah in the U.S. Senate.