North Carolina’s pro-tobacco House members failed to block legislation today that would allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate cigarettes, snuff and other tobacco products.
The final floor vote, 298-112, showed overwhelming support for the legislation by U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman of California, a powerful Democrat and chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, reports Barbara Barrett.
The bill would allow the FDA to restrict the amount of harmful chemicals in tobacco products, extensively cut advertising and require flashier, larger warnings on packages.
Waxman’s bill was supported over an alternative offered in part by U.S. Rep. Mike McIntyre, a Lumberton Democrat, along with U.S. Rep. Steve Buyer, an Indiana Republican.
McIntyre had said he worried about more government regulation on tobacco farms, a key industry in his district.
More after the jump
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But in a colliquy — a kind of scripted conversation — on the House floor, U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge of Lillington was assured that the Waxman legislation would not allow FDA regulation of tobacco leaf on the farm, but only of manufactured products.
The Buyer/McIntyre bill would have offered fewer restrictions on tobacco products’ content and put regulation under its own agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The bill was co-sponsored by Democrats Brad Miller, Heath Shuler, Bob Etheridge and Larry Kissell, and by Republicans Sue Myrick, Howard Coble and Patrick McHenry.
The alternative failed 142-284. The only N.C. House members voting against it were Democratic U.S. Reps. David Price of Chapel Hill and Mel Watt of Charlotte.
Price and Watt also supported the Waxman bill, joined by fellow Democrats Miller, Etheridge and Butterfield.
The Senate has its own tussle over FDA regulation unfolding. There, Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts has legislation mirroring Waxman’s bill. Sens. Richard Burr of Winston-Salem and Kay Hagan of Greensboro introduced their alternative bill last month. It closely mirrors the one pushed in the House by McIntyre.
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