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Home > What's New > FDA Tobacco Bill Passes in House — Veto Expected
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FDA Tobacco Bill Passes in House — Veto Expected
Posted: Thursday, July 31, 2008
By David Savona
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill that would give the Food and Drug Administration regulation over the U.S. tobacco industry. President Bush has threatened to veto the bill.
The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, also known as H.R. 1108, passed by a vote of 326-102 on Wednesday. Should it pass the Senate and survive the threatened presidential veto, the FDA would begin regulating the sale and marketing of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products, and the sale of flavored cigarettes (except for menthol) would be prohibited.
The impact it would have on cigars is, at this point, murky. The bill makes no specific mention of cigars, and General Cigar Co. vice president and general counsel Gerry Roerty, who has studied the legislation, has said that it would be quite some time before cigars became part of the FDA’s purview, if at all.
The largest makers of premium cigars in the world are divided over the bill. While General Cigar, maker of Macanudos, has come out in support of the bill, its largest competitor, Altadis U.S.A. Inc., the producer of Romeo y Julieta, has said it strongly opposes the legislation.
Yesterday the White House released a statement on the bill. “The administration has serious concerns with H.R. 1108. In seeking to limit the harm imposed by tobacco on the American public, the bill will unfortunately undermine one of the nation’s premier public health and regulatory institutions and potentially lead the public to mistakenly conclude some tobacco products are safe… . Therefore, if H.R. 1108 were presented to the President, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.”
Stephanie Saul, writing in The New York Times, reported that the legislation has “strong support in the Senate,” but it is unclear whether the bill would garner enough support to override a veto.
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