Monday, July 23, 2007

ENZI ANTI-TOBACCO "HEALTH ACT" vs. DEMOCRAT "MARLBORO PROTECTION ACT"

The Help End Addiction to Lethal Tobacco Habits Act (HEALTH Act):

The Enzi War on Tobacco

We must greatly reduce the size of the United States tobacco market and the negative health impacts of tobacco use.

Background:

Some have suggested that FDA regulation of tobacco is the way toward safer tobacco products. But we know that there is no such thing as a safe cigarette. Proposals to have FDA regulate tobacco are a misguided attempt to force a deadly product into the regulatory structure developed for drugs and devices - products which DO have health benefits. This new scheme for tobacco would be very costly, and would not result in much of a health benefit.

Furthermore, FDA review and approval of tobacco products sends a terrible public health message - creating the sense that cigarettes are safe or can be made safer, when we know they cannot.

Importantly, the proposal under consideration by the HELP Committee explicitly states that the FDA will not be permitted to ban nicotine or tobacco. That is not true regulation. That bill would gut the authority that Congress has bestowed and staunchly defended for the FDA -- the authority to remove health threats from the marketplace. The FDA cannot be put in the position of approving a product which years of science and the personal experience of far too many Americans has shown to be dangerous.

Simply put, tobacco kills people. We can do better.

We should focus our efforts instead on helping people quit using tobacco, or better yet, to never start. The Enzi HEALTH Act would have a dramatic impact on the number of smokers in this country. It would close loopholes in the law that tobacco companies have exploited and enjoyed for far too long. It would also use proven approaches to help people quit and implement tried and true prevention programs.

The centerpiece of the HEALTH Act is a novel cap-and-trade program for shrinking the size of the tobacco market over the next 20 years. This guarantees that fewer people suffer the deadly consequences of smoking, while providing flexibility in how those reductions are achieved. In addition, small tobacco companies would have a valuable asset in their allocations, leveling the playing field a bit between the smaller and larger industry members.

Cap-and-trade programs have a proven track record in the environmental arena, particularly in addressing acid rain. The tobacco plan is based on the successful program in the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. This system achieved the desired results faster and at lower cost than had been anticipated. The same can be done for tobacco.

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Bill summary:

Title I: Raising the bar on our knowledge

• Removes an outdated provision that allows manufacturers to shield from the government which ingredients are in which tobacco products.
• Modernizes and standardizes testing methods for measuring and reporting nicotine, tar and carbon monoxide in cigarettes and smokeless tobacco.
• Strengthens warning labels on packages - changes to bold warnings with color graphics - a strategy that has been proven to work in the EU and Canada.

Title II: Determining who uses tobacco

. Consolidates multiple overlapping surveys on tobacco use to gather the necessary data to monitor the baseline and reductions under Title III.

Title III: Reducing the number of tobacco users

. Creates a cap-and-trade program to reduce the adverse health effects of tobacco use through reductions in annual size of the US tobacco market from

2006 levels.

• Requires compliance by tobacco manufacturers with specific user level limitations by specified deadlines.
• Sets up a market share allocation and transfer system. Allowances can be used, banked, traded, or sold freely on the open market.
• The number of allowances decreases each year, ultimately resulting in fewer than 2% of the population using tobacco, versus nearly 21% today - a 90% reduction.

Title IV: Increasing the tobacco excise tax

• Increases the tobacco excise tax based on the relative risk of products (see Title V for information on risk classification).
• Distributes the revenue as follows: 50% to Medicare, 25% to Medicaid, and 25% to tobacco control and prevention. This maintains the tight link between tobacco tax policy and tobacco health policy.

Title V: Encouraging tobacco control and prevention, and smoking cessation

• Establishes an FDA panel to classify tobacco products or groups of products by risk.
• Gives FDA explicit authority to ban nicotine.
• Creates a program of counter-advertising, conducted by HHS, and funded from the 25% for control and prevention in Title IV.
• Closes a loophole in Medicare and Medicaid to provide coverage for smoking cessation, regardless of whether the beneficiary has a diagnosed smoking-related illness.
• Creates a matching grant program (50 cents on the dollar for every dollar over the CDC level) for states that exceed the CDC recommended levels of MSA funds spent on tobacco control and prevention.

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What is "cap-and-trade"?

Cap and trade is an administrative approach used to control something, historically a pollutant, by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of that pollutant. Cap-and-trade programs have a proven track record in the environmental arena, the most dramatic success story being the control of acid rain in the 1990s. The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 instituted a system of allowances for emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides that could be used, banked, traded or sold freely on the open market. The number of allowances decreased each year.

This system achieved the desired air quality improvements faster and at lower cost than had been anticipated.

In cap and trade programs, the government sets a limit or cap on the amount of a pollutant that can be emitted. The cap provides the standard by which progress is measured, and it creates an artificial scarcity. Companies or other groups that emit the pollutant are given allowances to emit a specific amount. The total amount of allowances is fixed and cannot exceed the cap, limiting total national emissions. The allowances then have value, due to the artificial scarcity created. The cap is lowered over time

- aiming towards a national emissions reduction target.

Companies must hold a sufficient number of allowances to cover their emissions, or face heavy penalties. A source that reduces its emissions below its allowance level may sell the extra allowances to another source.

A source that finds it more expensive to reduce emissions below allowable levels may buy (trade) allowances from another source. Buyers and sellers may "bank" any unused allowances for future use. This system reduces emissions at the lowest possible cost to society.

In some cap and trade systems, organizations which do not pollute may also buy allowances. For example, environmental groups could purchase and retire allowances to reduce emissions and raise the price of the remaining credits - the laws of supply and demand in action.

Cap and trade systems leverage the power of markets to deal with pollution.

While the cap is set by a political process, individual companies are free to choose how, when or if they will reduce their emissions. Firms will choose the least-costly way to comply, creating incentives to reduce the cost of achieving a pollution reduction goal. Cap and trade systems are easier to enforce than traditional "command and control" bureaucratic approaches because the government overseeing the market does not need to regulate specific practices of each source.

Cap-and-trade systems guarantee reductions, and companies are given time and flexibility to meet the targets. Sources have flexibility to decide when, where and how to reduce emissions. Making the power of the market work to achieve our policy goals just makes sense.

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Tobacco Regulation Can Echo U.S. Pollution Policies, Enzi Says

By Catherine Larkin, Bloomberg

July 19, 2007

Tobacco regulations should be similar to air pollution controls, according to a Senate Republican who proposed legislation today that he said would reduce the number of U.S. smokers by 90 percent in 20 years.

The measure from Senator Michael Enzi of Wyoming would cap U.S. tobacco sales and give every manufacturer a set allowance to use, trade or sell.

Enzi offered the legislation as an alternative to a proposal that would allow the Food and Drug Administration to limit tobacco marketing, ban certain ingredients and block sales aimed at children.

Lawmakers have debated for years how to reign in U.S. tobacco sales, which totaled $88.8 billion in 2005, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The measure providing for the FDA to oversee tobacco is backed by Democrats, anti-smoking advocates and Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris USA, the nation's biggest cigarette maker.

"Proposals to have FDA regulate tobacco are a misguided attempt to force a deadly product into the regulatory structure developed for drugs and devices -- products which do have health benefits," Enzi said today in a statement.

Enzi is the top Republican on the Senate health committee, which plans to vote July 25 on the measure authorizing FDA regulation of tobacco. The FDA measure's sponsor, committee chairman Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, tried unsuccessfully to pass similar bills in 2000, 2002 and 2004. His supporters include the American Lung Association.

The alternative offered by Enzi would model tobacco regulation after "cap-and-trade" policies used to reduce air pollution under the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990. Tobacco companies would have to comply with federal limitations on how many customers they could have for certain products. The limits would shrink each year until domestic producers were authorized to sell to no more than 2 percent of the population.

Responsibility for overseeing the program would be given to the Health and Human Services Department. The FDA would get authority to ban nicotine, the addictive chemical in cigarettes, and tobacco excise taxes may be increased based on the agency's determination of the relative risks posed by different products.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601202&sid=aVRlANF0YMGE&refer=healthcare

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