Tobacco industry moves toward federal oversight

The tobacco industry, a force in Virginia's economy and culture for 400 years, is headed toward potentially sweeping changes under legislation approved by the U.S. Senate yesterday.

In a step hailed as historic by public health groups, the Senate voted 79-17 to give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate the content and advertising of cigarettes and other tobacco products.

The legislation now goes back to the House, which in April passed a similar but not identical bill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that "from what I have seen so far, I believe it will be possible for us to accept [the Senate] bill and send it right on to the president."

President Barack Obama said he was eager to sign the legislation after minor differences with the House version are resolved.

The legislation would, for the first time, give the FDA power to require changes in how tobacco companies make and market their products, including imposing a ban on terms such as "light" or "mild" to describe cigarettes.

It also would place more restrictions on marketing, such as limiting tobacco displays at retail stores to black-and-white text. The FDA could set product standards, evaluate tobacco products and ban dangerous ingredients, but it could not ban nicotine, the addictive substance in tobacco.

Tobacco companies would have to get FDA approval for new products. Flavorings deemed attractive to children would be banned, but menthol cigarettes would not.

"The power given to the FDA will contribute very significantly to the overall effort to reduce the number of Americans who die from tobacco use," said Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign For Tobacco-Free Kids.

"Forty-five years after the first surgeon general's report on tobacco, over 400,000 American still die from tobacco use every year. This bill can help cut that number dramatically."

Many details of the FDA's implementation of the new regulations still are to be determined, setting up a potential ongoing battle between supporters and opponents of tougher restrictions on the industry.

"The devil is going to be in the details," said Gerry Roerty, vice president and general counsel at Swedish Match North America, a Chesterfield County-based maker of smokeless tobacco and cigars.

Roerty said the company was "comforted" that the FDA legislation, while cracking down further on some advertising, still leaves room for the company to market its products by providing samples to adults at venues where minors are not allowed.

Other issues, such as setting product-manufacturing standards, could be more tricky.

"If [the FDA] takes a sensible approach and sticks to the language that is in the bill that says they must adopt technologically feasible standards, then that is something we will be able to work with," he said.

Congress has debated proposals to regulate tobacco for more than a decade. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that only Congress could grant the agency that power, after the FDA attempted to assert authority over the industry.

Soon after the ruling, the nation's largest tobacco company, Henrico County-based Philip Morris USA, came out in favor of federal oversight of the industry.

Philip Morris' parent company, Altria Group Inc., said yesterday that the legislation is, on balance, "an important step forward to achieve the goal we share with others to provide federal regulation of tobacco products."

However, the company said the bill "is not perfect" and that it had First Amendment concerns about some of the restrictions. The company declined further comment.

Critics have charged that the legislation mostly would benefit Altria, solidifying the company's dominant U.S. market share by restricting advertising and imposing new regulatory burdens that smaller competitors might struggle to meet.

Altria's two largest competitors, Reynolds American Inc. and Lorillard Tobacco Co., opposed the legislation.

Maura Payne, a spokeswoman for Reynolds American, said yesterday that many details still must be worked out through the FDA's rule-making process.

"It is our intention to be part of the rule-making process, and certainly upon completion of that process to fully comply and successfully compete for the business of adults who choose to use tobacco," Payne said.

Opponents, led by Republican Sen. Richard M. Burr of the leading tobacco-growing state of North Carolina, argued that the FDA, which is in charge of ensuring the safety of food and drug products, was the wrong place to regulate an item that is injurious to health.

Burr unsuccessfully proposed the creation of an agency that would regulate tobacco products and encourage efforts to make cigarettes less harmful.

Contact John Reid Blackwell at (804) 775-8123 or .

The Associated Press contributed to this report.