Communities are often defined, at least in part, by the businesses that call them home. The history of our great commonwealth has been closely intertwined with tobacco since the first days of Jamestown. Tobacco has played and continues to play an important role in Virginia’s economy. Thou sands of our citizens are connected to the industry, either by helping grow tobacco, by working for a tobacco company, or by selling goods and services to others who do.

Communities are often defined, at least in part, by the businesses that call them home. The history of our great commonwealth has been closely intertwined with tobacco since the first days of Jamestown. Tobacco has played and continues to play an important role in Virginia’s economy. Thou sands of our citizens are connected to the industry, either by helping grow tobacco, by working for a tobacco company, or by selling goods and services to others who do.

Even under the watchful eyes of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, tobacco companies such as Henrico County-based Altria Group Inc. will have opportunities to thrive, some industry observers say. That’s because the legislation passed by Congress this week giving the FDA authority to regulate the industry leaves some doors open for tobacco companies to innovate, and even to make health claims about products, something they cannot do now.

Legislation would grant the federal government unprecedented authority to regulate and restrict cigarettes, the single largest cause of preventable death.

A force in Virginia’s economy and culture for 400 years, the business is headed toward potentially sweeping changes under legislation approved by the U.S. Senate yesterday.

About 530 Philip Morris USA employees accepted transfers to Richmond from the company’s cigarette plant near Charlotte, N.C., but few, if any, others are expected to relocate as the company shuts down the North Carolina plant this summer. Henrico County-based Philip Morris USA announced yesterday it will cease production at its Cabarrus County, N.C., plant by the end of July, months earlier than initially expected. Most of the plant’s remaining 1,100 employees will be laid off as the company consolidates its manufacturing operations at its South Richmond cigarette plant.

Altria Group Inc.‘s profit declined in the first quarter but met expectations as price increases helped counter a drop in cigarette shipments related to a federal tobacco tax increase. The Henrico County-based parent company of cigarette maker Philip Morris USA reported a profit of $589 million, or 28 cents per share, for the quarter that ended March 31, down 76 percent from $2.45 billion, or $1.16 per share, in the same period of 2008. Last year’s results included Philip Morris International, which was spun off as a separate company in late March 2008.

U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co. is cutting jobs in its sales work force as it combines operations with its new parent company, Henrico County-based Altria Group Inc. The job cuts will affect 16 employees in Virginia, including three at a regional sales office in Richmond, Altria spokesman David Sylvia said yesterday. Altria bought U.S. Smokeless’ parent, UST Inc., in January for $10.4 billion, plus $1.3 billion in assumed debt. U.S. Smokeless is now a subsidiary of Altria, along with cigarette maker Philip Morris USA and cigar maker John Middleton Inc.

The nation’s top cigarette maker and top moist snuff company are looking for new ways to keep tobacco consumers buying their brands now that they have combined forces in the Richmond area.

What has seemed inevitable for several years drew a step closer to reality this week as a House committee approved legislation that would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulatory control over tobacco products. We are generally skeptical about expanding government regulation, and we have been ardent foes of tobacco laws that restrict property rights—such as the restaurant smoking ban recently passed in Virginia. Still, the tobacco regulation bill, similar to one that passed the full House last year, is for the most part reasonable and harmless.

Altria Group Inc., the largest U.S. tobacco company, will raise prices on Marlboro and 17 brands on March 9 ahead of an increase in federal tobacco excise taxes.

A House panel passed a sweeping tobacco-regulation bill yesterday, putting it on pace for passage by the full House far earlier in the congressional session than last year.

Ten of Virginia’s top 20 revenue-producing public companies combined to spend more than $100,000 a day lobbying the federal government last year, records show. As CEOs grappled with a sliding U.S. economy and then-candidate Barack Obama targeted corporate influence in Washington, eight Virginia-based companies—including the Richmond area’s Altria Group Inc., Genworth Financial Inc. and Dominion Resources Inc.—each spent more than $1 million in 2008 trying to influence lawmakers.

Altria/Philip Morris: “larger wave” of job cuts this month Altria Group Inc. said yesterday that it expects a wave of layoffs this month at its Richmond-area operations but declined to specify the number of employees affected. The parent company of cigarette maker Philip Morris USA said last fall that it was reducing staff as part of a corporate reorganization.

A Florida jury decided yesterday that a longtime chain smoker’s death from lung cancer was caused by nicotine addiction, a potentially costly loss for tobacco giant Philip Morris and an important test case for thousands of similar lawsuits. The lawsuit by Elaine Hess, widow of Stuart Hess, is the first of about 8,000 such cases to go to trial since the Florida Supreme Court in 2006 threw out a $145 billion jury award in a class-action lawsuit on behalf of thousands of smokers and their families.