From The Post • A look at the man behind the industry's media blitz. • Proposal's death is greeted by anger and optimism. • Here's how your senators voted. • Tobacco's ad blitz felt in Senate Latest Stories • All the latest articles from The Post and the AP

By Saundra Torry and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 19, 1998; Page A01

House Republican leaders announced yesterday they will bring up a narrowly focused bill aimed at curbing teenage smoking and drug use next month, setting up an immediate confrontation with Democrats and public health groups who decried the approach as "worse than nothing at all."

One day after Senate Republicans killed a comprehensive national tobacco bill, the anti-smoking battle grew noisier and nastier, with GOP leaders promising alternatives to the broad-based measure and Democrats intensifying their invective.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) made clear his intent to put forward a tobacco bill, although he left unclear how he would fund it. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) held a news conference to say that he, too, will try to move a more focused, less costly tobacco measure. "If the Democrats just want an issue . . . fine," Lott told reporters. "If they want to get something done for the American people, they'll have to work with me."

Democrats and public health advocates weren't buying Gingrich's argument. If anything, the two sides appeared even further apart on the tobacco issue. "There is no such thing as a slimmed-down bill that protects kids from tobacco smoking," said White House press secretary Michael McCurry.

"This is no time for a fig leaf," said Matthew Myers, a leading public health advocate, adding that health groups would oppose a bill "designed more to protect members of Congress [in the upcoming election] than to reduce tobacco use."

As for the revival of a comprehensive bill, the future looked bleak, based on comments by many Republicans.

"Nothing of the magnitude, size, depth and width" of the bill sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) will pass the Senate, said Lott. Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R.I.), a staunch supporter of the bill, also seemed resigned to its fate: "We did what we could, and we've got to move on."

The McCain bill, which would have mandated broad federal regulation of tobacco and imposed the largest price increase ever on cigarettes, was killed Wednesday by Republicans who charged that it had become a huge, tax-and-spend measure that strayed far from its intent to curb teen smoking. Democrats retorted that Republicans had fattened it with tax cuts and drug intervention programs, only to kill it off.

Hit by a barrage of headlines that fingered the GOP as the bill's killers, some Republicans were nervous about how the issue might play in November, according to one Senate Republican. The bill's slim chance for revival "depends on how much heat they get when they go home this weekend," he said.

The Democrats certainly turned up the heat in Washington.

Vice President Gore led an administration barrage, tying Republicans to the tobacco industry. Noting the way college football bowl games now brandish names of corporate sponsors, a chortling Gore said the GOP should now be called the "R.J. Reynolds Republican Party" because of its financial links to the tobacco industry.

Meanwhile at the Capitol, the Senate had barely finished its opening prayer when Democrats made good on their vow to try to add the tobacco bill to virtually every measure that comes up in the Senate.

Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) tried to attach the tobacco bill to the day's first offering, the energy appropriations bill. The tactic failed by a vote of 54 to 44, but Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) took the opportunity to criticize the Republicans for their association with tobacco money: "The Republican Party is . . . still kowtowing to the power of Big Tobacco and their campaign contributions," he said.

In the House, Gingrich moved quickly to get Republicans on the record as anti-tobacco. While offering few details on their proposed tobacco package, Republicans predicted it would center on a public awareness campaign and offer incentives to states that reduced smoking among teenagers.

Gingrich said that it would give the Food and Drug Administration authority to enforce laws aimed at tobacco manufacturers, but no one said how the bill would be funded.

"The Senate bill drowned in a sea of money," Gingrich declared. "We don't want to get caught in the same swamp."

The GOP leadership bill already has a competitor. House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) predicted Democrats would try to bring a bipartisan bill to the floor through a procedure known as a discharge petition, which forces consideration of legislation once the petition garners 218 signatures.

Despite their victory Wednesday, cigarette makers planned to continue their $40 million advertising campaign against legislation -- an insurance policy lest any measure they find unpalatable should gain momentum, according to an industry source.

President Clinton took a somewhat more temperate tone than other Democrats. Noting that Lott had suggested appointing a bipartisan task force of senators to try to draft new legislation, Clinton said he would consider that route if it was a "good-faith effort."

While Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R- Utah) said he still was working on an alternative to the McCain bill that would raise cigarette prices by about 80 cents per pack, most senators predicted he will have tough going.

"I would support anything that would achieve the goal of reducing teenage smoking," said McCain. "But I wouldn't underestimate the difficulty of getting some kind of consensus."

Staff writers Helen Dewar and John F. Harris contributed to this report.