Tom Udall: “The State of New Mexico is planning to get about $1.2 billion under the master settlement. That is the largest civil…”

“The State of New Mexico is planning to get about $1.2 billion under the master settlement. That is the largest civil settlement in the State of New Mexico. The way that this settlement was worked out, it will flow in over 25 years. We do not have all $1.2 billion at this time. We are getting smaller amounts, and they balloon up over time. First of all, the public health community came forward, many of these cancer doctors, the oncologists came forward, and the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Society, all of them came forward and said, we need to work on specifically how we spend these dollars. They came up with what I thought were some very good recommendations. First of all, we could start a trust fund. One of the best recommendations, and I was very supportive of this and worked with my legislature, set up a trust fund and try to get the trust fund to the level that it was way up there in dollars so we could then use the principal rather than using the capital. If you took a lot of this money and put it into a trust fund, then there could be a perpetual flow of money to deal with the tobacco issues.”