Don Nickles: “I wish to address the amendment by my friends and colleagues from Illinois, Ohio, and Oregon dealing with increasing the…”

“I wish to address the amendment by my friends and colleagues from Illinois, Ohio, and Oregon dealing with increasing the look-back penalties. I made a statement earlier today that I think the look-back provision in this bill is one of the most unworkable provisions that anybody could dream up. I say ``unworkable.'' I don't think it will work. But I would like to maybe bring to my colleagues' attention how they propose that it should work. To make the look-back penalties work, they say we are going to empower the Secretary of the Treasury to do a poll. It says to conduct a survey. The survey is on a national basis. They are going to measure the type of tobacco product used in the last 30 days. They are going to conduct this survey with methodology that he determines is appropriate. They are going to identify the name brand that the youngsters use. They are going to be surveying kids. They are going to be surveying people from ages 11 to 17. And they are going to ask them a question: ``Did you smoke, and what brand did you use?'' Then they are going to put all this information together. I don't think they are going to ask this of every teenager in America. So it is going to be a random survey. Then they are going to compare the results of this survey to the mandates in the bill. If we don't meet the targets, or if the consumption of tobacco by teenagers is higher than what this bill says they should be, the tobacco companies are going to be assessed penalties.…”