Orrin Hatch

This tax increase would take away more than 5 percent of the income of an American making $10,000 a year. Is that correct?

We all know teenage behavior is at best unpredictable. Dr. Warner of the University of Michigan estimated that the 1983 doubling of the Federal excise tax would decrease the number of teenage smokers by 800,000. This estimate fell short by…

Dr. Michael Fiore, director of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine Center for Tobacco Research and Prevention and Chair of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research clinical practice guideline panel on smoking cessation…

Since the tobacco companies cut their prices to wipe out the tax increases, these public health scientists attributed the success of the tobacco control program in Massachusetts to other components of the comprehensive program. Is the…

Let's look more closely at the 1994 IOM study which is the basis of the 1998 IOM study. A fair reading of this 1994 IOM study seems far less definitive than is being portrayed by some in this debate. On page 187 of the 1994 Institute of…

So the data that is not so categorical as being portrayed by the proponents of this amendment. In fact, the 1994 IOM report noted the conflict, not the consensus, in the data. It noted that that requires further study. On page 188 of the…

Rather, he echoed the President's position. He referred to prices as one of the most cost-effective, short-term strategies to reduce youth smoking. Will the Senator help me to understand their failure to be advocates, if the evidence is…

Is the Senator aware that on one occasion, I was accused-- I won't say by whom--of being a pawn for the tobacco companies, because I want to see this thing work and get it done?

Is the Senator aware that I have fought the tobacco industry my whole Senate career, and I take second place to nobody as far as trying to get this matter under control?

So if this price increases that we are talking about here, way above the $368.5 billion, do not bring the tobacco companies on board--and the tobacco companies say they are not going to come on board--then, basically, we are going to have…

Is the Senator aware that if a young teenager smokes, there is an 8 times propensity to graduate to marijuana, and if that teenager then graduates to marijuana, there is a greater propensity to graduate to harder drugs?

Is the Senator aware of another position this Senator has, and I think many others as well, and that is that if this bill passes in its current form and is not constitutional, that there will be at least 10 years of effective litigation by…

He is not alone. I venture to say that any constitutional expert who tries to contradict what these gentlemen have said is going to be in severe jeopardy of losing his or her reputation. Is the Senator aware that this whole push to raise…

I think the Senator is aware, is he not, that there has to be a way to pay for the program? If you don't have the voluntary consent of the companies, albeit kicking and screaming, then how do you make the bill constitutional in the end? Is…

But its not a narrowly tailored response to say that all use of color, all use of human figures, all use of imagery is banned so that adults can't see them either, and I don't think that could be reasonably defended. Do you remember that?

It really is. But we also had testimony from Larry Tribe, on the left, who also basically said this would be very constitutionally suspect. Now, to make a long story short, the very people who are arguing--I will ask the Senator this…

Isn't it a wonderful thing that the commerce bill, or should I say the managers' amendment, has done that which nobody else has ever been able to do in the history of this country; that is, bring together the ACLU and Robert Bork on this…

Is the Senator aware that Judge Robert Bork said on January 16, 1996: The recent proposal of the FDA to restrict severely the first amendment rights of American companies and individuals who in one way or another have any connection with…

Does the Senator remember Floyd Abrams, leading first amendment expert in this country, in my opinion and I think in the opinion of most people, from the left to the right, in his statement: Any legislation of Congress which would purport…

Was not the Senator there in those Judiciary Committee hearings when these experts on constitutional law from the left to the right said this bill would not be constitutional, would be highly suspect.

Unconstitutional both on the advertising restrictions, which of course that is what the FDA regulations call for, and on the look-back provisions? Just to mention two.

We have had witnesses from the left and the right, constitutional experts, come before our committee and say that, basically, without a voluntary consent protocol or a voluntary consent decree with the companies on board, that…

Let me just say this, and ask this question. You know, the very people who are arguing for this $1.50 increase, it seems to me, are the very people who are pricing this bill right out of the marketplace so we cannot get a constitutionally…

If that is the case, why, then, did the President of the United States advocate for a price increase of up to $1.50 over 10 years? What does our colleague from Massachusetts know that the President didn't know?

I think the point I am making here is no matter what we do here will be a price increase. The question is, How far can you increase it without it being counterproductive and producing an overwhelming black market in contraband all over our…