Patty Murray: “today is a sad day for children across America. Big tobacco companies with unlimited lobbying budgets and Republicans in…”

“today is a sad day for children across America. Big tobacco companies with unlimited lobbying budgets and Republicans in the Senate killed tobacco reform legislation. Kids lost and Joe Camel won. I am outraged at the message this sends: tobacco money is more important than children's health. Almost four weeks ago, the Senate began debating a comprehensive tobacco bill aimed at reducing underage smoking and strengthening the role of public health agencies to combat tobacco. Congress appeared unified in its intent to end the practice of tobacco companies preying on our children. But some of my colleagues in the Senate got lost along the way. Since we started debate on tobacco legislation, more than 60,000 children have taken up this deadly addiction. But, this has not been the focus of the debate on this legislation. In fact, if the American people were watching the debate on the Senate floor they would be hard pressed to determine what legislation we were actually debating. That's because the tobacco industry has spent $40 million to hijack the process and prevent Congress from acting. This is a tragic example of our political system at its worst. We had an historic opportunity to enact comprehensive tobacco legislation that would have mandated tobacco companies stop targeting our children. In one piece of legislation we could have saved five million children from suffering the ill effects of smoking or facing premature death.”