Mike Enzi: “this ad calls for the recruitment of scientists to work at this facility, studying how to ``develop relevant exposure…”

“this ad calls for the recruitment of scientists to work at this facility, studying how to ``develop relevant exposure models'' for smoking related diseases. Or to do large scale epidemiology studies on ``the cause of cigarette smoke-related diseases.'' Here I thought the cause of cigarette smoke-related diseases was smoking. Silly me. Clearly, Philip Morris believes it will still be able to operate under the Kennedy bill. It will be business as usual for the Marlboro Man, and more Americans will die needlessly. Trying to make cigarettes safer through a billion-dollar bureaucracy is a waste of time and money. The right approach is to get people to stop smoking, or better yet, to never start. The key failing of the Kennedy dinosaur legislation is that it will not reduce smoking. In 2004, this bill did pass the Senate, as part of FSC-ETI. The Congressional Budget Office, in scoring the Senate-passed bill, examined the tobacco provisions. I suggest my colleagues study that score carefully. CBO suggested there would be essentially no reduction in adult smoking, and only a 12.5 percent reduction in youth smoking. The bill assesses user fees in excess of $450 million a year. There are currently 2.7 million youth smokers. When you do the math, it comes out to nearly $1,500 per year per youth smoker to achieve these reductions. I don't know if you've talked to any teenagers recently, but they are pretty entrepreneurial.…”