ADMINISTRATION HOPEFUL SMOKE FINDING WILL BE RESTORED

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Clinton administration is optimistic it can overcome
a federal judge's decision to strike down a landmark 1993 government
finding that secondhand tobacco smoke increases the risk of cancer.

The government report has been used widely by state and local authorities
to restrict smoking in public places, including offices, restaurants and
commercial airliners.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Sunday stood by its report that
declared secondhand tobacco smoke a Class A carcinogen and the cause of
more than 3,000 lung-cancer deaths a year.

The agency was informed over the weekend of a ruling late Friday by U.S.
District Judge William Osteen in North Carolina that struck down the report
as flawed.

Osteen, acting in a lawsuit filed by the tobacco companies, said the EPA
``did not demonstrate a statistically significant association'' between
secondhand smoke and lung cancer and did not adequately bring the industry
into the deliberations.

Although lawyers were still reviewing the ruling, EPA officials said an
appeal was virtually certain.

The agency plans to argue that industry was consulted adequately and that
Osteen has no jurisdiction over the report because the EPA has never issued
a formal regulation on secondhand tobacco smoke.

``The decision is disturbing,'' EPA Administrator Carol Browner said
Sunday. ``We believe the health threats to children and adults from
breathing secondhand smoke are very real.''

Although the EPA has issued no rules controlling smoking, lawyers involved
in tobacco litigation said the report's findings have been central to the
debate over smoking restrictions in public places.

Since the report was issued five years ago, some states and numerous local
communities have banned smoking in public places, including restaurants,
offices and, in California, even bars. Some of those bans may be in
jeopardy, lawyers said.

``No one wants to go back to smoking on airplanes, smoking in restaurants.
No one wants to go back to polluting indoors,'' Health and Human Services
Secretary Donna Shalala said on ``Fox News Sunday.'' She said there is
science supporting the classification of secondhand tobacco smoke as a
carcinogen.

EPA spokeswoman Loretta Ucelli said agency attorneys ``tell us the decision
was based largely on procedural grounds.''

``We're optimistic for an appeal,'' she said.

Osteen, a judge for the federal Middle District of North Carolina, ruled
that the EPA violated proper procedure by not including industry in its
deliberations, as required by the 1986 Radon Gas and Indoor Air Quality
Research Act.

``EPA publicly committed to a conclusion before research had begun;
excluded industry by violating the (radon law's) procedural requirements;
(and) adjusted established procedure and scientific norms to validate the
agency's public conclusions,'' he wrote.

The judge further criticized the EPA for having ``aggressively utilized''
the report's findings ``to establish a de facto regulatory scheme intended
to restrict plaintiff's products and to influence public opinion.''

While the cancer risk from smoking has been widely accepted by scientists,
the link between tobacco smoke in the environment and lung cancer has been
more controversial.

Some scientists argue that secondhand smoke produces such low
concentrations of carcinogens that it poses no significant additional risk.
Others maintain that public exposure to the smoke is so widespread that
even small concentrations produces additional cancers.

``There is no legitimate question in the scientific community that
secondhand smoke is a Class A carcinogen,'' said Stanley Rosenblatt, an
attorney who represented flight attendants in a $349 million settlement
last February over secondhand smoke aboard airliners.

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)