REPUBLICANS QUARREL OVER TOBACCO BILLS

WASHINGTON - With the time approaching for final decisions, senior
Republicans are openly quarreling over how far they can go in penalizing
the tobacco industry for teenage smoking and cigarette-related health
problems.

Nearly all Democrats in Congress are demanding the toughest possible
anti-tobacco legislation, while the tobacco industry has threatened to
fight any bill it thinks harms its long-term economic interests. Many
Republicans are caught in the middle.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., the author of a
$516 billion package of taxes and regulatory measures that is heading to
the Senate floor, said yesterday that something close to his bill will
eventually pass for reasons both patriotic and "a little crass."

"There's a lot of money that is going to be spent there, and politicians
are very attached to that," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

But Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said
on NBC that McCain would fail because his bill is too punitive and "you'll
have bankruptcy, you'll have black market, you'll have something that
doesn't work."

Hatch, who last week called McCain's legislation "pitiful," has his own
$398 billion package that is closer to the $368 billion settlement reached
last June between the tobacco industry, state attorneys general and
public-health advocates.

McCain shot back that "there is not five votes for what Senator Hatch just
asked for, and that was to go easier on the tobacco companies."

McCain's bill, which was approved by the Commerce Committee on a 19-1 vote,
was crafted after the White House and public-health organizations said the
June deal, which gives the industry some immunity from future lawsuits, was
too lenient. But the industry maintains that McCain's legislation would
drive them out of business, and it has threatened to fight such provisions
as limits on advertising.

Sen. John Chafee of Rhode Island, who has proposed his own tough
anti-tobacco bill, urged his fellow Republicans to be civil and work
together.

Chafee said he was spearheading an effort to get Senate Majority Leader
Trent Lott, R-Miss., to keep his promise to bring the McCain bill to the
floor before the end of May.

But there is growing Republican sentiment that McCain's bill, which
requires a $1.10 increase in the price of a pack of cigarettes and gives
the Food and Drug Administration greater controls over tobacco products, is
a Democratic-style tax-and-regulate bill.

If the bill ends up mainly as a vehicle to finance President Clinton's
priorities on health and education, "Republicans simply aren't going to go
along with it," Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

The House has yet to take action on a completed piece of legislation, and
House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., last week voiced resistance to McCain's
approach, calling instead for a narrower bill that targets drug use as well
as teen smoking.

On "Face the Nation," Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota
accused Gingrich and other critics of the tough legislation of bowing to
the tobacco industry, which has long favored Republicans in its generous
campaign contributions.

But he also praised the "courage" of McCain and other Republicans behind
comprehensive legislation and predicted that "there will be a tobacco deal
this year."