CLINTON RENEWS CALL FOR TOUGHER ANTI-TOBACCO BILL

Kentucky Trip: President planning to take his message to hostile turf

WASHINGTON (AP) - Planning to take his anti-smoking campaign straight to
the heart of tobacco country, President Clinton assured cigarette makers
Saturday that he does not want to bankrupt them even as he suggested that a
$506 billion anti-tobacco bill needed to be tougher.

"We still have work to do on this legislation. Above all, we need to put
in place tough penalties that will cost the tobacco industry if it
continues to sell cigarettes to young people," Clinton said in his weekly
radio address. It was the third time this year that he used the broadcast
to push for legislation that would stop tobacco companies from doing
business with American kids.

Anxious to have a bill on his desk before Congress leaves Washington to
campaign for re-election, Clinton will venture onto tobacco's turf to press
the issue in a speech in Kentucky on Thursday, White House officials said
Saturday.

Cigarette companies, crying potential bankrupcy, balked at legislation
approved by the Senate Commerce Committee last week that would impose
significantly higher costs and harsher penalties than the industry
negotiated in a proposed settlement with state attorneys general last June.

"We're not trying to put the tobacco companies out of business. We want to
put them out of the business of selling cigarettes to kids," Clinton said.

The Senate committee bill, primarily written by Chairman John McCain,
R-Ariz, would cost tobacco companies $506 billion over 25 years, increase
cigarette prices by $1.10 per pack by 2003 and force changes in cigarette
advertising. Government penalties for companies that continue to hook
young smokers would be capped at $3.5 billion per year; the industries
liability for damages in lawsuits would be capped at $6.5 billion per year.

An even harsher alternative, which Sen. John Chafee, R-R.I., plans to offer
on the Senate floor as amendments to the McCain bill, would exact up to $10
billion per year in those penalties that Clinton wants toughened.

Clinton said Saturday that he has been "appalled by how many chidren were
becoming addicted to cigarettes every year." He pointed to a new report by
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that said more that
one-third of American teenagers smoke, even though it is illegal for them
to buy cigarettes.

The president also used his radio broadcast to chastise the House for
taking "a step backward" on anti-drunken driving legislation and asked
lawmakers to reconsider during the 75 or so days left in this session of
Congress.

The House Rules Committee blocked a vote this week on a stricter,
nationwide standard for drunken driving. The Senate has already passed a
measure penalizing states that do not lower the legal blood-alcohol-content
limit for drinking and driving from 0.10 to 0.08 percent.