CONGRESS NO CLOSER ON TOBACCO POLICY

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A flurry of news conferences, new bills and hearings on
Wednesday brought Congress no closer to forging a national tobacco policy
and sent the clearest signal yet of its dim prospects.

All the effort without progress reminded one lawmaker of a military slogan
referring to the scramble of a crew just before its ship is blown out of the
water.

``When in danger, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout,'' Sen.
Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., told the Senate Commerce Committee.

The political risk facing Congress this election year is that there is
popular pressure to enact a national tobacco policy that reduces teen
smoking. Congress is using as a starting point the $368 billion settlement
reached in June between tobacco companies and the state attorneys general.

``I think this Congress is going to be judged by what we finally do on this
issue,'' said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.

But fiery disputes on virtually every provision hurt the settlement's
prospects of becoming law. From whether to give tobacco companies protection
from most lawsuits, to how much to raise cigarette prices and how to use
that money, disputes are everywhere.

The tobacco industry weighed in Wednesday with a multimillion-dollar
campaign of full-page ads in major national newspapers, urging public
support for the June settlement and the legal protections it provides.

Senate leaders have tried to tame the unwieldy issue by directing Commerce
Committee Chairmen John McCain, R-Ariz., to decide which parts of a
half-dozen tobacco bills should be included in the measure that ultimately
goes to the Senate floor for a vote.

A Republican source said Assistant Senate Majority Leader Don Nickles,
R-Okla., would offer on the Senate floor an alternative to McCain's bill,
from which a compromise would be crafted.

McCain told reporters that under his stewardship, the central issues of the
debate would be whether to grant the industry lawsuit protection, how much
to raise cigarette packages and whether to fine tobacco companies if youth
smoking doesn't drop to prescribed levels.

``The follow-on is how the money is spent, what the attorneys' fees are and
what happens to the farmers,'' he said.

Making McCain king of the legislative hill produced a sometimes awkward
hearing Wednesday at which five committee chairmen and one ranking Democrat
previously assigned to come up with their own bills asked McCain to include
their proposals in his.

Rising from what several aides described as an undercurrent of resentment,
the senators provided a snapshot of the debate raging in Congress.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said the bill must
protect the industry from class action and other lawsuits if Congress
expects to cut teen smoking. Without being granted that sweetener, Hatch
said, the industry cannot be expected to give up its First Amendment rights
by steering advertising away from kids. And the courts are certain to
overturn any law Congress might pass to force tobacco companies to curb
marketing.

``I aim for a program that can be implemented now -- not litigated for
years,'' Hatch said.

But Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., the author of the Democratic tobacco bill
backed by the Clinton administration, said McCain should call the industry's
bluff. A bill without legal protections still could be sweetened by the
settlement of 40 state and local lawsuits pending against the industry.

``I believe they would sign those (agreements) in a Philadelphia minute to
get those things resolved,'' Conrad said. ``Now, they won't say that. Of
course they won't. They're negotiating.''

Meanwhile in the House, which is far behind the Senate on the tobacco issue,
Democratic Caucus Chairman Vic Fazio, D-Calif., introduced a $500 billion
companion bill to Conrad's, which is given little hope of passage because it
lacks Republican support. Nonetheless, members of the Clinton
administration appeared at Fazio's news conference to endorse it.

Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala said the administration
also would support a bill to be introduced Thursday by Sens. Bob Graham,
D-Fla., Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and John Chafee, R-R.I., that would raise the
per-pack price of cigarettes by $1.50, the biggest increase of any proposal.

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee,
meeting on the tobacco bill sponsored by Chairman James Jeffords, R-Vt.,
erupted in partisan dispute and adjourned before it could consider more than
100 amendments.