SENATORS TRADE PLEDGES ON TOBACCO

Hatch and McCain, Authors of Competing Bills, Agree to Cooperate

The proposed national tobacco settlement picked up some momentum yesterday
as key Senate Republicans inched closer together in trying to fashion a
comprehensive measure on the divisive issue.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) exchanged public
promises of cooperation yesterday with Commerce Committee Chairman John
McCain (R-Ariz.) as Hatch testified before McCain's committee. Both
senators have introduced comprehensive tobacco measures, which have been
viewed as competing vehicles.

Those pushing for congressional passage of a tobacco deal viewed the
fledgling alliance as hopeful. "Republicans have finally gotten organized,
and the prospects [for approval] are greatly enhanced," said Washington
lawyer John Coale, one of the proposed settlement's architects. Wall Street
tobacco analyst Gary Black said that Hatch's "anti-tobacco stance and focus
on kids' issues adds credibility" to any Republican bill.

There were other signs of movement, too. McCain, often critical of
President Clinton for failing to send Congress a tobacco bill, said he was
pleased that the White House was working to answer a list of 80 questions
on the issue he posed earlier this month. White House domestic policy
adviser Bruce Reed said he was heartened by the Hatch-McCain cooperation,
and he'd be glad "to sit down anywhere, anytime, with anyone who is serious
about passing comprehensive legislation."

The number of senators who have not expressed interest in passing some type
of tobacco legislation was dwindling to a minority. Twenty-eight Democratic
senators have signed as co-sponsors of a bill introduced by Sen. Kent
Conrad (D-N.D.), while Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), John H. Chafee (R-R.I.)
and Bob Graham (D-Fla.) are working to put together a bipartisan measure.

Both McCain and Sen. James M. Jeffords (R-Vt.), chairman of the Labor and
Human Resources Committee, have scheduled committee markups, where
legislation is prepared for the floor, next month on various aspects of a
tobacco bill.

Still, daunting challenges remain. According to one Republican Senate aide,
cooperation "doesn't eliminate the problems we are all suffering from: What
do people want to do, where do you go and how do you get there?"

Those divisions were underscored yesterday as McCain's committee focused on
the protections from mass lawsuits the industry is seeking in exchange for
paying $368 billion and agreeing to broad restrictions on marketing and
advertising.

Many Democrats and public health advocates vehemently oppose those limits,
insisting the beleaguered tobacco industry is in no position to dictate terms.

But Hatch testified that those provisions were the trade-off that made the
deal possible. And several witnesses warned that Congress cannot impose the
broad advertising restrictions -- which are a key to cutting underage
smoking -- without the tobacco industry's agreement because they might well
be declared unconstitutional.

The issue also has divided the ranks of plaintiffs' trial lawyers, one of
Washington's most powerful lobbies.

Cincinnati trial lawyer Stanley Chesley, representing the settlement's
architects, said that under the proposed deal, the industry would pay $60
billion in punitive damages and provide $5 billion a year to pay future
claims. Given the unsuccessful track record of those suing the industry, he
said, this would represent "a major victory" over the industry.

But Eugene I. Pavalon, former president of the Association of Trial Lawyers
of America, argued that the restrictions would make the task of suing the
industry "almost insurmountable," depriving thousands of victims of
smoking-related diseases of their rights in court. The future success of
lawsuits shouldn't be judged by the past, he said, because the release of
thousands of secret, damaging industry documents "has dramatically changed
the landscape" for tobacco litigation.

© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company