Gateway Virginia

Thursday, July 3, 1997

Allen acts to aid tobacco growers

BY MICHAEL HARDY
TimesDispatch Staff Writer

The Allen administration yesterday played catchup to try
to protect the state's largest cash crop and its workers in
congressional deliberations over a proposed $368.5 billion
settlement with leaf companies.

The administration has sided with the tobacco industry in its
fight with federal regulators, and Virginia was among 10
states that didn't help broker the farreaching deal with the
companies.

Gov. George Allen said yesterday he has created a task
force to find ways to protect Virginians from the economic
fallout that will likely result from the settlement.

The governor and the state's new attorney general argued
that the state's nonparticipation actually gave it more power
to help tobacco farmers and other Virginians whose
livelihoods depend on tobacco.

Since Virginia didn't negotiate, much less endorse, the deal,
it had maximum flexibility to fight against any damage by
the U.S. Congress that would hurt the state's economy,
Allen said.

Attorney General Richard Cullen, appointed by Allen to
the office after GOP gubernatorial candidate James S.
Gilmore III resigned a month ago, said the state is free to
lobby Congress on its own terms. Virginia can tell
Congress what it likes and dislikes about the agreement,
Cullen said.

He explained that he is dissatisfied that the agreement
ignores tobacco growers and others. For example, there is
no money in the proposed pact to help the farmers.

To put a human face on the potential damage done by
Washington to Virginians, Allen called in reporters and
made his pitch while standing next to a tobaccofarming
family from Mecklenburg County.

"All I'm asking is let us make an honest living," said Michael
Wells, who appeared at the news conference with his wife,
Pam, and daughter Jessica, 10. World demand for tobacco
is growing, he said, and "let us supply the demand."

Wells, an acquaintance of Allen's agriculture commissioner,
said later that he was asked yesterday morning to come to
Richmond and help Allen. "I voted for George Allen (in
1993) and I'd vote for him again if I could," Wells said.
The Virginia Constitution bars Allen from seeking a second
consecutive fouryear term.

Allen, who may be out of office before Congress and the
president act on the deal, said he feared that the interests of
hardworking Virginians would be ignored in Washington.
Allen's term expires next January.

He established a task force to develop proposals that
would help buffer the tobacco work force, from farmers to
dock workers, from the potential damage of Washington
wheeling and dealing over the settlement. Joining Cullen on
the panel will be state Commerce Secretary Robert T.
Skunda and Transportation Secretary Robert E. Martinez.

"It is imperative that Virginia's economic interests are
represented as the issue is settled in the Congress," Allen
said. It is essential that the state's congressional delegation
be kept apprised of the importance of tobacco to
Virginians, he said.

He emphasized that he wholeheartedly agreed with the
pact's attempts to bolster the battle against tobacco sales
to teenagers. He also applauded its proposed equitable
distribution to all states of their fair share of Medicaid
reimbursements.

Tobacco touches the lives and wallets of about 128,000
Virginians who work directly or indirectly in the industry.
Last year, farm cash receipts from tobacco totaled $186
million. Virginia is the nation's second biggest tobacco
manufacturer and the Hampton Roads ports are the largest
U.S. exporter of tobacco. Tobacco accounts for 27
percent of the volume at the Port of Richmond.

Some questioned whether Allen may be doing too little, too
late.

Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer Jr., the Democratic candidate
for governor, declared, "We should have made this kind of
effort in April when (Attorney General) Jim Gilmore had
the opportunity to represent Virginia's interests in the talks
and refused to."

Like Gilmore, Beyer opposed the state filing a lawsuit
against tobacco companies, but the Democrat supports the
Clinton administration's regulation of nicotine.

The formation of the task force, "even at the eleventh
hour," makes sense, Beyer said, but it should include a
health official to represent children and an agriculture
official to work with growers. It "would also benefit from a
strong regional economic development perspective."

"We need real protections for children and real protections
for growers. It's time we had that for Virginians."

Washington state Attorney General Christine Gregoire, one
of the top negotiators in the settlement talks, told The
Associated Press that the suing states also want to protect
farmers.

"We tried to find a way to make sure there would be some
safeguards in there for farmers, but we decided to leave
that to Congress," she said.

If Congress approves any changes that significantly dilute
the agreement, she will withdraw from the pact and
proceed with her lawsuit, she said.