Leaders Support Tobacco Proposal

Source from:  JOURNAL RALEIGH BUREAU By David Rice 06/07/2004

Buyout of federal quota not enough, health officials say Leaders of several North Carolina farm groups praise a new effort to move a buyout of federal tobacco quotas through Congress - and say they resent complaints from health advocates that the proposal doesn't do enough to protect public health. "It's been rolled into a very big, comprehensive and complex piece of legislation. We're not there yet. But we're further down the road than we have been, and that's what's important," Larry Wooten, the president of the N.C. Farm Bureau, said in a conference call yesterday with other farm leaders. To help win support for a massive corporate-tax overhaul, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., added a $9.6 billion buyout of federal tobacco quotas to the package Friday. Under the bill, those who own quo-ta - the government-issued license to grow tobacco - would get $7 a pound, and growers would get $3 a pound. Money to pay for the buyout would come from extending the scheduled expiration of a customs fee assessed at U.S. ports. With the decline of smoking and increasing reliance of cigarette-makers on imported leaf, tobacco quotas have been cut in half since 1997. And one economist has said that farmers could face another cut of 33 percent in 2005. If that happens, said Sam Crews of Oxford, the president of the Tobacco Growers' Association of North Carolina, the economic ripple effects will reach beyond farmers to equipment and fertilizer dealers, banks, volunteer fire departments and churches. "We won't have money to spend in our local economies," Crews said. As a result, said Keith Parrish, the chief executive of the National Tobacco Growers Association, "there's not security and no stability. Whatever's moving is whatever we're behind." After a tobacco buyout was added to the corporate-tax bill that includes no assessments on cigarette-makers to pay for the buyout and no regulation of the industry by the Food and Drug Administration, though, at least one health group cried foul. "It does nothing to protect public health and reduce the de-vastating toll from tobacco use on our country," William Corr, the executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said in a statement issued Friday. "It sticks taxpayers with the nearly $10 billion bill for the buyout instead of tobacco companies," he said. In addition to protecting tobacco companies from having to pay for the buyout, the group said, the legislation would let tobacco companies buy leaf more cheaply by eliminating price and production controls for tobacco. Corr called for a buyout that would give growers more money and be combined with regulation of tobacco products by the FDA - a combination that Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., says will be needed to win approval of a buyout in the U.S. Senate. Farm leaders said they didn't like the criticism from the health group. "We resent the negative comments in the initial serious effort to move this buyout bill forward," Wooten said. "The health groups, the Tobacco-Free Kids, have said they're behind the farmers as far as backing this buyout. Now's the time for them to step up instead of being obstructionist," he said. "This is not the final step. This is just the first step. We're a long way from getting the president's signature. To be pooh-poohed at the first step is not fair." The farm-group leaders all said that they would support FDA regulation of the industry if that's what it takes to win approval of a buyout. Jimmy Gentry, the president of the N.C. State Grange, said that though his group would prefer no FDA regulation of tobacco products, "we're certainly willing to concede that to get the buyout." "We really don't have a dog in that fight. It's an industry-related issue," Parrish said. "As this thing progresses, we don't know how it'll look when it comes out of conference committee," he said. "We don't really care. We want this thing to happen ... and if it takes FDA, then we're for FDA." Wooten and Parrish noted that farm leaders have not criticized legislation in the Senate that would allow FDA regulation. "You have not heard one farm leader anywhere say anything negative when FDA was introduced," Wooten said. "If FDA is added, we'll support it. FDA is not a farm issue. FDA is a manufacturers' issue. Our is-sue from Day 1 has been getting this buyout and getting it done - with FDA or without FDA." Enditem