Convenience Stores Fight Tobacco Regs

Source from:  By: Chris Frates Sep 11, 2007 09/13/2007

Before a summer holiday weekend, convenience store chief executives usually stay close to home, ensuring their Squishee machines, gas pumps and stores run smoothly. But on the Friday before July Fourth, five CEOs trekked to Dallas to sit around Sen. John Cornyn's mahogany conference table and ask him to reconsider his proposal to allow the FDA to regulate tobacco retailers. The Republican from Texas is sponsoring a bill that would give the Food and Drug Administration sweeping authority to regulate tobacco, and the conveyers of convenience worry about giving a distant federal bureaucracy the ability to shutter their stores. During the amicable hourlong meeting, Cornyn said he would try to address the store owners' concerns, said 7-Eleven lobbyist Ronnie Volkening, who also attended the meeting. Cornyn, a former Texas attorney general and state Supreme Court justice, "was actively processing everything we were saying and sincerely looking ... to make it more fair," Volkening said. "That's all you can ask." The Cornyn meeting is only one of hundreds among players, influential lawmakers and staff that have been held this year. The fight has shaken loose well-financed and organized interests and could be one of the most interesting battles ahead on Capitol Hill. Supporters of regulation may be in the best position to win since they began their push more than a decade ago. Democrats control a Congress where advocates have signed up nearly half of the House and more than two-thirds of the Senate as bill co-sponsors. The pro-regulation crowd is flush with cash and has an active, nationwide network. Still, opponents also have rich checking accounts and lobbyists capable of blocking momentum. Add to that an autumn schedule brimming with controversial business, such as the Iraq war, that could crowd out other legislation, and the bill's passage becomes far from certain. Thanks for the reminder! Here is the code. Would you help me put it in stories? The bill would allow the FDA to regulate the ingredients of tobacco products and would require larger warning labels and would limit some advertising to text only. A coalition of national public health and anti-smoking groups has teamed up to combine their volunteer networks and resources to run a major media, lobbying and grass-roots campaign replete with everything from phone banks to polling. Even the nation's largest cigarette manufacturer, Philip Morris USA, supports the legislation, though almost everyone is questioning the Marlboro maker's motives. Philip Morris' top two rivals say the company supports the legislation because the proposed advertising restrictions would limit competition and cement its position as the nation's dominant cigarette manufacturer. Some public health supporters believe Philip Morris is using reverse psychology, in hopes that its support raises questions about the bill's effectiveness. (Philip Morris declined to comment for this story.) Philip Morris is not part of the health coalition pushing for the bill's passage, said Steven Weiss, spokesman for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. His group has teamed with the American Lung Association, the American Heart Association and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. The groups' officials hold regular strategy meetings and often lobby lawmakers together. They've crafted a single message, and they stick to it: FDA regulation of tobacco would save lives. Tobacco is the "only consumer product, if used directly as advised by the manufacturer, it will kill you," said ACS lobbyist Dick Woodruff. "This legislation pretty much says this product will kill you and puts it all over the pack." As passed by the Senate health committee, the bill would require cigarette manufacturers to print a warning on cigarettes that takes up at least half the pack. The cancer society has at least four lobbyists and up to eight support staffers pushing the bill. The organization has also been running full-page ads in two Capitol Hill publications regularly since March, Weiss said. In August, the group ran ads that targeted lawmakers in seven states and urged constituents to contact legislators through a toll-free number. Those phone calls came through the group's call center, where operators patch callers through to their state's lawmakers. The operators also make outgoing calls asking volunteers to contact their lawmakers. Public health supporters say the bill will pass and point to the 53 Senate and 196 House co-sponsors as proof. They also say they have the 60 votes needed to force a vote on the Senate floor. But they worry the bill will get sidelined by the packed congressional schedule. To combat a delay, supporters mounted an aggressive August outreach aimed at meeting with 151 legislators in their home states to push for action this year. "It's important that they hear about it when they go home from their constituents - nothing like hearing from the voters," Woodruff said. And on Sept. 25, 485 advocates are expected to descend on Washington for the group's annual lobby day. Some of the heart association's 200,000 members hit lawmakers with thousands of e-mails and hundreds of phone calls. The group's volunteers have joined their coalition partners to support Cornyn during a Houston press conference, too. The association has also done some inside-the-Beltway advertising and has more than 100 staffers working the issue across the country. To help bring its far-flung staff up to speed, the group also produced a 10-minute webcast featuring volunteer Gerry Schwab. Schwab was a successful, overstressed, 34-year-old bank vice president smoking two packs a day when he suffered a heart attack that wiped out 30 percent of his heart muscle. Now 57 and forced by cardiovascular disease into early retirement 10 years ago, the New Jersey resident volunteers on behalf of the heart association. He has lobbied his entire state's congressional delegation and in May met with Democratic Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg. When "you talk from your heart about what you've been through and the suffering you've been through," it has an impact that a professional lobbyist can't, Schwab said. Erin O'Neill, grass-roots director for the cancer society, put it this way: "We have a volunteer army that I don't think the opposition to this could ever match." And it isn't even trying to equal that. John Singleton, spokesman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.'s parent, Reynolds American, said there's not much grass-roots action to organize, but the company is working Capitol Hill. He and Andy Zausner, a lobbyist for Lorillard Tobacco Co., argue the bill would restrict advertising and effectively hobble their companies' ability to compete. It would limit much of tobacco advertising to black-and-white print - no pictures of hotties, cartoons or other eye-catchers. "In every country that has banned cigarette advertising, the country's dominant brand's market share has increased," Zausner said. Singleton and Zausner question whether the FDA can handle more responsibility. Zausner points to criticism the agency drew for not better protecting consumers from dangers such as tainted spinach and the pain reliever Vioxx, which was taken off the market due to heart risks. Zausner is betting the legislation will get sidelined this fall in favor of bigger issues. But if it doesn't, Lorillard is willing to spend "whatever it takes" to kill the bill, he said. In the first six months of this year, Lorillard has paid Zausner's firm more than $700,000. The National Association of Convenience Stores is also working to ensure the FDA would not have regulatory authority over the nation's 300,000 tobacco retailers. Tobacco is the No. 1 seller inside convenience stores. Store owners argue that state enforcement is working, and a provision that would allow the FDA to order a store to stop selling tobacco has store owners freaked. "It's a death sentence, and that order should be reserved for retailers that are not training their employees and doing everything they can to comply with state tobacco laws," said NACS lobbyist Lyle Beckwith. If lawmakers want to strengthen regulations, they should leave the enforcement up to the states, said Volkening. Tobacco regulation should mirror environmental protection, he said: If states don't enforce federal environmental law, the Environmental Protection Agency steps in. Store owners would also like to see tobacco sales over the Internet and on Native American reservations subject to the same regulations as in-store sales, he said. The trade group, which represents an industry of 130,000 stores, has nine lobbyists working the bill, Beckwith said. In the past six months, the team has had 60 meetings with lawmakers. Enditem