Second tobacco try

Though it defeated a Senate bill that would have cost $516 billion, the tobacco industry did not defeat the reason it began negotiations that led to the bill. The threat of state lawsuits keeps cigarette manufacturers at the bargaining table and is the best reason for Congress to stay involved.

Big Tobbaco already has spent a total of $36 billion to settle lawsuits in Mississippi, Florida, Texas and Minnesota. It has more pending in Washington, New York, California and Colorado. Eventually every state except those that grow tobacco will sue for its share, costing far more than the $369 billion that 40 state attorneys general were once willing to settle for.

The deal this time is said to be simpler. Tobacco is rumored to be offering between $200 billion and $240 billion, with no cut for the federal government, no regulation of nicotine and no lawsuit liability caps in the event of suits brought by municipalities, insurers or individuals. That is, a settlement would solve little except state budgetary shortfalls in health care.

That’s why Congress should try again. The Senate already knows that the ultimate proposal by Sen. John McCain lacks the votes it needs. But another, proposal — which started out tougher but ended as more modest that Sen.s McCain’s bill — might look much better now than it did when introduced in the spring. Called the KIDS Act, it was sponsored by Sens. John Chaffee, Tom Harkin and Bob Graham. Some of its provisions were rolled into the McCain proposal to toughen it up, but that was before the Senate overreached and removed Tobacco’s liability caps and raised the provisions for penalizing companies that did not make adequate reduction in teen smoking.

By the end, the McCain proposal was stricter in some areas than the KIDS Act. Big Tobacco disliked the final product so much it spent more than $30 million to advertize it as a tax-and-spend measure and defeat it. A provision that restores — at a fair level — measures such as a cap on liabilities, could get national-level talks started again.

The Senate embarrassed itself when it failed to pass a bill this spring. But the tobacco industry has the same incentives for a federal solution now as it did when this started and teens still are picking up the habit. It’s time for Congress to try again.