Source: Washington Post (DC) Contact: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ Copyright: 1998 The Washington Post Company Pubdate: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 Author: Saundra Torry TOBACCO'S LOBBYING OUTLAYS SOARED IN '98 Public Citizen Says $43 Million Was Spent, Much of It Fighting Anti-Smoking Bill The tobacco industry spent more than $43 million on lobbying in the first half of this year -- 23 percent more than in all of 1997 -- much of it to kill a national tobacco bill championed by public health groups and the White House, according to a report released yesterday by Public Citizen, which favored the bill. More than $18 million of Big Tobacco's expenditures went to outside lobbying firms, with the largest chunk -- about $7.2 million -- going to the D.C. law firm of Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand, where former Senate majority leader George J. Mitchell and former Texas governor Ann Richards worked on the tobacco issue. The huge lobbying outlays -- nearly three times what the industry spent in the first half of last year -- "put the voice, the message and the pressure of the tobacco industry way ahead of the citizen," said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, a Washington-based interest group founded by Ralph Nader. The industry defeated the tobacco bill with a combination of "enormous campaign contributions" to gain access to lawmakers, high-priced lobbyists and an unprecedented advertising campaign, she said. Scott Williams, a tobacco industry spokesman, said he could not comment on the validity of Public Citizen's report, but added, that "the industry was facing possibly the largest excise tax increase on a consumer product in the history of the country. If the public health community faced a threat of equal magnitude, it would make every effort to exercise its right to communicate its views with the government and the public." According to Public Citizen, the industry "besieged the Capitol with 192 lobbyists," about "one for every three members of Congress." The team drew on "powerful insiders," including Mitchell (D-Maine), former Senate majority leader Howard H. Baker Jr. (R-Tenn.), former Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour and former lawmakers Stanford Parris (R-Va.) and Charlie Rose (D-N.C.). It also included at least 18 former congressional staffers. That behind-the-scenes campaign came as the industry mounted a $40 million national advertising blitz to defeat the tobacco bill, which would have imposed major restrictions on the industry, as well as a $1.10 per pack price increase over five years. The industry, which initially championed national legislation, quickly turned against it in April, after a Senate committee fashioned a bill with the huge price increase and almost none of the legal protections the industry sought. Public Citizen said it culled its information from public lobbying reports filed with Congress by six major tobacco companies, three tobacco trade groups and outside lobbying firms they employed. According to the group's report, Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., which spent $1.7 million in the first half of 1997, spent $18.2 million in the same period this year, topping the other major tobacco companies, including Philip Morris Cos. and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. "I'm not sure what the amount of money cited includes," said Mark Smith, a Brown & Williamson spokesman, adding that in 1998 the company was facing major legislation that "would have gone a long way toward decimating our business." The report said the leading tobacco companies banded together to hire Verner, Liipfert and three other influential law and lobbying firms: Baker, Donelson, Bearman & Caldwell, which was paid $1.4 million; Covington & Burling, which was paid $880,000; and Barbour, Griffith & Rogers, which received about $860,000. The public lobbying reports provide estimates and do not break out how much money was spent on specific issues. - --- Checked-by: Don Beck