programs, shouldn't be recycled through the financial system. it should be repaid to taxpayer by refusing the debt of the united states. that is the only reasonable way to approach it and it would be a tremendously strong signal, not only to the american taxpayers, if this administration is serious about doing something on the debt side, but it would be a tremendously strong signal for the world markets that we were willing, as a nation, to take this money and pay down the debt. and, ironically, it would also follow the proposal of the original tarp bill which said that after the financial system was stablized, any moneys coming in should be used to reduce the deficit and the debt -- the debt of the united states. it certainly shouldn't be used to fund new ventures into the private sector whether they be buying automobile companies or insurance companies or anything else.

it should be simply used to reduce the debt. and i hope the administration will do that because that would follow the law, that would be a good sign for the world markets. who are becoming suspicious of our debt as we have seen in a number of instances, for example, the cost of 10-year bills, 30-year bills and also the fact that the chinese leadership in the financial area has expressed concern about purchase of long-term debt in the united states. and it would be a positive sign to americans. that we're going to do something about this debt that we're passing on our to kids. it's unfair to run up $1 trillion a year of deficit, double the debt in five years and triple it in 10 years and send all of those bills to our kids. these young students who are here today as pages in 10 years will find that the household that they're living in has a new $130,000 mortgage ton. it's called the bill -- ton. it's called the bill of the

federal debt. they'll have a new $6,500 interest payment this they will have to make. that is the interest they will have to support on the debt. it is not appropriate that we have to do that to these younger americans and to the next generation much so let's take the $65 billion and use it as it was originally agreed it would be used, which is when it came back into the treasury with interest, which is pretty good, to be used to pay down the debt. why am i suspicious that this administration is giving us lip service on the fiscal issue and the issue of the debt. it is the second thing that happened today that raise that's suspicion, than is the fact that the president today came out and held a big press conference about how he was for pay-go. i have not heard a democratic candidate for congress, and now the president of the united states, not claim that they're going to exercise fiscal discipline around here by being

for pay go it has motherhood implications, that you're going to pay for what you do around here. well, it's total hypocrisy. it is inconsistent with everything has happened -- that's happened from the other side of the aisle. not only do they not support pay-go, they punch holes in what we presently have for our pay-go laws. in the last tw 2 1/2 years this congress and now in the last three months, four months, five months, this presidency have passed democratically controlled have passed 10 bills which have waived or gained the pay-go rules that are already on the books -- already on the books to the tune of $882 billion. and if you flow the things they wanted to do that they weren't able to pass because we on our side of the aisle said, no, that's too much -- we did it on the rest too.

we just got rolled. over $1 trillion of instances where this congress and this president have asked for initiatives that would waive, punch holes in, go around the pay-go rules, which we already have. that's why i called it swiss cheese go, not pay-go. and now we have this disingenuous statement from the administration that suddenly they're for pay go pay-go exist, we just don't enforce it around here. not only are they -- do they claim they're for pay-go, but even in their statement that they're claiming for their pay-go, they claim their own pay-go proposal, saying that their pay-go won't apply to the a.m.t. fix and it is not going to apply as it should historically should apply to the health care exercise. there should be a pay-go order against the first five years and they waived that against health care reform. so it's a good press event.

it will be picked up by the mainstream media as an effort by this administration to try to discipline spending. because, of course, they're not going to acknowledge the fact that it has been gained to such an extraordinary extent that over $882 billion has been spent that should have been subject to pay-go rules. and, so, it really is a touch inconsistent and disingenuous for them to suddenly now find -- find the faith of pay-go when, in fact, they've been ignoring the pay-go rules and gaming the pay-go rules so that they could spend money and, again, what happens there? run up the debt of the united states. run up the debt on the american people. create a system where our government will not be sustainable or affordable for our children. so if this administration really wants to do something that's meaningful in the area of rediewtsing the debt and

controlling spending, take th the $65 billion they're about to get in repayment of tarp money from the various banks and apply it to reduce the debt. that would be real action as versus a press event. mr. president, i yield the floor, and appreciate the courtesy of the senator from north carolina. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. burr: mr. president, i ask

unanimous consent to speak for up to an hour as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. burr: i thank the president. mr. president, i came to the floor last week for north of 95 hours an spoke about the bill that -- -- and spoke about the bill that will be disposed of as this week goes on. and specifically an amendment that though nongermane postcloture, the majority leader has agreed to hold a vote on it. to me this will be one of the most important votes members in this body cast this year. let me say this again. i believe this is one of the most important votes members in the united states senate will cast this year. now, let me try to say. why this is a debate about the regulation of tobacco. and to start with members need

to be reminded that this is not an industry without regulation today. this is the current chart of federal regulation of the tobacco industry before we do anything. and i might point out that included in that regulation -- regulatory structure is the department of transportation, department of treasury, department of commerce, the department of justice, the office of the president, the department of health and human services, the department of education, the department of labor, general services administration, the department of veterans' affairs, the federal trade commission, the department of agriculture, the environmental protection agency, the u.s. postal service, the department of defense. one, no member can come to the floor and claim that this is not a regulated product. it is the most regulated product sold in america today. but i think there is consensus, and i agree, that we can do better than this maze of regulatory oversight and

jurisdiction that's currently structured within the federal government. because it's been hobbled together as the federal government has grown. as new areas saw that they had a piece of this pie and they wanted some jurisdiction. so what we're doing is throwing this regulatory structure away. and the proposal in the base bill, h.r. 1256 is to centralize this regulation of tobacco within the food and drug administration. now, for those that aren't familiar with the food and drug administration, let me just say the food and drug administration regulates 25 cents of every dollar of the u.s. economy. 25% of all of the products sold in the united states are regulated by this one agency. the f.d.a.'s core mission is this: they're responsible for protecting the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biologic products, medical devices, our

nation's food supplies, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation. nowhere in there does it say tobacco, nor has it ever. as a matter of fact to lay person they would look at it and say: if there's an agency that's responsibility is to prove safety and effectiveness, for god's sake, you couldn't give them tobacco because they could never prove tobacco is safe. it kills. there's no dispute on that. but we're trying to take a round -- a round peg and put in a square hole. we're trying to find an agency that we think has punitive steps that they can take, but we're actually going much further than that. you see, not only is there experience or expertise at the f.d.a. to regulate tobacco, they're not. we're going to ask the f.d.a. to surge with their resource, with their personnel, with their

expertise away from things like lifesaving drugs, effective medical devices, a responsibility to food safety at a time that americans have been killed because this agency couldn't effectively do their job. and we're going to ask them to surge to handle a new product that they've never, ever regulated. as a matter of fact, the last f.d.a. commissioner son esheboch said this and i quote -- "the provisions in this bill -- and i might say this was slightly over two years ago, but as i pointed out as i talked last week for five hours on h.r. 1256, the authors of the bill didn't change the dates in the bill from the bill written two years ago. as a matter of fact, the section by section is the same bill that was written 10 years ago. so i think it's appropriate in

they're going to use an effective date of february of 2007, that i use the comments of the f.d.a. commissioner at the time. and he said: the provisions in this bill were to require substantial resources in the f.d.a. -- and the f.d.a. may not be in a position to meet all of the activities within the proposed user fee levels. as a consequence of this, f.d.a. may have to divert funds from other programs, such as, addressing the safety of drugs, food, to begin to implement this program. this is not richard burr. this is the former commissioner of the f.d.a. saying that we may have to divert funds from other programs, such as, safety of drugs, food. you know, if the american people are given this choice, they would say uphold the gold standard of the food and drug administration. let me go to bed at night as i take that medication that my doctor prescribed and my pharmacist filled, and let me

feel confident that the most qualified reviewer looked at that application, that they looked at the clinical trial data, that they made a determination that this drug was safe and effective for me. make sure that when i go to the grocery store and i buy food in a global marketplace where those melons might have come from chile or that spinach might have come from mexico, that they have the best and the brightest addressing food safety. well, they've already flunked that several times just in the last three years and we all dealt with the consequences of it. but think about what we're getting ready to do. we're getting ready to make it worse. we're getting ready to take an agency that has a seal of approval, a gold standard and we're getting ready to say: ok, we want you to maintain that gold standard on drugs and food and biologics and medical

devices, but we understand that you can't hold tobacco to the same threshold. we want you to ignore the fact that tobacco kills and we just want you to regulate as we prescribe it in legislation. now, how is that? how does 1256 prescribe this in regulation? let me turn to this. it is called my continuum of risk. and it basically starts to my right, your left, mr. president, and it has nonfilterred cigarettes. and you remember those. nonfiltered cigarettes had a risk of 100%. if you smoked them, there was 100% likelihood that you would have a health problem from smoking them. then all of a sudden the industry came up with something called filtered cigarettes. and filtered cigarettes reduced the risk by 10%. they reduced it from 100% to 90%. but when one's looking for a way

to play this, a 90% risk is not a good one. what 1256 says is, ok we realize that the f.d.a.'s not the right agency, but we're going to place this in there anyway and we're going to tell the f.d.a., we want you to leave this alone. we don't want you to touch this 100% risk or 90% risk. we want to grandfather all of the prod ucts that were made -- products that were made before january of 2007, and, by the way, that would include u.s. smokeless tobacco over here. the most risky that we're grandfathering in and we're saying to the f.d.a., you can't change it. you can't regulate it. you can't regulate the 100%. you can't regulate the 90%. and you can't regulate the small, but growing u.s. market, that has a risk of 10%. one might look at the chart and

say there are other things in here, electronic cigarettes, tobacco heated cigarettes, swedish smokeless snus, there is dissolvable, other products that have less risk. all of those products, february of 2007, those products weren't on the marketplace, they're bad. they're eliminated. so what are we asking the f.d.a. to do? we're asking the f.d.a. to grandfather three categories of products and let all adults who choose to use a tobacco product choose from the most risky categories. and what are we saying to the 40 million americans that smoke today? if you're in in category of using cigarettes, we're not going to give you any options as to what you turn to as you realize that's the -- not the best thing for your health. we're going to lock you in and hope that it kills you fast so

our health care costs goes down. any claim -- any claim -- that h.r. 1256 reduces the cost of health care is only because we have grandfathered in spokers that they will die sooner. not that we have allowed them a pathway through this bill to ever experience not only products that are currently on the marketplace that reduce the risk from 100% to as little as 1%, but we have completely eliminated any additional innovation in product in the future that would allow somebody to get from 100% to 1% and actually be a healthier american. mr. president, i'm not to the -- i'm not on the floor today suggesting that regulation's not in order. it is in order. and at 4:20 today, members of

the united states senate will have an opportunity to vote on a substitute amendment, a substitute amendment that has several changes from this current bill. one, it doesn't centralize the jurisdiction in the f.d.a. it creates under the secretary of health and human services a new agency called the harm reduction center. and its s sole job is to regulae tobacco, and it regulates tobacco more specifically than does the f.d.a. under 1256. but what it does allow is it does allow the development of new products that might encourage individuals to give up smoking and to turn to products that are less harmful. mr. president, here's a list of the organizations that support

tobacco harm reduction. the american association of public health physicians 2008. the world health organization 2008. the institute of medicine, 2001. the american council of science and health, 2006. the new zealand health technology assessment, 2007. the rural college of physicians, 2002, 2007. life science research office, 2008. strategic dialogue on tobacco harm reduction group, 2009. this year. there are people around the world talking about reducing harm except in the united states senate. as a matter of fact, we don't need to look far across the pond where we find sweden. during the past 25 years, swedish men showed noticeable reductions in smoking-related disease. decline in lung cancer incidence rate to the lowest of any developed country.

no detectable increase in oral cancer rates. improvement in cardiovascular health. tobacco-related mortality in sweden is among the lowest in the developed world. why? every member of this congress should ask: why? because the sponsors of this bill have said, this is what we're trying to do in the united states. so how did sweden do it? well, it's very simple, mr. chairman -- mr. president. sweden did it by allowing these products to come to market. as a matter of fact, swedish smokeless snoose is currently on the market in the united states. i'm not going to tell you the market share is big but i can tell you this, the risk of death or disease is less than 2%. but under h.r. 1256, which the senate may or may not adopt this

afternoon, what we would do is we would eliminate swedish snoose and we would lock smokers into the categories that are currently on the market. all because of an arbitrary february 2007 date because somebody was too lazy to change the bill. think about that. that we would take something that sweden found over 25 years had been an incentive get people f of cigarettes and move towards other products to the degree -- to the degree that in sweden they had a decline in lung cancer. they had no detectable increase in oral cancer. they had an improvement in cardiovascular health. the tobacco-related mortality in sweden among the lowest in the developing world. why is that? because the authors of h.r. 1256 suggest that new product innovation can happen.

and i would tell you that there are three thresholds that one has to meet for new products to come on the market. i won't talk about the first two. i'll focus on the third one. the third one is this: that to have a product approved to be placed on the market, a company has to prove that a nontobacco user is no more likely to use that new product if that product is available. and then it goes on to say in great congressional form that unless you've got an application that's been approved, you can't engage the public on a product that hasn't been improved. so how does one do a clinical study that proves to the f.d.a. that no american is more likely to use tobacco on a product that

wasn't on the marketplace if, in fact, you can't talk to them about the product until it's approved. it's a catch-22. mr. president, the authors of this bill knew exactly what they were doing. let me say it again. the authors of this bill knew exactly what they were doing. what's changed over the weekend since i was out here for five hours-plus last week? public health experts arnold thd the country are beginning to read the bill, and they're beginning to go, oh, my gosh, do not pass, this this is a huge mistake. as a matter of fact, i'll get into it in a little while. i've got plenty of time that i'm going to spend on it. but understand that -- mr. president, there are only three reasons that we would consider new additional regulation: to reduce the rate

of disease and death, and to reduce the prevalence of youth to access of tobacco products and specifically smoking. now, i know the president heard me say this last week. this is my chart of 50 states, and in 1998, the tobacco industry with settlement to states called the master settlement agreement, m.s.a. and in that agreement, they committed $280 billion to defray the costs of health care for the states -- specifically tir medicaid costs -- and also provided money to make sure that they could have programs, cessation programs to get people to quit smoking and to make sure that youth access, youth prevalence went down. so these are the c.d.c. levels for last year. and i might say that the c.d.c.

makes a recommendation to every state at the beginning of the year as to how much they should spend on programs that encourage youth not to smoke. i'm just going to pull randomly a few states. connecticut -- of the c.d.c. recommendation, connecticut cont spent 18.9% of what. c.d.c. recommended. 21% of the youth in connecticut have a prevalence of smoking. 23.2% of the youth in connecticut have a prevalence of marijuana usage. the president's own state, illinois, of the c.d.c. recommendation of what illinois spends on youth prevention, illinois spends 6.1%.

there are 19.9% of the youth that have a prevalence to smoke. there are 20.3% that have a prevalence of marijuana use. in missouri, of the c.d.c. recommendation on how much should be spent on the prevalence of youth smoking, missouri spent 3.7%. 23% of the youth have a prevalence of smoking. 19%, a prevalence of marijuana usage. i can see that the president gets where i'm going. we've constantly since 1998, with the money provided by the tobacco industry to the states, chosen to build sidewalks over promoting programs to reduce youth prevalence of smoking. and now the authors of this bill would have us suggest that by

allowing the f.d.a. to have regulation of tobacco, that the preprevalence of youth smoking s going to go down. because now we have one federal agency that will have total jurisdiction over this product. mr. president, let me just say that -- this. if that were the case, the prevalence of marijuana usage by youth would be zero, because it is illegal. there is no age limit. as a matter of fact, there's no agency need for jurisdiction because nobody in america, adult or youth, are supposed to use it. it is a myth for us to believe the authors of this bill, that by simply dumping this in the f.d.a., somehow youth prevalence of smoking goes down. it's a joke. it's a joke and the public health community has now recognized this.

well, mr. chairman -- mr. president, 1975, congress commissioned the university of michigan to track youth smoking rates. at that time, the youth smoking was at an all-time high. however, those rates started coming down and levels off around 30% all the way up to 1993. for some unknown reason at that time, youth smoking started to rise and peaked at an all-time high in 1997. 1998, 12th graders who said that they tried a cigarette in the last 30 days was approximately 36%, according to the university of michigan. congress didn't really have a good sense of why this was happening. opponents of the tobacco industry started blaming all this on the alleged manipulation of young people by tobacco manufacturers through sophisticated marketing and

advertising. well, the tobacco industry has a checkered past. i will be the first to admit that when it comes to advertising and marketing. but what i'm suggesting is that it may not have been all due to tobacco marketing. there was another trend occurring during the 1998 to 1993 period that virtually mirrored that of youth smoking, and it was the increase in illicit drugs in the united states. let me say that again. that what mirrored the trend 1993-199 8 of the increase in youth smoking was the increase of illicit drugs by teenagers and something much broader was happening among our country's young people. the senate's answer