But Paul Smalera, writing in Slate this week, has another approach to the legislation that’s worth a look.

First, he points out, the bill acknowledges the dangers of nicotine but prohibits a ban on the drug. Second, flavored tobaccos are banned, except for menthol cigarettes, which just happen to be favored disproportionately by African-Americans. Third, the bill makes it nearly impossible for tobacco companies to introduce new products, all but solidifying the market-share advantages enjoyed by industry giants today. And fourth, the nation’s largest tobacco company (i.e. market-share leader) is a proud cheerleader for the bill.

Money quote:

“It is a dream come true for Philip Morris,” Michael Siegel, a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, told me. “First, they make it look like they are a reformed company which really cares about reducing the toll of cigarettes and protecting the public’s health; and second, they protect their domination of the market and make it impossible for potentially competitive products to enter the market.” Other tobacco companies have taken to calling the bill the “Marlboro Monopoly Act of 2009.”

It’s the ole “do-you-take-a-half-loaf-or-nothing” question. (And if you like it here, you’re gonna love the looming health reform debate.) But Smalera has a few words about that as well.

“Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good,” has been the old saw the administration uses to admonish interest groups dissatisfied with compromise legislation. But opponents of this bill on both sides are asking, What’s the enemy of terrible? Isn’t it this bill, which is racist, protectionist, cynical, and misguided?

And, he adds, soon to be law.

Today marks an historic culmination of a more than 20 year journey to provide the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) urgently needed regulatory control over the tobacco industry. This long overdue legislation will protect kids and reduce the terrible human and financial burden caused by tobacco use in this country.

That’s getting ready to change. The Senate on Wednesday killed a GOP filibuster of legislation empowering the FDA to oversee the marketing, manufacture and sale of tobacco products like cigarettes, chew and snuff. The vote was 67 to 30, with North Carolina Democrat Kay Hagan the only Democrat voting with GOP leaders to kill the measure.

Final passage is expected Thursday.

The House passed a similar proposal in April, and President Obama supports the bill, meaning it’s only a matter of time before the changes become law. The legislation will force the tobacco companies to disclose the ingredients of their products, grants the FDA the authority to pare back harmful ingredients like nicotine, and prohibits tobacco advertising near schools.

Bill sponsor Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), under treatment for incurable brain cancer, missed the vote.

“What we should be doing is banning tobacco,” Coburn said in a recent Senate floor speech he gave during a debate on a tobacco regulation bill. “Nobody up here has the courage to do that. It is a big business. There are millions of Americans who are addicted to nicotine. And even if they are not addicted to the nicotine, they are addicted to the habit.”

The Senate this week took up legislation, already passed by the House, to empower the Food and Drug Administration to oversee the tobacco industry. Many Republicans are opposed to the bill, arguing that it would cripple the industry and eliminate jobs vital to certain states. But Coburn, a physician, is opposed for different reasons.

Coburn made his case against the bill because he said it would send a mixed message to the FDA, which is charged with ensuring the safety of food and drugs. Coburn’s argument is that there’s nothing safe about tobacco and that it would make more sense for the Drug Enforcement Administration or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to regulate it.

The Senate is expected to pass the bill next week, and President Obama has indicated he’ll sign it into law.

Roll Call (subsription only) points out that the measure has forced an odd political alliance between freshman Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan (N.C.) and a long-time foe.

Not only is she likely to be the only Democrat to oppose the bill, she will also be fighting side by side with Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who campaigned hard to prevent her election last fall.

“I will not stand idly by while the [Food and Drug Administration] is put in charge of such a critical industry to North Carolina,” said Hagan, who believes the bill amounts to a de facto ban on tobacco products.

To be clear, the bill is not a ban on tobacco products. Instead, it would authorize the FDA to restrict marketing tactics and force tobacco companies to disclose the ingredients in their products. It would also empower the agency to place limits on ingredients found to be harmful, including nicotine.

No doubt that would threaten some jobs in tobacco country. The question is, are they worth protecting an industry estimated to kill 400,000 Americans each year?

House lawmakers took a step today to change that, passing legislation placing tobacco products under the regulatory eye of the FDA. But as evidence of just how slowly Washington works (and how powerful industries can be), the fate of the bill is uncertain in the Senate, where some regional protectionists have vowed to kill it.

The New York Times describes the bill:

As passed by the House the legislation would set up a new F.D.A. office, financed by industry fees, with powers to restrict harmful chemicals in existing tobacco products — including nicotine and possibly, after further study, menthol. The F.D.A. would also be empowered to approve or reject new tobacco products and to expand marketing restrictions and warning labels.

Among the changes, the bill would prohibit tobacco ads within 1,000 feet of schools and require companies to disclose the ingredients of their products. The FDA would not have the power to eliminate tobacco products outright.

A decade ago, the FDA tried to regulate tobacco, but the Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that Congress must specifically empower the agency to monitor the industry. Bill sponsor Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who now heads the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has been trying to do just that for years.

He’s almost there. President Obama supports the bill. The only potential deal-killer could come in the Senate, where North Carolina GOP Sen. Richard Burr has vowed a filibuster, The Times reports.

Is it 2009 or 1709? How the Senate votes will give us the answer.

The tobacco industry is fighting a lonely battle against health insurance for poor kids.

A coalition of tobacco industry groups ran a full-page ad in the influential Capitol Hill newspaper, Roll Call, on Monday warning President-elect Barack Obama that a proposed tobacco tax hike to cover the expansion of the popular State Child Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) would be an “economic disaster.”

The ad is sponsored by the National Association of Tobacco Outlets (NATO), the American Wholesalers and Manufacturers Association (AWMA), and the Southern Association of Wholesale Distributors (SAWD), which claim, jointly, to represent the employees of tobacco sellers, wholesalers, and manufacturers. [To view full-sized ad, click on thumbnail, above.]

Congressional Democrats hope to score an early victory by passing an SCHIP expansion. The bill is expected to face vote in the House and a markup in the Senate Finance Committee this week. The legislation will reauthorize the program before it expires on March 31.

The expansion of the SCHIP rolls would be funded with a tobacco tax hike. The size of the proposed increase hasn’t been officially announced, but an earlier version of the bill vetoed by president Bush in 2007 would have added 61 cents to the price of a package of cigarettes–an extra $222.65 per year for a pack-a-day smoker.

The ad in Roll Call asserts, without supporting evidence, that the tobacco tax would cause “economic and employment devastation” by putting more than 117,000 tobacco industry workers, such as convenience store clerks, warehouse workers, and tobacco farmers out of work.

However, a $35 billion expansion program to cover an additional 4 million people could create at least that many new jobs, if the money were spent on expanding public programs like Medicaid, according, at least, to one advocate for expanding SCHIP.

“If the bulk of that spending were going into Medicaid, I can imagine that something on that order jobs could result.” said Michael Lighty, Director of Public Policy for the California Nurses Association.

The greatest job growth from an SCHIP expansion would be expected in those states that put the money directly into private programs like Medicaid, as opposed to private health insurance programs, Lighty explained.

Opponents of the tax increase, like Big Tobacco, argue that increasing cigarette taxes burdens the poor disproportionately because lower income people are more likely to smoke. However, by the same token, lower income Americans will disproportionately benefit from both reduced tobacco consumption and expanded health insurance coverage for poor children. Plans vary, but private health insurance for one child typically costs more than $223 per year. So, even families with smoking parents could easily come out ahead if they get healthcare for their kids, despite paying more per pack of cigarettes, explains Ron Pollack, Executive Director of Families USA, a national consumer health organization that supports the plan to expand SCHIP with tobacco taxes.

SCHIP serves the children of America’s working poor–kids whose parents make too much to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to afford private health insurance. Currently, about 6 million children are covered by SCHIP. The proposed expansion would relax eligibility standards to cover an additional 4 million children, according to Pollack.

The proposed expansion is popular with Democratic legislators, unions, pharmaceutical and insurance trade groups, physicians, and the general public. Even some moderate Republicans support the plan. An earlier version of the legislation passed Congress in 2007 only to be vetoed by President Bush.

The rhetoric in the Roll Call ad suggests that the prospect of a Democratic president is making the tobacco industry very nervous. This time, when the SCHIP bill reaches the oval office, George Bush won’t be there to veto it.