Online NewsHour: Tobacco Industry Responds -- April 9, 1998

GROWING DEBATE

April 9, 1998

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript

Following the tobacco industry's decision to fight the current Congressional legislation, President Clinton headed to Kentucky to bring the debate to tobacco's farmers.
KWAME HOLMAN: Kentucky's deep roots in tobacco farming are strong here in the century-old towns and communities perched above the Kentucky River. The hill country near the state capital of Frankfort is suited for raising cattle, horses, and tobacco but almost no other crop. Tobacco planting season still is weeks away, but Kentucky Congressman Scotty Baesler was up early last Friday to visit with a group of tobacco farmers who regularly gather at Wright's Grocery in Franklin County. Baesler, a tobacco farmer himself, speaks their language.
REP. SCOTTY BAESLER, (D) Kentucky: Everybody got their tobacco strip around here?
FARMER: I've got my strip.
REP. SCOTTY BAESLER: I got some still in the barn that's not gonna make it I don't reckon.
KWAME HOLMAN: Baesler was here to talk about the big news from Washington. A tobacco settlement bill had just cleared its first hurdle in the Senate committee, but it wasn't the settlement the giant tobacco companies agreed to last June, so even before those companies announced their opposition to the bill, Baesler knew they wouldn't go for it.
REP. SCOTTY BAESLER: The problem we're having in Washington is that they're raisin' the ante to the manufacturers from where they were going to pay about $360 billion; now they're talking about $600 [billion], and that's not going to happen.
KWAME HOLMAN: But looking beyond the cost to the tobacco companies, Baesler told the farmers there's good news in the Senate bill for them.
REP. SCOTTY BAESLER: The portion in it that's for the farmer, if we can ever get the costs of the manufacturers down to where they can live with it, to portion in for the farmers pretty good--
KWAME HOLMAN: Baesler explained the blueprint would continue the federal tobacco price support program and provide economic assistance for tobacco farmers and other workers who may lose their jobs as demand for tobacco falls. It also gives farmers the option to take a one-time payment in return for getting out of tobacco farming altogether. But these farmers hope and believe there will continue to be demand for their crop, even if efforts to curb youth smoking succeed.
REP. SCOTTY BAESLER: My biggest complaint, if you're going to raise it, let Kentuckians raise it. I don't want anybody else messing with it. We need to keep our share. And that's--you know, I don't try--it's not good for you--it's not good for young people--we need to keep ‘em off of it, but as long as we're going to raise it, I want our folks to have a little bit of it.
KWAME HOLMAN: The farmers urged Congressman Baesler to go back to Washington and protect them as best he can.
REP. SCOTTY BAESLER: --Wendell--it's hard to be another Wendell Ford. You know, he's the best politician we ever had in our life--in Kentucky's history.
KWAME HOLMAN: Wendell Ford is veteran Sen. Wendell Ford, a staunch defender of tobacco interests and especially tobacco farmers. During the creation of the tobacco settlement plan in the Senate Commerce Committee last week Ford succeeded in adding some protections for tobacco farmers and for tobacco growing communities.
SEN. WENDELL FORD, (D) Kentucky: I'm willing to support comprehensive legislation today, which goes much further than I was willing to go a few months ago. But I'm not willing to support a proposal which raises taxes unnecessarily, hurts my farmers, whether it is to punish an industry or fund new programs or offset new tax cuts.
KWAME HOLMAN: But Ford was badly outnumbered on most of his amendments. In the end, members of the Senate Commerce Committee approved a bill that increases costs and penalties for tobacco companies well above last year's agreement. And they did so on a vote of nineteen to one.
SEN. BYRON DORGAN, (D) North Dakota: This committee does not seek or need the consent of the tobacco industry to pass comprehensive tobacco legislation, or, for that matter, any other interest group in this town or this country. We ought to do the right thing. Our job is not to satisfy. It's to do the right thing.
KWAME HOLMAN: Wendell Ford will try to add to the bill more protection for his Kentucky farmers when it goes to the Senate floor, but his work here is almost done. He's retiring after 24 years in the Senate and Congressman Scotty Baesler is campaigning to take is place.
REP. SCOTTY BAESLER: If you took a vote in the Congress, nobody would want to hurt our farmers.
KWAME HOLMAN: Back at Wright's Grocery Baesler tried to reassure his farmers that the Senate bill will allow them to keep their farms and grow tobacco.
REP. SCOTTY BAESLER: The good part about it is the fact that people who want to produce tobacco will be able to produce it, and the most important part is they'll do it under a program. You'll have the same program you have right now. It won't go anyplace, which I think is important.
KWAME HOLMAN: Is there a conflict for everyone who's looking out for tobacco farmers, such as yourself, in terms of the health of Kentuckians in your district, young people especially, and the economic health of farmers, retailers, et cetera?
REP. SCOTTY BAESLER: There's a certain conflict, but I think what you've got to--I strongly support the legislation to keep young people away from it. I filed a bill with that--I think we all--there's no argument that young people shouldn't smoke, shouldn't have access to cigarettes, and so I support that. My argument is, is that Kentucky, if you're going to grow it, and it's going to be sold, which it is, then I want Kentuckians to grow it, you know. And so that's about as far as I go. I don't try to justify because it's healthy; it's not. It's addictive. I understand that, but nobody--nobody in Congress has recommended we ban it.
KWAME HOLMAN: And the other farmers want to keep growing it too.
ALBERT HUTCHERSON, Tobacco Farmer: It helps you pay your taxes and insurance and put some beans on the table. It's--it makes you survive, more or less, you know. That's what it's all about.
KWAME HOLMAN: Albert Hutcherson is 66 years old and runs about eight acres of tobacco at his farm, a plot big enough to supplement his income.
ALBERT HUTCHERSON: We'll have to wait to see what's gonna happen because ain't nobody gonna make no move till they find out what's gonna happen, you know what I mean? Would you?
JOHN CLOVER, Tobacco Farmer: I want to see it on paper, you know, that they're gonna keep the program and the government's not gonna fool with it.
KWAME HOLMAN: At his farm in Franklin County, John Clover grows about 20 acres of tobacco. Clover already has started preparing for this year's planting season, even though he has doubts he can continue making a living growing tobacco.
JOHN CLOVER: I've done committed myself to this year. You know, I'd like to see--I'd like to see the program go on forever, but, you know, I don't see it happening. I talked to a neighbor. He said, they'll always be tobacco; now whether you'll get what you want for it or not, that'll be another story. I mean, I was raised on a farm. I mean, when I was little, I lived with my grandmother and grandfather, and this is what we did; we farmed. You know, I work public work, but I still enjoy being outside.
KWAME HOLMAN: But like Congressman Scotty Baesler, John Clover does feel somewhat conflicted about growing tobacco.
KWAME HOLMAN: To what extent does it bother you that you raise a product that harms people's health?
JOHN CLOVER: It bothers me because I don't smoke. I've got a four-year-old daughter that I don't want to smoke. But it's the demand. You know, I can't raise nothin' and make this kind of money and support my farm. You know, it bothers me. You know, children shouldn't smoke. But when you tell a child somethin', they--you tell ‘em no that you can't do it, they're gonna try that much harder.
KWAME HOLMAN: Today President Clinton went to talk to tobacco farmers in nearby Caroll County, Kentucky. He said he wanted to reassure them his campaign to reduce youth smoking does not include an effort to shut down the entire tobacco industry. He repeated that point during a round table discussion inside a tobacco warehouse.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: I have no interest whatever in putting the tobacco companies out of business. I just want to get them out of the business of selling tobacco to children. And I think it's important. I think every American recognizes that the tobacco farmers have not done anything wrong. You're growing a legal crop. You're not doing the marketing of the tobacco to children. And you're doing your part as citizens.
KWAME HOLMAN: But the president got an earful from Mattie Mack. She owns a 100-acre tobacco farm with her husband. Mack said they sent their three children to college on the money made from tobacco. She also told the president tobacco farmers shouldn't be penalized because kids smoke.
MATTIE MACK, Tobacco Farmer: Now can take tobacco, I don't care if you put out 200 acres of tobacco and put it out there and just leave it alone. That tobacco ain't gonna grow by itself. We need Almighty God to send the sunshine and the rain if this tobacco is gonna grow. And that's the way it is with raisin' children. If you're gonna raise children, you've got to sit down and you have to talk to those children, and put God in ‘em, take ‘em to Sunday school and to church, and let them know this is the rules and regulations that God requires and this is what makes children grow, and this is what makes children decent senior citizens of this world. Thank you, Mr. President.
KWAME HOLMAN: President Clinton told the group he would do his dead level best to get tobacco legislation passed this year, but there is great uncertainty in Washington about what shape that legislation eventually will take. So, for now, tobacco farmers in Kentucky plan to go ahead and do what farmers here have done every spring for hundreds of years--plant tobacco.

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