The Post: Briefly

Tuesday, April 27, 1999

THE POST

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Briefly

THE POST

Dolores Ochoa/AP <
A woman wearing a mask and holding two crosses protests the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in front of the U.S. Embassy in Quito, Ecuador, yesterday.

Supreme Court to hear tobacco regulation case

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court stepped into a major dispute over smoking yesterday, agreeing to decide if the Food and Drug Administration can regulate tobacco and crack down on sales to minors.

The Clinton administration and the tobacco industry will square off in oral arguments this fall over the FDA's 1996 decision to start regulating tobacco. The government says the policy switch was justified by new evidence that the tobacco industry intended its products to feed consumers' nicotine habits.

A lower court threw out the rules, saying it is up to Congress - not the FDA - to make the "major policy decision'' of how to regulate cigarettes and chewing tobacco.

President Clinton released a statement saying he was pleased the court would take up the case. "Every day, 3,000 young people become regular smokers and 1,000 will have their lives cut short as a result,'' he said. "I remain firmly committed to the FDA rule, which will help stop young people from smoking before they start.''

"It will be the most important public health case the Supreme Court hears in decades,'' said David Kessler, FDA commissioner in 1996 and now dean of Yale University Medical School. "The goal is certainly to reduce the number of people who smoke, and the best way to do that is to reduce the number of young people who start.''

Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co. said it expected the Supreme Court to deny the agency the authority to regulate tobacco.
GOP faces battle over minimum wage increase

WASHINGTON - Through gritted teeth, majority Republicans in Congress are struggling for the second time in four years with potentially unstoppable demands for an increase in the minimum wage.

"I'm practical enough to know it's going to happen'' in the House, said Rep. Cass Ballenger, an ally of business who chairs a key subcommittee. "Why wait till the ax falls?'' asked the North Carolina Republican, who promises that any measure will include tax breaks or changes in labor law designed as sweeteners to business groups that oppose a wage increase.

As was the case three years ago, the ax is in the hands of minority Democrats as well as New York Rep. Jack Quinn and other moderate Republicans with ties to organized labor. They argue that the lowest-paid workers deserve a benefit from the longest expansion in American peacetime history.

The sparring begins in earnest today. A House committee has scheduled a hearing, and the invited witnesses are expected to testify that an increase in the minimum wage is not an effective way of helping workers in poverty, particularly heads of households.

Kennedy and Rep. David Bonior, D-Mich., complained yesterday that the GOP had not invited any minimum wage earners to testify.

Still, the hearing will be the first on the minimum wage since Republicans took control of the House in 1995. And the irony of a GOP Congress possibly approving its second wage increase in three years is not lost on organized labor.

Congress approved legislation in 1996 providing for a 90-cent an hour increase phased in over two years, and at GOP insistence, attached a package of tax relief for small business. This time, Kennedy and Bonior, backed by the White House, are calling for a $1 boost, to $6.15 an hour, over two years.

Scam artists exploit Year 2000 apprehension

WASHINGTON - When a caller told Betty Mason he would help make sure her credit card would work after Jan. 1, she pulled the card from her wallet and was ready to listen.

But when he asked for her credit card number and promised to send a sticker that would make the card Y2K compliant, she balked. Mason was wise, but the Federal Trade Commission fears others will lose money in this and other scams tied to fears about Year 2000 computer problems.

The problems are not limited to credit cards.

"The scams that are out there are so diverse, there is no one fix-all type of solution,'' said Norman Willox Jr., president of the National Fraud Center, a Philadelphia-based firm that focuses on fraud prevention and interdiction.