NEWS FROM….

CONGRESSMAN LANE EVANS

RANKING DEMOCRATIC MEMBER

COMMITTEE ON VETERANS AFFAIRS

    U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Washington, DC – Nationally-syndicated "Inside Report" columnist Robert D. Novak paid heed in his latest article to Congressman Lane Evans’ leadership role in turning around a recent decision in the House of Representatives that would have banned funding for a federal lawsuit to recover the $20 billion costs of caring for veterans, military retirees and others with tobacco-related illnesses. Refusing to capitulate to the tobacco industry, Evans and House colleague Henry Waxman (D-CA) defeated the Republican leadership last week by a 215-183 vote, allowing the Justice Department to proceed.

Novak, in a column contrasting the effectiveness of Evans and Waxman’s leadership with the "pitiful effort" of House Republican leaders and the tobacco lobby, noted that 55 Republicans, including members of what he terms its "Congressional establishment," supported the bipartisan Waxman-Evans amendment to let the federal suit go forward. "‘If this House is not totally beholden to the tobacco industry,’ warned Democratic Rep. Lane Evans of Illinois, ‘it would adopt this amendment.’ Frightened by the prospect of seeming to capitulate to Big Tobacco, the Republicans capitulated" to Evans and Waxman, the columnist noted.

The federal lawsuit seeks to recover billions of dollars spent by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and other federal agencies to treat tobacco-related illnesses. It has been estimated that it costs VA between $1 and $4 billion a year – as much as one dollar out of every five appropriated for veterans health care – to care for veterans with tobacco-related illnesses.

"We had terrific support from the nation’s veterans," said Evans. "They know what smoking has done not only to thousands of seriously-ill veterans, but to the fiscally strapped veterans health care system they rely on." Four major veterans’ service organizations -- AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America, and Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States -- distributed an open letter to members of Congress. Veterans made it clear throughout the various appropriations battles that they support tobacco litigation that could allow a settlement to support VA’s treatment of thousands of American veterans’ tobacco-related illnesses.

House Republican leaders initially succeeded in tying a rider to the FY 2001 VA-HUD appropriations bill to keep VA funds from being used in the federal lawsuit, though federal law permits such funding. Evans and Waxman persuaded the House to reverse itself on that measure. The House also discarded parallel riders attached to the Defense appropriation covering health care for the families of active duty service members and military retirees, and to the Department of Health and Human Services appropriation funding Medicare. GOP leaders fell back on the Justice appropriation in their final unsuccessful attempt to prevent the federal lawsuit.

"So much for the hundreds of millions poured into the campaign by Big Tobacco," commented Novak. Congressman Waxman revealed last week that arguments on behalf of several Republican riders to "defund" the pending federal tobacco lawsuit and shelter the tobacco companies from federal liability were originally written on a Philip Morris letterhead. "The tobacco lobby may have deep pockets, but most House members did the right thing," Evans commented.

Evans said that considering the struggles veterans and their supporters in Congress have had in achieving the current levels of funding for VA medical care, it would have been unconscionable for the House to have let "this tobacco industry special interest legislative gimmick" stand. Under the Medical Care Recovery Act, recovery by the Justice Department of these costs would be returned to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA strongly supports this suit and has worked closely with the Justice Department as it moves forward. The effect of the rider would have been to block the VA from potentially obtaining billions of dollars -- money badly needed to address significant shortfalls in health care resources.  

"Mr. Chairman, there is something terribly wrong with the leadership of this body," Evans said during debate on the House floor. "During the last Congress, despite overwhelming evidence that tobacco-related illnesses are linked to nicotine addiction developed during military service, the Republican leadership of the House effectively denied veterans the opportunity to seek legitimate compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Instead, the House passed a sense of the Congress Resolution that the Attorney General (and I quote): ‘should take all steps necessary to recover from tobacco companies amounts corresponding to the costs which would be incurred by the [VA] for treatment of tobacco-related illnesses of veterans.’ Now, it seems, our House leadership would seek to walk away from this commitment, strangling even the hope of a fair settlement from big tobacco for the VA medical care system."