S. 1415, The Tobacco Products Control Act has been widely characterized as a bill that does not provide immunity. This claim, however, is untrue.
The bill, which you shepherded through the Senate Commerce Committee, attempts to provide a blanket grant of civil immunity to every individual responsible for and connected with the public health atrocities and frauds committed by the tobacco industry. The bill would let tobacco executives, company directors, lawyers and other real people involved in the historic cabal to addict youngsters and severely damage the health of millions of people off the hook. These are the people, it is important to remember, who lied about the addictive effects of nicotine, orchestrated campaigns to lure children into taking up the smoking habit and conspired to conceal information from the public and government regulators.
Under the bill, the only "permissible defendants" in a civil suit are tobacco company subsidiaries selling into the domestic market. The bill specifically states that "any person that at any time was or is an affiliate, officer, director, employee, attorney or agent of a participating tobacco product manufacturer" cannot be a defendant. Some of these people are already defendants in existing lawsuits against the industry.
This proposed grant of amnesty is shocking, especially, to take one example, in light of the newly released industry documents showing substantial lawyer involvement in the fraud perpetrated on the public by the tobacco companies.
If there is one theme that brings together elected officials from the Republican and Democratic parties together, it is their shared rhetorical commitment to "individual responsibility." People must be held accountable for their actions, it is argued.
Few proposed policy initiatives represent as striking a departure from the principles of individual responsibility and accountability as does The Tobacco Products Control Act.
Given the severity of the industry's collective wrongdoing, it would be unconscionable to allow the executives who gave orders, the corporate directors who shaped or approved company stategies, those lawyers who directed research to perpetrate fraud on both the public and government officials, and others who designed or assisted the companies' harmful activities to escape civil punishment or evade responsibility for their actions.
This should not be a matter which divides those who share a commitment to improving the public health and advancing basic principles of justice. I urge you to introduce and aggressively advocate for an amendment that would eliminate the blanket immunity provisions in the Tobacco Products Control Act.
Sincerely,
Ralph Nader