Washington (KINY) – U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) are leading the bipartisan re-introduction of legislation to protect children from the dangers of e-cigarettes.
The Resources to Prevent Youth Vaping Act would require that e-cigarette manufacturers pay user fees to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to help conduct stronger oversight of the e-cigarette industry and increase awareness of the danger of e-cigarettes.
The legislation is co-led by U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Susan Collins (R-ME). The bill is endorsed by the American Lung Association, the American Heart Association, and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
“While we have seen promising decline in e-cigarette use in the past year, youth are continuing to vape, and it really hits home when you see more and more kids using vapes at school, at malls, even just walking down the street,” Sen. Murkowski said. “This bill will expand FDA’s authority to collect user fees on e-cigarette producers and put that money towards increasing youth awareness of its dangers and preventing sales of e-cigarettes to minors. This effort is all about protecting the health of our kids.”
The Resources to Prevent Youth Vaping Act increases the total amount that will be collected in tobacco user fees by $100 million and indexes that amount to inflation for future years.
Critically, the bill also authorizes the FDA to collect user fees from all manufacturers of products that have been deemed as tobacco products by the FDA, including e-cigarettes.
Currently, manufacturers of traditional combustible tobacco products pay FDA user fees, but e-cigarette companies are exempt due to a loophole in the law.
The amount collected from individual e-cigarette manufacturers will be proportional to their share of the overall tobacco market, as determined by the FDA. The FDA would be able to use this additional revenue from e-cigarette user fees to conduct safety reviews of vaping products, prevent sales of e-cigarettes to minors, help support efforts to educate youth on the dangers of e-cigarettes, and increase the agency’s oversight and enforcement capabilities.
