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I don’t think
the cumulative
forces of politics
and decision-
makers within the
administration
have ever been
more in our
favor.”
—Daniel Trope,
IPCPR
What a difference a year makes. Last summer the indus-
try was reeling in the aftermath of the FDA’s deeming
regulations, concerned that the demands being placed
on cigar and pipe tobacco manufacturers would drive
scores of companies out of business. Only those manu-
facturers whose pockets were deep enough to afford to
meet the costly and onerous demands of FDA compli-
ance would survive, leaving consumers with a handful of
brands from which to choose.
This year, however, feels like business as usual, with
the FDA more of a hazy mist than a looming thunder-
cloud. What’s changed? Nothing and everything, not-
ed speakers at the IPCPR’s Regulatory Compliance
Update session. The FDA has been continuing its long,
slow march toward oversight of additional categories of
tobacco, and recent and upcoming milestones include
deadlines for registering establishments (September 30,
2017), providing ingredient listings (November 8, 2017),
submitting a cigar warning label plan (August 10, 2017)
and submitting tobacco health documents (November
8, 2017). Manufacturers are having to invest time and
energy into preparing to comply, and efforts to create
new products are being hampered by regulatory hurdles.
However, the industry’s defense efforts are making
headway on several fronts. In January, Congressman Bill
Posey (FL-R) sponsored a bill that would exempt premi-
um cigars from FDA regulation. This marks the fourth
consecutive year that a bill like this has been presented,
but this year the bill has an impressive 119 co-sponsors,
and momentum seems to be building around both it
and a similar bill currently before the Senate, which was
sponsored by Florida Senators Bill Nelson (D) and Marco
Rubio (R) and has 16 cosponsors, reported Daniel Trope,
the IPCPR’s director of federal government affairs.
TAKING TO THE COURTS
Mindful that legislation in support of tobacco is a tough
sell, the IPCPR joined forces with Cigar Rights of Amer-
ica and the Cigar Association of America to pursue
additional avenues, including challenging the ruling in
court. “We filed a lawsuit painting this rule as an exam-
ple of regulatory overreach, job killing that was endemic
in the previous administration,” said Michael Edney, a
partner with the law firm Norton Rose Fulbright, who
credited the lawsuit for prompting an extension of the
FDA’s compliance deadline. “The process would be for
the government to file an opposition brief and for us to
have final arguments in front of a trial court to get a
decision. But the new administration asked for a stay of
that [process]. We agreed to the stay, and in exchange we
received a 90-day extension.”
What’s more, Edney and others closely following the
legal course believe the winds are shifting in the indus-
try’s favor. “The FDA and the Justice Department have
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TOBACCO BUSINESS
[
SEPTEMBER
/
OCTOBER
|
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IPCPR
Continued
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