In a major victory for stop-smoking advocates, the House Energy and Commerce Committee cleared a bill giving the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority to regulate tobacco products, the New York Times reported April 2.

The committee voted 38-12 to approve the legislation, which now heads to the floor of the House for a vote. Companion legislation was passed by a Senate committee last July but is still awaiting a floor vote.

The Bush administration and some lawmakers, notably Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), have opposed the legislation. "The administration believes that tobacco is not a device or a drug to be regulated by the FDA," said White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore. Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) has threatened to filibuster the bill.

Bill sponsor Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said that claims about the FDA being too overwhelmed to tackle tobacco regulation are "clearly red herrings from those who are fundamentally opposed to regulating tobacco at all."

The legislation hardly gives FDA free regulatory reign: the agency would be prohibited from banning nicotine, for example, or from raising the legal purchase age for tobacco from 18 to 21. Sales of menthol-flavored cigarettes also would continue despite a ban on candy-flavored cigarettes.

"In a perfect world, we'd ban all cigarettes," said Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.). "But the hard fact of the matter is that there are a lot of jobs depending on this. And more importantly, there are a lot of people out there who are addicted to this and they've got to have their fix."