Today, Americans for Reform President Grover Norquist led a coalition of free market, limited government, and conservative organizations calling on President Donald Trump to halt the Food and Drug Administration’s aggressive regulatory assault on businesses who sell electronic cigarettes and vapor products in the United States. In recent months, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb has acted in a manner inconsistent with the president’s regulatory agenda, pressuring manufacturers to remove products from store shelves, suggesting new rules that would ban products currently on the market, and failing to act on pending product applications of innovative alternatives to cigarettes. Even worse, he’s promised to go further.
As the letter explains:
“FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb’s effort to curb the $6.6 billion electronic cigarette industry and an even larger reduced risk tobacco alternatives market is inconsistent with your clearly articulated deregulatory objectives and will destroy jobs, limit consumer freedoms, and harm public health.”
From the 2016 campaign to President Trump’s first set of executive orders, deregulation has been a top priority for this administration. That agenda has had a positive impact on taxpayers and the conomy.
“Your leadership, Orders, and deregulatory efforts have led to historic and important relief for the American people, with over $33 billion in savings alone through October of last year. Across every department and agency, your administration has not only identified harmful regulations but worked to untangle and repeal them, freeing consumers and businesses from the grip of government overreach. One glaring exception has been the Food and Drug Administration.”
President Trump’s Executive Order 137771 not only directed agencies to eliminate two prior regulations for the creation of any new one, but it directed the Office of Management and Budget to create caps on and estimates for the cost of new rules imposed by agencies, like the FDA. For that reason, we suggest to the president:
“Consistent with your Executive Orders, an economic cost benefit analysis must be conducted that examines pending FDA guidance and potential new regulations with regards to this innovative industry.”
Without an analysis on the economic impact of pressuring businesses to remove products from the retail distrubtion chain or failing to provide clarity on the government approval pathway for new products, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb’s actions will be inconsistent with the president’s Executive Order, pro-jobs, and economic growth agenda.
The growing body of scientific evidence suggests that e-cigarettes are at least 95% less harmful than traditional combustible cigarettes. Even further, a new study by the New England Journal of Medicine which found that e-cigarettes are twice as effective at getting smokers to quit as government-approved smoking cessation products like the nicotine patch. Given the high cost of cigarette use on public health expenditures across the United States, these products present adults aged 18 and over with real and increasingly effective choices that will save taxpayers billions of dollars and potentially save millions of lives.
All of this comes at a cost of no longer being a leader on public health and missing out on investments in our economy.
“Private sector initiative and sound public policy should not be held hostage by prohibitionist impulses. The FDA’s current efforts and attitude towards the e-cigarette industry make America a less appealing place to invest and do business. Countries around the world, including many throughout Europe have embraced this industry, encouraging doctors and medical professionals to recommend it to patients who smoke. Simply put, we are not a public health leader on the issue of utilizing the free market and innovation for tobacco harm reduction.”
This broad coalition of limited government, free market, conservative, and consumer choice organizations is asking the president to pump the brakes on the FDA’s new and pending regulatory efforts against an industry that is helping American smokers quit.