The Food and Drug Administration’s e-cigarette regulations are just the latest example of the Obama administration’s regulatory overreach and love of the nanny state.
So says Rep. [crscore]Tom Cole[/crscore], who along with Rep. Sanford Bishop, sponsored an amendment that passed the House Appropriations Committee, which would head-off the most damaging part of the FDA’s regulations.
One of the central points of the almost 500-page rule book published Thursday is that all e-cigarette products released after Feb. 15, 2007, (predicate date) will have to go through the Pre-Market Tobacco Applications process (PMTA).
The deeming rules are “just another example of the Obama Administration’s regulatory overreach and nanny-state mentality,” says Cole. “This regulation takes an overly broad approach to regulating these products.”
PMTA is ruinously expensive and can cost millions of dollars per product. By the FDA’s own admission, it will take more than 1,500 hours for an applicant to complete the process. (RELATED: FDA Announces Rule To Ban 99 Percent Of E-Cigarettes)
The costs of a PMTA are so high that approximately 99 percent of products on the market won’t even be put through the process, according to the FDA’s own analysis. The Cole/Bishop amendment would alter the predicate date to ensure products already on the market won’t be pulled off the shelves in two years time. (RELATED: Vapers Win Big: House Committee Passes Amendment To Save E-Cigarettes)
“While we can all agree that tobacco products should not be marketed to children, I still believe that my bipartisan amendment, recently approved by the Appropriations Committee in the Agriculture Appropriations bill, provides the same framework for new tobacco products without needlessly subjecting small businesses to unnecessary regulations and without treating law abiding adults like naïve children,” Cole added.
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