By
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is not requesting any new money to pursue a lawsuit against big tobacco companies, prompting speculation that the federal case will be dropped.
However, Attorney General John Ashcroft told Senate appropriators that he supports the department's lawsuit and is submitting the same budget requests as former Attorney General Janet Reno.
"There has been no change in policy," Ashcroft told senators in his first appearance as attorney general before the Senate. "The appropriation requested this year is identical to the appropriation requested last year."
But Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C. reminded Ashcroft that he had opposed the tobacco litigation as a senator. "Are you for the case or against the case?" Hollings pressed.
"The Department of Justice is proceeding with the case, and I support the department's position," Ashcroft replied. "I think we have made the right kind of request. It has the same, identical structure which my predecessor had asked for in appropriations. So the capacity to proceed with the case exists at the department in the same way it would have in the previous settings, and as it would have had the election been different."
The administration has requested $1.8 million to pay salaries and staff costs for the tobacco litigation team in the department's civil division, Justice officials said Wednesday. But no money has been sought for legal work, such as gathering and analyzing millions of documents that tobacco companies have asked to see.
President Bush on Wednesday expressed reservations about continuing the lawsuit, opposed by Republicans and members of Congress from tobacco-producing states. He said he has not decided whether to drop the suit.
"I do worry about a litigious society," Bush said in an interview with Fox News. "I remember as the governor of Texas that we had all kinds of major lawsuits against tobacco - as in every other state. At some point enough is enough."
Justice officials would not say whether the department will seek money from other agencies to pay for the lawsuit, as the Clinton White House did.
A senior Justice Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the litigation team might be replaced on grounds it botched the job.
The Justice Department suit, filed in September 1999, accused big tobacco companies of putting profits before health by concealing data showing that nicotine is addictive and that smoking causes disease. The government seeks to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in medical costs borne by federal health programs over the years to pay for smoking-related illness.
Tobacco companies have denied the charges.
Last year a federal judge threw out half of the suit's claims, saying that if the government wanted to recover expenses dating to the 1950s, it should have acted sooner.
Ashcroft said he has not made any decision about replacing any of the government's litigation team.
"I have not made any indication about any reassignment of any attorneys. I have not made a decision about the case," he said. "The department has a position in this case and I believe that if we were to re-evaluate that position, it should be based upon what the courts do in response to the matters that are pending."
