HR 1256 PCS 
TITLE I—PROVISIONS RELATING TO FEDERAL EMPLOYEES 
RETIREMENT 
Subtitle A—Thrift Savings Plan Enhancement 
Sec. 101. Short title. 
Sec. 102. Automatic enrollments. 
Sec. 103. Qualified Roth contribution program. 
Sec. 104. Authority to establish self-directed investment window. 
Sec. 105. Reporting requirements. 
Sec. 106. Acknowledgement of risk. 
Subtitle B—Other Retirement-Related Provisions 
Sec. 111. Credit for unused sick leave. 
Sec. 112. Exemption of certain CSRS repayments from the requirement that 
they be made with interest. 
Sec. 113. Computation of certain annuities based on part-time service. 
Sec. 114. Treatment of members of the uniformed services under the Thrift 
Savings Plan. 
Sec. 115. Authority to deposit refunds under FERS. 
Sec. 116. Retirement credit for service of certain employees transferred from 
District of Columbia service to Federal service. 
TITLE II—SPECIAL SURVIVOR INDEMNITY ALLOWANCE FOR 
SURVIVING SPOUSES OF ARMED FORCES MEMBERS 
Sec. 201. Increase in monthly amount of special survivor indemnity allowance 
for widows and widowers of deceased members of the Armed 
Forces affected by required Survivor Benefit Plan annuity off-
set for dependency and indemnity compensation. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
The Congress finds the following: 
(1) The use of tobacco products by the Nation’s 
children is a pediatric disease of considerable pro-
portions that results in new generations of tobacco- 
dependent children and adults. 
(2) A consensus exists within the scientific and 
medical communities that tobacco products are in-
herently dangerous and cause cancer, heart disease, 
and other serious adverse health effects. 
(3) Nicotine is an addictive drug. 
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(4) Virtually all new users of tobacco products 
are under the minimum legal age to purchase such 
products. 
(5) Tobacco advertising and marketing con-
tribute significantly to the use of nicotine-containing 
tobacco products by adolescents. 
(6) Because past efforts to restrict advertising 
and marketing of tobacco products have failed ade-
quately to curb tobacco use by adolescents, com-
prehensive restrictions on the sale, promotion, and 
distribution of such products are needed. 
(7) Federal and State governments have lacked 
the legal and regulatory authority and resources 
they need to address comprehensively the public 
health and societal problems caused by the use of to-
bacco products. 
(8) Federal and State public health officials, 
the public health community, and the public at large 
recognize that the tobacco industry should be subject 
to ongoing oversight. 
(9) Under article I, section 8 of the Constitu-
tion, the Congress is vested with the responsibility 
for regulating interstate commerce and commerce 
with Indian tribes. 
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(10) The sale, distribution, marketing, adver-
tising, and use of tobacco products are activities in 
and substantially affecting interstate commerce be-
cause they are sold, marketed, advertised, and dis-
tributed in interstate commerce on a nationwide 
basis, and have a substantial effect on the Nation’s 
economy. 
(11) The sale, distribution, marketing, adver-
tising, and use of such products substantially affect 
interstate commerce through the health care and 
other costs attributable to the use of tobacco prod-
ucts. 
(12) It is in the public interest for Congress to 
enact legislation that provides the Food and Drug 
Administration with the authority to regulate to-
bacco products and the advertising and promotion of 
such products. The benefits to the American people 
from enacting such legislation would be significant 
in human and economic terms. 
(13) Tobacco use is the foremost preventable 
cause of premature death in America. It causes over 
400,000 deaths in the United States each year, and 
approximately 8,600,000 Americans have chronic ill-
nesses related to smoking. 
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(14) Reducing the use of tobacco by minors by 
50 percent would prevent well over 10,000,000 of to-
day’s children from becoming regular, daily smokers, 
saving over 3,000,000 of them from premature 
death due to tobacco-induced disease. Such a reduc-
tion in youth smoking would also result in approxi-
mately $75,000,000,000 in savings attributable to 
reduced health care costs. 
(15) Advertising, marketing, and promotion of 
tobacco products have been especially directed to at-
tract young persons to use tobacco products, and 
these efforts have resulted in increased use of such 
products by youth. Past efforts to oversee these ac-
tivities have not been successful in adequately pre-
venting such increased use. 
(16) In 2005, the cigarette manufacturers 
spent more than $13,000,000,000 to attract new 
users, retain current users, increase current con-
sumption, and generate favorable long-term atti-
tudes toward smoking and tobacco use. 
(17) 
Tobacco 
product 
advertising 
often 
misleadingly portrays the use of tobacco as socially 
acceptable and healthful to minors. 
(18) Tobacco product advertising is regularly 
seen by persons under the age of 18, and persons 
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under the age of 18 are regularly exposed to tobacco 
product promotional efforts. 
(19) Through advertisements during and spon-
sorship of sporting events, tobacco has become 
strongly associated with sports and has become por-
trayed as an integral part of sports and the healthy 
lifestyle associated with rigorous sporting activity. 
(20) Children are exposed to substantial and 
unavoidable tobacco advertising that leads to favor-
able beliefs about tobacco use, plays a role in leading 
young people to overestimate the prevalence of to-
bacco use, and increases the number of young people 
who begin to use tobacco. 
(21) The use of tobacco products in motion pic-
tures and other mass media glamorizes its use for 
young people and encourages them to use tobacco 
products. 
(22) Tobacco advertising expands the size of 
the tobacco market by increasing consumption of to-
bacco products including tobacco use by young peo-
ple. 
(23) Children are more influenced by tobacco 
marketing than adults: more than 80 percent of 
youth smoke three heavily marketed brands, while 
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only 54 percent of adults, 26 and older, smoke these 
same brands. 
(24) Tobacco company documents indicate that 
young people are an important and often crucial seg-
ment of the tobacco market. Children, who tend to 
be more price sensitive than adults, are influenced 
by advertising and promotion practices that result in 
drastically reduced cigarette prices. 
(25) Comprehensive advertising restrictions will 
have a positive effect on the smoking rates of young 
people. 
(26) Restrictions on advertising are necessary 
to prevent unrestricted tobacco advertising from un-
dermining legislation prohibiting access to young 
people and providing for education about tobacco 
use. 
(27) International experience shows that adver-
tising regulations that are stringent and comprehen-
sive have a greater impact on overall tobacco use 
and young people’s use than weaker or less com-
prehensive ones. 
(28) Text only requirements, although not as 
stringent as a ban, will help reduce underage use of 
tobacco products while preserving the informational 
function of advertising. 
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(29) It is in the public interest for Congress to 
adopt legislation to address the public health crisis 
created by actions of the tobacco industry. 
(30) The final regulations promulgated by the 
Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Au-
gust 28, 1996, issue of the Federal Register (61 
Fed. Reg. 44615–44618) for inclusion as part 897 
of title 21, Code of Federal Regulations, are con-
sistent with the first amendment to the United 
States Constitution and with the standards set forth 
in the amendments made by this subtitle for the reg-
ulation of tobacco products by the Food and Drug 
Administration, and the restriction on the sale and 
distribution of, including access to and the adver-
tising and promotion of, tobacco products contained 
in such regulations are substantially related to ac-
complishing the public health goals of this Act. 
(31) The regulations described in paragraph 
(30) will directly and materially advance the Federal 
Government’s substantial interest in reducing the 
number of children and adolescents who use ciga-
rettes and smokeless tobacco and in preventing the 
life-threatening health consequences associated with 
tobacco use. An overwhelming majority of Americans 
who use tobacco products begin using such products 
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while they are minors and become addicted to the 
nicotine in those products before reaching the age of 
18. Tobacco advertising and promotion play a cru-
cial role in the decision of these minors to begin 
using tobacco products. Less restrictive and less 
comprehensive approaches have not and will not be 
effective in reducing the problems addressed by such 
regulations. The reasonable restrictions on the ad-
vertising and promotion of tobacco products con-
tained in such regulations will lead to a significant 
decrease in the number of minors using and becom-
ing addicted to those products. 
(32) The regulations described in paragraph 
(30) impose no more extensive restrictions on com-
munication by tobacco manufacturers and sellers 
than are necessary to reduce the number of children 
and adolescents who use cigarettes and smokeless to-
bacco and to prevent the life-threatening health con-
sequences associated with tobacco use. Such regula-
tions are narrowly tailored to restrict those adver-
tising and promotional practices which are most like-
ly to be seen or heard by youth and most likely to 
entice them into tobacco use, while affording tobacco 
manufacturers and sellers ample opportunity to con-
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vey information about their products to adult con-
sumers. 
(33) Tobacco dependence is a chronic disease, 
one that typically requires repeated interventions to 
achieve long-term or permanent abstinence. 
(34) Because the only known safe alternative to 
smoking is cessation, interventions should target all 
smokers to help them quit completely. 
(35) Tobacco products have been used to facili-
tate and finance criminal activities both domestically 
and internationally. Illicit trade of tobacco products 
has been linked to organized crime and terrorist 
groups. 
(36) It is essential that the Food and Drug Ad-
ministration review products sold or distributed for 
use to reduce risks or exposures associated with to-
bacco products and that it be empowered to review 
any advertising and labeling for such products. It is 
also essential that manufacturers, prior to marketing 
such products, be required to demonstrate that such 
products will meet a series of rigorous criteria, and 
will benefit the health of the population as a whole, 
taking into account both users of tobacco products 
and persons who do not currently use tobacco prod-
ucts. 
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(37) Unless tobacco products that purport to 
reduce the risks to the public of tobacco use actually 
reduce such risks, those products can cause substan-
tial harm to the public health to the extent that the 
individuals, who would otherwise not consume to-
bacco products or would consume such products less, 
use tobacco products purporting to reduce risk. 
Those who use products sold or distributed as modi-
fied risk products that do not in fact reduce risk, 
rather than quitting or reducing their use of tobacco 
products, have a substantially increased likelihood of 
suffering disability and premature death. The costs 
to society of the widespread use of products sold or 
distributed as modified risk products that do not in 
fact reduce risk or that increase risk include thou-
sands of unnecessary deaths and injuries and huge 
costs to our health care system. 
(38) As the National Cancer Institute has 
found, many smokers mistakenly believe that ‘‘low 
tar’’ and ‘‘light’’ cigarettes cause fewer health prob-
lems than other cigarettes. As the National Cancer 
Institute has also found, mistaken beliefs about the 
health consequences of smoking ‘‘low tar’’ and 
‘‘light’’ cigarettes can reduce the motivation to quit 
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