A new bill looks to make e-cigs exempt from rules that impact tobacco products.
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) has introduced “The Cigarette Smoking Reduction and Electronic Vapor Alternatives Act of 2017,” which aims to reduce the approval process for e-cigarettes under the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
According to a report by The Hill, the bill would reverse the Obama administration’s “Deeming Rule” which categorizes e-cigarettes as tobacco products that are subject to the same regulations on cigarettes.
Currently, the FDA’s deeming regulation gives it the authority to review e-cigarettes before they hit the market, requiring all products that hit stores after February 2007 to apply retroactively for approval. The process is both prohibitively expensive and could slow approval for newer e-cigarettes. But Hunter’s bill looks to make vaping devices except from that review as well as other rules.
The Hill noted that Reps. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.) introduced a separate proposal that would exempt thousands of vaping devices currently on the market from FDA approval. That bill is expected to be attached as a rider to Trump’s spending plan, according to Reuters.
