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Norton Bill Banning E-Cigarette Smoking on Amtrak Passes in Committee

June 26, 2019

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said that her Banning Smoking on Amtrak Act of 2019 (H.R. 2726), which would codify Amtrak's internal policy prohibiting smoking, including of electronic cigarettes, on its trains passed the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee today. The bill is modeled after a bill Norton got enacted into law in 2018 that clarified that the smoking ban on airplanes includes electronic cigarettes.

"Although Amtrak has implemented its own policy banning smoking on trains, that policy could be reversed if not codified," Norton said. "My thanks to Chairman DeFazio and to the Transportation Committee members who recognize this public health risk. My bill would make the ban a matter of federal law and put the force of law behind protecting people from harmful secondhand smoke and its proven detrimental health effects. I am reminding my colleagues of the countless lives lost during the decades that it took states to ban smoking in public areas. We should not make the same mistake again by delaying banning electronic cigarettes in the close quarters typical of trains."

Tobacco smoking bans have been a critical tool in protecting people from the effects of secondhand smoke, known to increase the risk for serious cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, including coronary heart disease, lung cancer and emphysema, among others. The World Health Organization (WHO) considers the tobacco epidemic to be one of the biggest public health threats in the world, killing more than seven million people a year. According to the WHO, there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke. Norton said it is likely the effects of secondhand exposure to electronic cigarettes is harmful, too.