Miffed at HUD reply, Bond threatens to bar funding of smoke shops

Monday, February 21st 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Missouri Sen. Christopher Bond says he may try to block more government funding of American Indian smoke shops, including some in Oklahoma. Bond issued a report last month detailing how the Department of Housing and Urban Development doled out $4.2 million to American Indian smoke shops and truck stops that sell cheaper cigarettes.

The GOP lawmaker chairs the Appropriations Committee panel that controls HUD's budget. Dissatisfied with the agency's response, Bond said Sunday, "It now appears we may need to legislate a common-sense solution for HUD." Agency spokesman David Egner replied that since HUD has no authority to ban sales of legal products in businesses it funds, Congress would need to do just that. "HUD told Sen. Bond last June that we would quickly implement any law barring HUD funding of businesses that sell tobacco products," Egner said.

Tribal activists, meantime, accused Bond of prejudice for singling out Indian tribes. "He's not attacking those large corporations who utilize the large discount stores, who pride themselves on underselling their competitors," said W. Ron Allen, chairman of the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe and an official of the National Congress of American Indians, which is meeting in Washington later this week. "As far as we're concerned, that is racist and discriminatory," Allen added.

Bond's spokesman, Dan Hubbard, said Bond will await an apology for the charge of discrimination. "In the meantime, he awaits an explanation as to why it's a good idea to use taxpayer dollars to underwrite the sale of discount cigarettes," Hubbard said. Bond argues that studies show cheaper cigarettes may encourage youth smoking, Bond urged HUD to halt the subsidies. He said Sunday: "HUD needs to find alternative ways to encourage economic development for our populations in need without endangering the health of our children."

However, HUD has insisted it has no legal authority to stop the grants. A HUD official reiterated the point in a letter to Bond last week. "We believe there are serious policy, programmatic and legal constraints against such an action," Hal DeCell, HUD's assistant secretary for congressional relations, wrote in the letter to Bond. The letter said information provided by Bond does not establish a direct link between the federal smoke shop funds and increased teen smoking, and therefore the nature of a negative impact on the community "related to such an assumed relationship is unavoidably speculative."

Bond said he was "flabbergasted" by HUD's response and call edit "a page right out of the tobacco lawyer handbook." "For years big tobacco companies and their lawyers claimed there was no causal relationship between smoking and cancer, and now HUD uses that same kind of argument to defend its HUD-funded smoke shops," the senator said. Bond himself has come under fire for past votes supporting thetobacco industry, from opposing several proposed tobacco taxes to opposing 1998 legislation curbing teen smoking and bringing nicotine under federal regulation.

Egner, HUD's spokesman, said Bond mischaracterized the letter and that "we are simply asking the senator to provide us with any information he has showing that Indian-owned stores are more likely to violate laws banning the sale of cigarettes to minors than are non-Indian stores." The smoke shop dispute is one of several between Bond and Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo.

Bond also is challenging HUD's authority to sue gun makers over violence in public housing as well as its role in a politically charged squabble over New York homelessness funding that has become an issue in the Senate race between Hillary Clinton and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. The senator ordered his latest report after learning last spring of a 1997 community development block grant to the Reno Sparks Indian Colony in Verdi, Nev. The agency responded that "only one" smoke shop received such a grant, but research turned up a half-dozen awards, and a Senate staffer traveled to Oklahoma to see-- and videotape -- the smoke shops first-hand.

In Oklahoma, the Chickasaw Nation received $750,000 apiece for stores in Thackerville and Ada, while the Choctaw Nation won $750,000 each for Broken Bow and Poteau stations. In addition, the Muscogee Creek Nation won $750,000 for a store in Muskogee. In 1998 in Oklahoma, HUD awarded $750,000 each to a Chickasaw Nation project in Ada, a Choctaw Nation store in Poteau and a Muscogee Creek store in Muskogee.

In 1997, $750,000 each went to the Chickasaws for a Thackerville shop and the Choctaws for a Broken Bow station. Tribes defend their role, arguing that tobacco is just one of the many legal products they sell to match their non-Indian competitors. The travel plazas create jobs and boost income, taxes and retail sales for communities, Choctaw Nation Chief Gregory E.Pyle said earlier.