21.   Clinton still maintains that revenues can be raised from a modest tobacco tax and other revenue steps, as well as some unspecified cost re-estimates.

22.   Clinton will also propose funding cancer research with a boost to the tobacco tax, aides say.

23.   Congressional negotiators, along with Clinton administration aides, must iron out a host of differences in the two bills, including the tobacco tax.

24.   Contraband cigarettes currently in the U.S. market are largely the result of interstate smuggling driven by vastly different levels of state tobacco taxes.

25.   Congress can force the price of cigarettes up through a new tobacco tax.

26.   Enter Kennedy and the tobacco tax.

27.   Earlier this month, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Georgia Republican, said he would oppose any effort to increase tobacco taxes.

28.   Feinstein said she is considering including an increase in tobacco taxes in legislation to increase research spending for cancer.

29.   For Pataki, a Republican who has built his reputation on deep tax cuts, raising the tobacco tax is a stark departure.

30.   For example, the administration last year called for new tobacco taxes to pay for initiatives.