Advocates of legislation to give the FDA power to regulate tobacco products pushed the measure through the House on Wednesday after more than a decade of trying. But they face some formidable obstacles in the Senate, including a tight time frame in which to act.

The House vote on the measure (HR 1108) was 326-102. It was held under suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds vote for passage. The margin was large enough to override a threatened presidential veto.

In the Senate, sponsors said they hoped Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., would schedule a floor debate soon after the August recess.

“We’re hopeful it’ll move in the fall,” said Melissa Wagoner, spokeswoman for Senate bill sponsor Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. But Regan Lachapelle, a spokeswoman for Reid, said that “no decisions have been made yet on the schedule for September.”

Cigarette maker Philip Morris USA backs the legislation, but some of its major competitors do not. The Lorillard Tobacco Co. and the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. have argued that advertising restrictions in the bill essentially would lock in Philip Morris’ substantial market share, and leave other tobacco companies unable to compete. They are lobbying hard against the measure.

But other groups who previously opposed the bill — such as the Association for Convenience and Petroleum Retailing — have stepped aside. Lyle Beckwith, a lobbyist with the association, said the convenience store lobby is neutral on the bill.

In the House, Energy and Commerce Chairman John D. Dingell, D-Mich., and Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., made several compromises in order to build support for the measure. They agreed, for example, to loosen some of the proposed restrictions on how stores could sell and advertise cigarettes.

Industry lobbyists fighting the bill are hoping that the short time frame would make it difficult for lawmakers to send the measure to Bush’s desk.

“I think conventional wisdom would say that bills subject to filibuster don’t have much chance in the final month,” said one lobbyist who is fighting it.

At least one senator, Michael B. Enzi, R-Wyo., already has promised to try to block the legislation. “I’m going to fight this bill and its Big Tobacco backers by objecting to it in the Senate,” Enzi said. He has opposed any bill that would not ban tobacco outright, arguing with Kennedy for a stricter bill and citing his own parents’ smoking as the reason. Other Senate Republicans, including Orrin G. Hatch of Utah and Johnny Isakson of Georgia, also want a stricter bill.

The White House issued its veto threat on Wednesday before the House voted. In a statement, the administration said the bill would “undermine one of the nation’s premier public health and regulatory institutions and potentially lead the public to mistakenly conclude some tobacco products are safe.”

The administration argues that the bill would divert the FDA from its primary responsibilities, such as reviewing new pharmaceutical drugs and overseeing food safety. The White House also objects to the user fees on cigarettes that would be levied under the bill to pay for the FDA’s new regulatory activities, calling them “a new tax that would be paid disproportionately by low-income individuals.”

While the House bill would let the FDA regulate tobacco and nicotine levels, it would not empower the agency to ban cigarettes outright, or to force the elimination of nicotine from tobacco products. Still, public health groups have supported the bill, with the expectation that it would decrease smoking rates and reduce tobacco-related illnesses and deaths.

Some conservatives can be expected to stand by the president, as they have on other health policy measures such as the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). But a companion Senate tobacco bill (S 625) already has 56 cosponsors — including conservative Bush allies like John Cornyn, R-Texas, and, presumed presidential nominee John McCain, R-Ariz.

Kennedy has handed off responsibility on some of his other legislative priorities, such as a overhaul of the primary law governing colleges, universities and federal financial aid (HR 4137), while he recovers from his June 2 surgery to treat a brain tumor.

But Wagoner said Kennedy has not delegated management of the tobacco bill to another senator because it has already been approved by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

The House’s debate on the bill Wednesday quickly grew heated, especially after House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, weighed in.

“Most people who smoke in America probably don’t need the federal government to tell them that smoking isn’t good for their health,” railed Boehner, a cigarette smoker. “This is a bone-headed idea! A bone-headed idea! How much government do we need?”

Dingell quickly fired back — in unusually personal terms.

“This legislation is on the floor because people are killing themselves smoking these evil cigarettes! And the distinguished gentleman, the minority leader, is going to be amongst the next to die!” Dingell yelled. (Click here to watch CQ Floor Video.)

“I am trying to save him as the rest of us are because he is committing suicide every time he puffs on one of those,” Dingell concluded, refusing to yield to Boehner for a response.

But House Republican leaders did not push GOP members to vote against the bill, according to a GOP leadership aide.

Similar legislation has passed the Senate before, in 2004, as part of a corporate tax package that became law (PL 108-357), But the tobacco regulation portions were stripped in conference that year, at the insistence of House Republicans.

Supporters of the current bill are optimistic that they can get a possibly veto-proof vote for it in the Senate before it is sent to the president. “We just need Sen. Reid to schedule it,” said Paul Billings, lobbyist for the American Lung Association. “Hopefully a big vote today will encourage him,” Billings said before the House vote.

The FDA’s new regulatory duties would be funded by user fees levied on tobacco companies. According to a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the bill, the FDA would spend $2.2 billion over five years on its new regulatory activities.

Advocates of FDA regulation of tobacco have been trying to get Congress to act on the FDA question since 1995, when the Clinton administration first asserted authority over the sale and marking of tobacco products as part of a broad effort to curb teen smoking. But the Supreme Court in 2000 barred the FDA from regulating tobacco, saying it had exceeded its authority. The decision was widely viewed by anti-tobacco lawmakers on Capitol Hill as an invitation for Congress to act.