Promoting Health and Safety
- Smoking on Airplanes: Senator Lautenberg wrote the law banning smoking on airplanes, protecting individuals from secondhand smoke, which started the smoke-free revolution (Public Law No. 101-164).
- Smoking in Federally-Funded Facilities Serving Children: Senator Lautenberg wrote the Pro-Kids law banning smoking in all federally funded places that serve children. He was also the author of legislation to ban smoking in federal buildings, which was adopted by the Clinton Administration (Public Law No. 103-112).
- Smoking in the U.S. Senate: At Senator Lautenberg’s suggestion and request, the U.S. Senate complex stopped selling tobacco products on January 1, 2008, and closed all of its “smoking rooms” on May 1, 2008.
Senator Lautenberg meets with doctors and nurses at East Orange General Hospital. Senator Lautenberg was at the hospital to announce more than $600,000 in federal funding for improvements to the hospital's emergency department. East Orange General has becomes one of the area's largest hospitals, serving more than 100,000 residents in East Orange and other neighboring communities in Essex County. (January 7, 2008)
- Asbestos and Radon in Schools and Environment: Senator Lautenberg wrote laws to help remove cancer-causing asbestos and radon from our schools and environment (Public Law No. 101-637).
- Preserving PAAD and Senior Gold: The Medicare Prescription Drug bill was originally drafted to get rid of the PAAD and Senior Gold prescription programs in New Jersey. Only after pressure from Senator Lautenberg and former-Senator Jon Corzine did Republicans relent and agree to let New Jersey keep its more-generous drug plans along with the new Federal plan (Public Law No. 108-173).
- Improving Safety at College Campuses: In response to the tragic fires at Seton Hall University, Senator Lautenberg introduced the “Campus Fire Safety Act” (110th Congress,S.354), to provide families with crucial fire safety records of colleges and universities by requiring schools to maintain these records and make them publicly available. This bill was approved by the Senate in July 2007 and the House of Representatives in February 2008 as part of the Higher Education Reauthorization Act (110th Congress, S.1642, section 477), which is now law (Public Law No. 110-315).
