For many senators, like Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin , D-Ill., who lost his father to lung cancer, the fight to curb smoking is intensely personal.

Sen. Sherrod Brown , D-Ohio, reminded his colleagues that more than 400,000 Americans die every year from smoking-related diseases.

That means, he said, that the tobacco companies have to recruit new smokers — typically teenagers — to take up the habit. “You need to find more than a thousand new customers a day,” he said, to make up for the annual deaths from smoking.

“We need some assistance in making sure that those targeting efforts can’t get those young people addicted,” Brown said.

Sen. Michael B. Enzi , R-Wyo., an ardent anti-smoking activist, supported the bill this year — even though he has opposed prior legislation because he thought it didn’t go far enough. Enzi has long wanted to outlaw tobacco products altogether.

Enzi said the current bill would help discourage smoking and thus also help millions exposed to second-hand smoke, as he was during a childhood around parents who both died of smoking-related causes.

He said he will monitor FDA’s use of its new authority and will scrutinize the effectiveness of its efforts.

“This is just one step toward the goal I know we all share, which is to reduce the public health toll of tobacco use,” Enzi said.

FDA To Regulate Tobacco

The legislation would create a new “Center for Tobacco Products” inside the FDA to regulate the production, marketing and sale of tobacco products.

The new oversight would be funded by user fees on tobacco companies and importers, likely causing an increase in the price of cigarettes and other tobacco product.

In fiscal 2009, the fees would total $83 million, and over 10 years would grow to $712 million annually, after which they would level off. The authorization for the user fees does not expire, though Congress would have to act again before the end of fiscal 2019 in order to increase the fees.

The bill would give the FDA authority to restrict the sale, advertising or marketing of tobacco products, so long as it did not violate the Constitution. The agency also would control labeling on cigarette packages.

Cigarette and smokeless tobacco products would get new warning labels, larger than the ones currently displayed on tobacco packaging. The warnings would include statements like, “Tobacco smoke causes fatal lung disease in nonsmokers,” and “Smoking can kill you.”

Cigarette and tobacco flavor additives like chocolate, grape, orange and cherry would be banned, under the rationale that they are intended to attract under-age smokers.

Tobacco products could no longer carry claims such as “light,” “mild” and “low-tar.” Health advocates say that such products do not reduce harm from cigarettes, but rather lead smokers to inhale more deeply or smoke more to get their dosage of nicotine.

The FDA could require that advertisements for tobacco products carry the tough new warning labels, as well. Tobacco manufacturers could be required to disclose the contents of tobacco smoke, though they would not have to do so directly on product packaging.

The FDA could regulate nicotine levels, but not eliminate nicotine entirely. The agency would set product content standards to eliminate harmful ingredients.

To agency would set up an 12-person panel of physicians and other experts to advise it, with three people from the tobacco industry. The tobacco industry representatives would not have a vote on the panel, however.

Edward Epstein, Bart Jansen and Emily Ethridge contributed to this story.