By Drew Armstrong, CQ Staff

House Democrats appear to have resolved a months-long intraparty squabble over legislation that would allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco, laying the groundwork for floor action before the August recess.

The bill’s sponsor, Henry A. Waxman , D-Calif., said Thursday that the bill (HR 1108) would come to the floor next week. A senior Democratic aide acknowledged that was likely, but still not certain.

Democratic House leaders had been working to get the bill to the floor, but the legislation was held up by a dispute over a $300 million offset to make the bill comply with pay-as-you-go budget rules.

“We found a chairman who is willing to help out,” Waxman said.

In fact, it appears that chairman was Waxman, who heads the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The offsetting amount will come from his bill regarding the Federal Thrift Savings Plan (HR 6500), said Waxman, which his committee approved July 16. Provisions in the bill dealing with retirement accounts had a sufficient amount of savings left over to offset costs associated with the tobacco bill provisions.

The tobacco legislation would give the FDA authority to enforce strict new rules on advertising and nicotine levels, among other new powers. It would not, however, give the agency the power to ban nicotine or cigarettes altogether.

The Energy and Commerce Committee approved the bill, 38-12, on April 2. But the legislation stalled after the Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Charles B. Rangel , D-N.Y., and the Natural Resources Committee, chaired by Nick J. Rahall II , D-W.Va., both made claims on the bill.

The Democratic infighting was a development welcomed by many tobacco companies that oppose the bill.

But thanks to the switch in offsets, Rangel is willing to give up his jurisdictional claim to the bill, according to a tobacco industry lobbyist, whose account was confirmed by Ways and Means ranking Republican Jim McCrery of Louisiana.

Ways and Means argued that the original measure contained tax provisions. Waxman and Dingell had agreed to drop the offending offset provision but were sent looking for a new one, outside the jurisdiction of Ways and Means — thus the saver from Waxman’s Federal Thrift Savings Plan bill.

For its jurisdictional claim, the Natural Resources panel cited a section affecting tribal governments, which fall under its purview.

Rahall confirmed that the bill’s champions on the Energy and Commerce panel had agreed to modify the language so that it would preserve the sovereignty of tribal reservations, instead of giving the FDA or other law enforcement agencies the ability to regulate tobacco sales there.