Reports filed with the government show companies with heavy interests in tobacco issues spent more than $15 million during the period.
Industry giant Philip Morris led the way with $11.3 million, according to the first-ever reports disclosing special interests' real expenses in lobbying Congress, federal agencies and the White House.
Philip Morris has extensive holdings in non-tobacco businesses - Kraft Foods, for example - but reports indicate the bulk of its lobbying efforts related to tobacco matters.
Companies are not required to break down their total lobbying spending by business category.
Congressional clerks who reviewed the reports say Philip Morris' total appeared to be the largest so far among around 12,000 companies and groups that filed midyear reports over the past two months.
"We have had a lot of federal attention from regulators and the White House," said Thomas Lauria, a spokesperson for the Tobacco Institute, a trade association. "It's never easy communication, because tobacco is controversial on many, many levels."
The industry, once given deference in Washington, has seen its credibility eroded in recent years by allegations that executives covered up knowledge of the damaging and addictive nature of cigarettes, said Michael Pertschuk, an anti-tobacco researcher and activist at the Advocacy Institute.
"They have the deepest pockets imaginable, and they have the most at stake," Pertschuk said. "The very heart of their industry is under attack."
The industry's political vulnerability was heightened last month when President Clinton declared nicotine an addictive drug and ordered that cigarettes for the first time be regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Not only is the industry pouring money into lobbying, it also is spending millions to influence lawmakers through campaign donations and additional millions to defend itself against lawsuits.
Thirteen states have sued to recover smoking-related health care costs. Eight class-action suits are pending, filed by smokers who claim they became hooked while the industry concealed the addictive nature of its product.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department continues with its criminal probe into whether tobacco company officials have lied to Congress in recent years or misled lawmakers about whether they knew of nicotine's addictive properties.
A senior law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said yesterday that numerous tobacco company researchers have been subpoenaed in recent weeks to testify before a federal grand jury in Washington that is looking into the tobacco companies' stance on nicotine.
With these far-ranging legal battles as a backdrop, records show that during the first 18 months of the current two-year election cycle, tobacco companies gave $4.75 million in unregulated "soft money" to the two major parties - about $4 million to the GOP and about $750,000 to the Democrats.
Philip Morris' lobbying report details the breadth of the lobbying battle the industry has been forced to wage. In addition to 11 registered lobbyists in its Washington office, the company contracted with 22 Washington law or lobbying firms.
It reported lobbying on legislation that would restrict youths' access to tobacco, eliminate tobacco advertising costs as a tax-deductible business expense, grant FDA regulatory power over their products and restrict smoking on airplanes and in workplaces.
Philip Morris paid the Arnold & Porter law firm $240,000 to represent it on issues including FDA regulation of tobacco; former House doorkeeper James Molloy $20,000 to lobby on proposed youth smoking regulations; and the firm of former House member Ed Jenkins $140,000 to protect it against proposed increases in excise taxes.
Company spokesperson Darienne Dennis noted that the figure also includes money spent to advance the corporation's interests in the food and beer businesses. Philip Morris "has a right to lobby on matters of impact to its business, just like others," she said.
Dennis acknowledged that the current climate for tobacco is, "as always, a challenging environment."
Other leading spenders included the Tobacco Institute, nearly $1.3 million; U.S. Tobacco, $920,000; R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, $859,670; and the Smokeless Tobacco Council, $600,000.
The new lobbying law requires all interests that engage in significant lobbying in Washington to register and to disclose a good-faith estimate of lobbying expenses twice a year. The law went into effect Jan. 1.
The industry's lobbying expenditures are "certainly a clear indication that the tobacco industry is still a major power on the Hill and has a tremendous amount of clout," said John Banzhaf of Action on Smoking and Health, an anti-tobacco group.
He said the spending may lay the groundwork for efforts next year to engineer a legislative end run around the new FDA regulations, which are expected to be tied up in court challenges for years.