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Soft drink manufacturers have been spending millions of dollars to lobby against a national excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, including soda, juice drinks and flavored milk, that has been proposed to help offset the costs associated with sweeping health reform, the Huffington Post reports. Although such a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages was first proposed in May during the Senate Finance Committee's deliberations on health care reform, it has yet to emerge in any of the health care reform bills currently under consideration in the legislature. According to lobbying reports filed with the Senate Office of Public Records, industry groups spent approximately $24 million on lobbying efforts against a national excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverages during the first nine months of this year, with 21 companies and organizations dedicated exclusively to lobbying against the proposed tax. Specifically, $5 million was spent on a national advertising campaign aimed at Capitol Hill lawmakers to promote the Americans Against Food Taxes coalition. According to the coalition's Web site, the group is composed of "responsible individuals, financially-strapped families, [and] small and large businesses," including Burger King Corporation, Coca Cola, PepsiCo, Domino's Pizza and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Meanwhile, the American Beverage Association directed more than $7.3 million toward lobbying and advertising efforts in the third quarter of 2009, marking a six-fold increase over the previous quarter. Health officials and other advocacy groups contend that a tax on sugary drinks, particularly those that contain high-fructose corn syrup, could not only reduce consumption of such beverages, but also generate enough revenue to close state budget gaps and support new health care programs. Lobbyists, however, argue that such beverages are not to blame for high rates of obesity and say that a national excise tax would "unfairly single out one type of product and would be a particular burden on low-income people, who can least afford to pay a few cents more per can or bottle," according to the Huffington Post. In the Senate, a federal beverage tax was not perceived as serving as a significant enough source of revenue, according to some congressional aides. In addition, passage of such a bill was expected to be difficult in the Senate Finance Committee, which has several food industry sympathizers. However, several state capitals, spurred by budgetary deficits, are said to be reexamining the issue. California, for example, is expected to soon host a hearing to examine the link between childhood obesity and sugar-sweetened beverages, and New York Gov. David Paterson (D) has recently revived a proposal to impose a tax on such beverages. According to a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine, 33 states impose sales taxes on soda, although the taxes are too low to impact consumption and are not typically used to help raise revenue for health care. A recent study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest determined that a tax of as little as $0.07 per 12-ounce can could annually generate as much as $10 billion for states (Spolar/Eaton, Huffington Post, 11/4/09).