Altria's big bet on Juul is going horribly wrong

Sens. Mitt Romney and Jeff Merkley proposed a bill late Thursday that would:

• Ban e-cigarette flavors other than tobacco.
• Create new design standards for e-cigarettes.
• Apply existing tobacco taxes to e-cigarettes.
• Urge the Department of Health and Human Services to oversee a campaign about the health risks of e-cigarettes.
• Make it more difficult to refill vape cartridges with home-made tobacco pods.

"With nearly a quarter of high school students vaping regularly, we must take decisive action to prevent a new generation from addiction and serious health risks," Romney said.

Between the lines: "Sometimes it's darkest before the light, but right now it looks like Altria got smoked," Axios' Dan Primack writes.

The big picture: Juul keeps getting hit left and right — particularly after the recent spate of vaping-related lung diseases. The company is also facing a possible congressional subpoena after failing to provide documents in July.

• Last week, President Trump proposed banning all flavored vaping pods from the U.S. market, including mint and menthol.
• Earlier this week, Juul products disappeared from Chinese e-commerce sites JD.com and Alibaba's Tmall.com, without explanation.
• India banned e-cigarettes entirely.

In the market: Altria's stock has been falling for much of this year and has been on a clear downward path over the past 6 months.

• The recent blowback against e-cigarettes has sent shares down another 8% in just the past week.

Go deeper: The global anti-vaping tipping point

• "After nearly a month of stonewalling, it appears clear that the President has chosen the path of defiance, obstruction, and cover-up," the letter reads.

The state of play: Several White House officials have told Axios' Alayna Treene that the administration has no plans of complying with the committees' demands for interviews or documents without a full House vote formally approving an impeachment inquiry.

The big picture: The Trump administration's initial refusal to turn over the whistleblower complaint on the president's interactions with Ukraine is what led House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to finally support a formal impeachment inquiry.

Go deeper: Trump letter dares Pelosi to hold vote on impeachment inquiry

• Johnson asked the Justice Department earlier this week to look into links between Ukraine and Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. His letter questioned the narrative that Biden's actions in Ukraine had nothing to do with his son's connection.
• However, it was also discovered that he signed onto a 2016 letter that mirrored Biden's work to reform Ukraine's prosecutor general and judiciary.
• There is no evidence that Biden's reform work in Ukraine was to protect his son's business dealings, as the president and some of his allies allege, or that he committed any form of corruption.

The state of play: Sondland, a Trump political appointee who donated $1 million to the president's inaugural committee, denied that there was a quid pro quo between the Trump administration and Ukraine's government in a series of text messages that former Ukraine special envoy Kurt Volker provided to a group of House committees investigating the Trump-Ukraine matter.

• "I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign," Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine, texted Sondland.
• Sondland texted back: "Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump's intentions. The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quo's of any kind."
• The New York Times reported that Sondland's response came only after he spoke to the president.

Go deeper: House committees release texts from former Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker