Players can scrap new drug policy if contract talks fail

~ A provision allows current drug policy to be voided in August.

NEW YORK -- Major league players can scrap the sport's toughened drug rules if they don't have a new labor contract by August, a provision drawing attention from congressmen who pushed for the strengthened policy.

If players and owners don't agree to a new labor contract by Aug. 1, the union has until Aug. 15 to unilaterally end the new drug policy as of Dec. 19, when the current collective bargaining agreement expires.

If players terminate the new policy and the sides play 2007 without a labor contract, the 2005 drug rules would be in effect.

After being contacted Tuesday about that provision by The Associated Press, House Government Reform Committee chairman Tom Davis sent a letter to baseball commissioner Bud Selig and union head Donald Fehr saying it "raises congressional concern."

Davis asked Major League Baseball and the union "to reassure the Committee, in writing" that the clause "does not leave open the possibility, under any circumstances, that the 2007 season will be played subject to the 2005 drug testing policy."

Davis' committee held a steroids hearing in March 2005, when the witnesses included Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro and Jose Canseco. Davis was one of a handful of representatives and senators who sponsored bills last year proposing to mandate stronger steroid testing and penalties for U.S. pro sports.

Spurred by that threat of legislation, baseball players and owners agreed in November to tougher penalties for steroid use starting this season, including 50 games for a first offense, 100 games for a second, and a lifetime ban for a third, plus testing for amphetamines. The previous steroid penalties were a 10-day suspension for a first offense, 30 days for a second offense and 60 days for a third. There was no testing or punishment for amphetamine use.

"Obviously, the chairman is looking for reassurances that this clause will not result in baseball returning to the bad old days of a weak drug testing policy," Davis spokesman Robert White wrote in an e-mail to the AP.

"Baseball has come too far to lose ground now," White added.

Rep. Henry Waxman of California, the ranking Democrat on Government Reform, figures the players wouldn't exercise their right to revert back to the old steroids rules.

"Congress will be closely monitoring any changes to baseball's steroid policy and it is inconceivable to me that baseball or the union would weaken the policy they adopted last year," Waxman said in a statement.