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The Senate on Wednesday cleared the last hurdle toward passage of a long-debated bill to give the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco.

A final vote is expected Thursday, according to Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn. The House passed a similar bill in April. President Barack Obama has expressed support for the measure and is expected to sign it once the two chambers work out their differences.

The 67-30 procedural vote shows considerable bipartisan support for the legislation, which has been in the works for more than a decade.

Moderate Republicans like Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine have consistently voted in favor of the measure, but hard-line conservatives like Sens. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., John Thune, R-S.D., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, also voted Wednesday to proceed to final passage.

Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., was the only Democrat to vote no Wednesday. Tobacco producers have a large presence in North Carolina, her home state. Reynolds American Inc. (RAI) and Lorillard Inc. (LO), two leading tobacco companies, are based in North Carolina.

Many Republicans object to giving the FDA power to regulate tobacco, saying that the agency is already hard-pressed to perform its drug-safety mission.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., proposed creating a new agency within the Health and Human Services Department to regulate tobacco, but the Senate rejected that idea Tuesday.

Dodd recently has shepherded the bill through the Senate, taking a role that in the past has been held by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who has championed the proposal for years.

The bill requires all tobacco product manufacturers to register with the FDA and provide the agency with a detailed product list. It also would assess user fees on manufacturers to pay for the cost of FDA tobacco regulation.

The FDA would have the authority to evaluate any health claims made by cigarette makers and require companies to make changes in their tobacco products. The bill also mandates larger and more strongly worded warning labels on packets of cigarettes.

It imposes strict controls on advertising that restrict ads to black and white and stop the use of terms "mild" and "low tar."

Altria Group, Inc. (MO), the parent company of tobacco producer Philip Morris USA, announced its support in March for the House bill allowing FDA regulation of tobacco.

But smaller tobacco companies criticize the legislation, saying it would freeze in place the dominance of big companies by making it difficult to introduce new products.

-By Fawn Johnson, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9263; fawn.johnson@dowjones.com