A federal report citing overwhelming evidence that secondhand cigarette smoke is a major public health threat could reignite efforts to ban smoking in public buildings locally and statewide.

"This can only have a beneficial impact," said Bill Godshall, executive director of SmokeFree Pennsylvania. "Sooner or later politicians will get the message, and a few hard-nosed supporters of the cigarette industry will get unelected."

The federal report says secondhand smoke kills an estimated 50,000 people annually, cannot be eliminated from restaurants by designating smoking areas and using special ventilation systems and increases heart disease and cancer risks by as much as 30 percent among exposed nonsmokers.

Those findings and others led Surgeon General Dr. Richard H. Carmona to recommend banning smoking in public places.

"He was pretty specific," said Cindy Thomas, executive director of TobaccoFree Allegheny, a nonprofit organization supported by the Allegheny County Health Department. "Ban smoking in public places. It's a call to action."

Whether local officials heed the call remains to be seen.

The county Board of Health is expected to discuss the possibility of establishing a smoking ban at its meeting on Wednesday.

"There's going to be something on the agenda" next week, said county Health Director Dr. Bruce Dixon. "Exactly what form it takes is not absolutely clear yet."

It's likely that the committee will propose a plan of action, rather than an actual regulation. Public comments could be gathered during the summer and the issue revisited at the board's September meeting.

"Everybody agrees something ought to happen," Dr. Dixon said. "Where the disagreement comes is whether this is something the state should do or we should do locally."

A state committee has yet to get a smoking ban bill out of committee for discussion by the full House. If it doesn't do this by Nov. 30, the process would have to start from square one, Ms. Thomas noted.

Two weeks ago, Philadelphia's city council approved a bill that would make its workplaces, including restaurants and many bars, smoke-free. Philadelphia Mayor John F. Street has yet to approve the measure.

The Pennsylvania Restaurant Association changed its policy Monday to support a smoking ban if it also applies to casinos and taverns as well as restaurants.

In light of the new surgeon general's report, Patrick Conway, the association's chief executive officer, said the change couldn't be more timely.

"We felt it was time to get behind a smoking ban to protect our employees," he said. "I think the evidence is clear that this is harmful and the only way to protect them is with smoke-free spaces."

But the Pennsylvania Tavern Association, which has 1,000 members, contends that tavern owners, not the state, should decide whether to permit smoking in their establishments.

Amy Christie, the association's executive director, said its board policy protects small mom-and-pop taverns that could lose 30 percent of their business if smoking is banned, as one study says.

"We think [a ban] would keep a lot of smokers at home," she said.

"But we're the most heavily regulated industry in Pennsylvania and another mandate is not what we want to handle right now."

According to Mr. Godshall, 85 percent of state residents support a smoking ban.

But state legislators are being swayed to block or delay legislation by cigarette industry lobbyists who are providing them with money and propaganda to prevent the smoke-free bill from passing the Legislature, he said.