LIQUOR INDUSTRY SCORES IN FIGHT OVER NATIONAL DRINKING STANDARDS

WASHINGTON -- Intense lobbying by the liquor and restaurant industries
helped prevent a House vote on legislation lowering the threshold of
drunkenness behind the wheel.

Such laws should be left to the states, not Washington, says the Republican
committee chairman whose panel kept the measure off the House floor. But
its Democratic sponsor says the committee action proves unmistakably that
"the liquor lobby ... put profits ahead of people's lives."

The legislation was an amendment to a giant highway spending bill that
would have taken highway money away from states that don't enact .08
percent blood alcohol content levels for drunken driving.

It is shaping up as one of the most hard-fought drinking issues since the
drive more than a decade ago to make 21 the nationally recognized legal age
for drinking.

A month ago, the Senate passed such an amendment to its highway bill by a
strong 62-32 vote, and President Clinton has endorsed a national .08
percent standard that already is in force in 16 states.

Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., main sponsor of the House amendment, angrily
blamed the liquor and restaurant lobbies for stopping her amendment from
even getting a vote. "Today the liquor lobby bottled up our bill and
demonstrated loud and clear that they put profits ahead of people's lives,"
Lowey said.

Liquor and restaurant groups admit that after losing in the Senate, they
waged a full-court effort in the House. The National Beer Wholesalers
Association and the American Beverage Institute ran large ads in Capitol
Hill newspapers, sent letters to lawmakers and had wholesalers and brewers
write or fax their representatives.

The ABI's general counsel, Richard Berman, hired lobbyist Ann Eppard, who
for 22 years was chief of staff to Transportation Committee Chairman Bud
Shuster, R-Pa., author of the highway bill.

"We're very proud of the folks," said David Rehr, vice president of
government affairs for the beer wholesalers. "They were not embarrassed to
tell people that this was not the solution."

Normally members of the National Restaurant Association make lobbying
visits to Congress every fall. This year, the association moved up the
schedule, and the association's Kathleen O'Leary said 120 restaurant owners
met with their congressmen. Their aim: To stress that ".08 is not the
problem, it is the chronic drinker, the abusive drinker, underage
drinking," she said.

Jackie Gillan of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety said the last time
they went head-to-head with the alcohol and restaurant industries was 1984,
when Congress was debating the nationwide 21 question. "They made the same
Chicken Little predictions, that the sky would fall," Gillan said.

Beer wholesaler Rehr said their side struck a chord with lawmakers
sensitive to the states' rights question, and the association's ads said
the Lowey amendment was "federal blackmail" that imposed Washington's will
on the states.

Rep. Gerald Solomon, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Rules Committee that
made the decision to disallow a vote on the Lowey amendment, agreed that it
was "strictly a states' rights issue. ... We didn't want the federal
government dictating to the states."

He said no one from the liquor lobby contacted him or others on the
committee. At least one, however, shared their line of thought. Committee
member Rep. Scott McInnis, R-Colo., in opposing the Lowey amendment, said
it was "federal blackmail."

Supporters of .08 percent say it is more lenient than drunken driving
levels in most European countries, that it would save at least 600 lives a
year and that it makes no sense for drinkers to be legal behind the wheel
in one state and not in another.

The .08 percent level, said Mothers Against Drunk Driving President Karolyn
Nunnallee, "is a lifesaving law that the public has supported in every
scientific poll on this issue."