The Fight for Beverage Free Trade Continues

Weeks ago we presented a story here at BevX.com regarding an insidious piece of proposed legislation dubbed H.R. 5034.

H.R. 5034 - Comprehensive Alcohol Regulatory Effectiveness (CARE) Act of 2010 is perhaps the most damaging piece of legislation concerning the alcohol beverage consumer and producer since the 18th Amendment.

Unfortunately, this ill-conceived bill is still very much alive. The beverage wholesalers are guaranteed a piece of the US beverage market by law thanks to the antiquated three-tier system. Apparently, this is not enough and now they seek to pass a piece of legislation that at its core is determined to specifically ignore the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, as well as a number of other federal laws — including anti-trust laws.

You see - the wholesalers are smarting from their recent defeats in local and federal courts where the United States Supreme Court upheld the commerce clause. The only way the wholesalers can stop you, the consumer, from buying wine direct from the winery of your choosing is to introduce a law that suppresses the Constitution’s commerce clause.

Yesterday the D.C.-based Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) submitted a letter to Congress that calls the bill “an affront to consumer freedom.”
“Wholesalers fear that if states continue to allow direct-to-consumer sales, they might eventually allow retailers to buy direct as well, reducing wholesaler profits,” explains CEI’s Angela Logomasini.  “While wholesalers play an important role in the distribution process,” she notes, “they should have to compete like everyone else for their place in the market rather than gain it by regulatory fiat.” We could not agree more with these sentiments.

If you would like greater choices and more competitive prices for alcohol beverages you would do well to learn a bit more about H.R. 5034.

Here are some helpful links:

Stop HR5034

The BevX story of H.R. 5034

The Facebook Page

The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s letter to Congress