In the weeks following President Obama’s State of the Union address, which stressed a need to improve America’s road-warrior policies, Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has been promoting initiatives for federally funded infrastructure improvements.
As LaHood pushes for changes to the country’s approach to transportation issues, one contentious subject has yet to resurface: the national drinking age.
On Tuesday, LaHood joined Joe Biden in Philadelphia as the vice president (whom LaHood called the “nation’s conductor”), announced plans to improve the country’s high-speed rail system.
Echoing President Obama’s recent rhetoric comparing the U.S. to everyone else, Biden said, “the rest of the world is not compromising on education, infrastructure or innovation.”
Without making such improvements, Biden said, “we’re going to find ourselves behind in every way.”
Already behind other countries when it comes to reflecting an 18-year old’s status as an adult, could the latest push in transport-related policy revive the country’s most bacchanalian debate?
The president of Choose Responsibility is not entirely optimistic.
In 2008, Choose Responsibility launched the Amethyst Initiative. It calls for an end to the current drinking-age restrictions that with which the group says the federal government “blackmailed” states, by denying 10 percent of highway funding for non-compliance. The Amethyst Initiative focuses on the support of college administrators and presidents and has 135 signatories to date.
Repeating the oft-cited argument that if one is old enough to die for his or her country, then that person should be old enough to legally drink, Choose Responsibility insists the current age-limit has led to “a culture of dangerous, clandestine ‘binge-drinking’ — often conducted off-campus.”
Seamen said that when the initiative first launched, it was met with fevered resistance from the prohibitionist group Mothers Against Drunk Driving. As for national lawmakers, the initiative fell on deaf ears.
As national leaders begin pushing for improved transportation policies, however, there could be an opportunity to revisit the issue.
“We certainly have not given up trying to be a part of the debate on this,” said Seamen. “If [LaHood would] be willing to entertain the discussion, we’d sure be willing to talk to them. When we began this thing, I think we thought we could go head-on into Congress and persuade them to repeal this stricture, but I think we have since concluded that the best path for us is on a state-by-state basis.”
Approaching the subject as 10th Amendment issue, Seamen said Choose Responsibility has been focusing on Vermont, where favorable bills have recently been introduced. Similarly, Georgia state Rep. Jack Kingston has introduced a bill that would lower the drinking age for armed service members.
“We figure the best bet for us is to get one, two, maybe three states to get an exception to the penalties so that they can then experiment with a pilot project,” said Seamen. “If they can show this can be done successfully … that would be a great success and a model for what the country as a whole can do.”
As the group changes tactics from a sweeping, national approach to targeting individual states, Seamen said they’ve seen an increase of conservative support.
“We’ve tried to keep this as nonpartisan as we can but I would say as of late, the greatest potential for support seems to come from Republicans, particularly Tea Party Republicans who are interested in less government,” said Semen. “We will obviously do what we can to encourage that kind of thinking.”
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