CBC 2024: A Government Affairs Update with Katie Marisic of the Brewers Association

Speaker 1 [00:05] Hey, we are here at the Craft Brewers Conference, uh, at Brew Expo America. And I am so excited for our guest, uh, one of my favorite people and absolutely somebody that you need to know if you brew craft beer in the United States. So, uh, joining me and Justin right now is Katie Marissi, the BA's senior director of federal affairs. Katie,

Speaker 2 [00:27] hi. Hi. That is such a nice intro. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Well, I mean

Speaker 1 [00:32] all

Speaker 2 [00:32] of that. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 1 [00:35] Well, thanks for joining us because I know you're busy. I was in the audience for your talk yesterday.

Speaker 2 [00:41] Me and Mark.

Speaker 1 [00:41] Oh my God, it's so

Speaker 2 [00:43] much. It's kind of surreal too because like Mark has been doing this for so long and he's such a wealth of knowledge. So he's like, Well, let's present together. I'm like, OK, great, let's do that. Um,

Speaker 1 [00:56] and if you're not in the loop, Katie is talking about the BA's general counsel Mark Serini. But to me, my friend, it sounds like you're having a little bit of imposter syndrome, and I would like you to not.

Speaker 2 [01:07] Thank you. You're welcome. Yeah, I've been doing this for 9 years. I've been lobbying for much longer, though I'm very young for, oh no, we are being recorded. OK, we are being recorded. But, uh, I, I don't think I have imposter syndrome, but sometimes like I still get a little bit of that buzz when you're like around people who have been in the industry for so long, and he's smart. He's brought a ton, a ton to our government affairs team, and I think it's really helped because I think it's elevated the brewers Association's political and government affairs work overall. So could not be happier,

Speaker 1 [01:42] so important. Well, you guys knocked through a bunch of topics yesterday, so, uh. See how much my brain retained. Uh, I do think the federal level you've got a few priorities. The first is being the, the United States Shipping Equity Act, United States Postal Service Shipping Equity Act,

Speaker 2 [02:00] yes, which I always have to say, but it is the USPS Shipping Equity Act. It's much easier to say. And yeah, that's the legislation that would allow the postal service to ship alcohol in states where shipping of alcohol is legal. So for those of you who are unaware, if you can ship, whether it's beer, wine, or spirits in your state, You can only do it with private carriers, and we'd really like to see the UPS or USPS. Oh, now I'm doing it. Well, I mean, they have the same letters, so we'd like to see the postal service be able to ship alcohol as well. We think it's beneficial to them, but also they're built to ship door to door. The postal service was made so everyone could have access to mail, and the private carriers do amazing work, but we, you know, with what, 9500 breweries in the country. With everybody who lives in the country, people live in rural areas. They don't necessarily live in those roots, and we think it could bring good competition. Yeah,

Speaker 1 [02:55] I mean, and the private carriers don't deliver everywhere, right? There are certain places in the country that are completely left out.

Speaker 2 [03:01] Yeah, so we, we are going to continue to advocate for that. We work with wine and spirits as well, and all the postal labor unions are very supportive of it. From the postal services side, they see it as a way that they could raise revenue, um. And they already do things like ID verification. You can get prescription drugs shipped through the mail. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to get a beer that you love shipped to you through the mail where it's legal. It doesn't supersede state legislation, so we're still working on state shipping laws,

Speaker 3 [03:29] but Let's also talk about the CHEES Act because it's no secret draft is challenged. Tell us a little bit about this bill I, I'm gonna just abbreviate it and keep it to the CHEES Act, but uh tell us a little bit about what this would do and how much support you, you're seeing for it.

Speaker 2 [03:48] Yeah, no, happy to. So it's really nice when you have a positive piece of legislation to advocate for. I mean, obviously the USPS bill is that for us too, but this is a beer bill, and we're the brewers Association. So we're working with the National Beer Wholesalers Association, the Beer Institute, then groups like the National Restaurant Association, Independent Restaurant Coalition, and Steel Keg Association on legislation that would, what we hope incentive. Devise the creation of new draft lines when you're building restaurants and bars, and it gets technical and if you're not an accountant, it might be a little bit boring, but it would increase the deduction that they're allowed to take from Section 179 of the tax code. So we're, we're, you know, we're happy we're going to be supporting this during our hill climb, and we think that it is the type of thing that can incentivize one of the areas where beer is really the strongest, and I say strongest in If you're drinking, drinking a draft drink, 99% of the time, it's going to be beer, and that's something that we, we want to continue to encourage.

Speaker 1 [04:53] And you have a really nice industry coalition supporting this bill, right? Yes,

Speaker 2 [04:57] we really do. Um, and I, I just, it is, it's for us, it's really nice to be able to work with the Beer Institute and those other groups like we used to with the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act. It's like the band's back together. The band is back together.

Speaker 3 [05:11] So does this essentially take the place of that spoiled beer tax credit that you were chasing for a while?

Speaker 2 [05:17] No, I wouldn't think that it takes the place. It's, it's a little different, but there are similarities to it. But what we really are trying to do is, one, I mean, there's environmental aspects to it. You're going to have to meet certain requirements if you would qualify for this tax. Credit, but it's incentivizing what I would say is like new draft lines in some ways. The people who are selling the product to the consumers directly, the people who are putting in those draft systems are going to benefit from being able to take that depreciation, that bigger depreciation. So similar, not a replacement, but definitely a priority.

Speaker 1 [05:53] And what else should we be looking out for? My gosh, sorry.

Speaker 2 [05:58] Well, um, we are, we are also paying attention right now to one of the tax bills that is in the Senate, bipartisan legislation passed out of the House. It addresses things like the child tax credit, but it also has tax provisions that would impact brewers. We've heard from a few since we've been here today about a research and development credit. It was a part of the Tax cut and Jobs Act. It expired, and what it would do is allow you to depreciate the R&D, the money that you put into R&D in the year that it happens. And we have a lot of members who are taking advantage of that. And this is an this is an impact on them. Um, we're innovative. It's a cool industry, and I think Bart was talking today that look, we need to keep innovating and coming up with, coming up with things that drive people to beer. So we want to make sure that our members are able to get benefits from that. It's probably unlikely to pass this year, though there is a coalition in the Senate that's working to try and get it done, but I'm pretty optimistic for 2025. I expect that to be a pretty big year tax-wise. Other things we are paying attention to, and I laugh a little bit about it, is the 2025 fiscal appropriations. We just finished the 2024 fiscal appropriations six months into the fiscal year, but they got it done slowly. Uh, so we work with the hop and barley growers really closely on USDA agricultural research services. And here, there are a bunch of different places that are brewing, uh, beer or beer made with a Vista hop. I don't know if you've had that one before. That's one of the hops that came from that research program. It's a Public varietal. It was built to be, you know, disease resistant to things like Downey mildew, Downey and powdery mildew, and having the, having the fun so they were able to do that, it benefits public growers, private growers, and it's a super tasty hop. I would definitely check it out. And then advocating for the TTB as well.

Speaker 3 [07:50] One of the things that Bob brought up yesterday and was a subject at the legislative conference was the 2025 dietary guidelines updates. So do you have any sense of where that's heading at this point as far as where the USDA and Health and Human Services may be leaning with those?

Speaker 2 [08:12] Um, I, I don't, um, but now I will test you from yesterday. Do you remember what ICPPUD stands for? Oh

Speaker 1 [08:19] my God, no, but Zoey had written a story where she Called it out last week and I put in the comments on the Google Docs, what on earth is this acronym?

Speaker 2 [08:27] It's the Inter Interagency Coordinating Committee for the Prevention of Underage Drinking. But for the people who are really aware of the dietary guidelines process, this is something that happens every 5 years. It used to be for the alcohol portion. Covered by the USDA, but it was changed to Health and Human Services. So in 2025, they'll be releasing new dietary guidelines. Current ones say that recommended amount of drinks in a day for a man, two drinks, a woman, one drink. They are reviewing that process, a group, the National Academy Academy of Science and Medical Engineering, um, they, and the, oh my gosh. The Substance abuse and Mental Health Group, SAMSA, it's many, many acronyms in Washington DC, uh, and the, these are some of the longer ones, um. They are looking at 8 specific questions that Congress appropriated funding for them to research that looks at alcohol's impact on things like cancer, um, breast milk, different stuff like that. And what they want to see is whether or not there is an impact on 2 drink, 1 drink, no drink. We've been seeing, uh, definitely across the world, some. People moving more towards a no safe limit when it comes to alcohol, and that's something they could potentially be deciding on this front. But it is, it is a long process. That's why it happens every 5 years. Currently, right now, they are in the, I would say the research side of things, but which way it's leaning, I don't know. And I think, you know, in this particular thing, it, it's scientific. So there needs to be a preponderance of evidence, and that is, that's what they're working on.

Speaker 1 [10:14] Is that change from, uh, the USDA to the Health and Human Services, Is that new for this go round with dietary guidelines? The way

Speaker 2 [10:22] I understand it, yes, and I admit this is an issue that I've only recently been paying more attention to. It's always been in the background, but we, you know, it's just something that we are. We are monitoring and wanna, wanna know what's gonna happen. Yeah,

Speaker 1 [10:38] I remember the last time around it, it, it, there was some noise about bringing, you know, men's limit from 2 to 1, but that obviously got, you know, fought off and didn't happen. But, you know, when you had those 8 questions that they're looking at up on the screen, I was shocked that like 3 of them pertain to lactation. And this is probably another conversation for another time, but it was just to me, so like everything about pregnancy and postpartum for the most part is that, oh, we don't know. So I was like, oh cool, somebody actually wants to study this, like that's good, but also Who knows?

Speaker 2 [11:16] It probably is a conversation for another time. I need to read up a lot more on it.

Speaker 1 [11:21] Cause it was just so, I mean, everything was like, can you do this while you're a lactating American? Can you do that? Can you do this? Can you eat this? Nobody really knows. So, I'm at least glad that that science has taken up the cause perhaps, but a lot going on.

Speaker 2 [11:38] There's a lot going on and we're getting ready to have our hill climb in June, so a bunch of different people will be coming to Washington DC, obviously our guild executive directors who we partner with on a lot of things, they show up, brewery CEOs, all BA members are. Welcome to join. It's a pretty great event, and we've, we've extended it a little. It's not just a one day event anymore. It's a half day, and we actually get a presentation from BT as well. Uh, also, the economists from the NBWA and the BI come and do a little bit more personal state of the industry. You get a

Speaker 1 [12:11] lesser and Bart show.

Speaker 2 [12:12] I do. That's exciting. Yes, I send out handwritten notes.

Speaker 3 [12:17] It's a nice touch. Well, we appreciate the time, Katie. Thanks for doing this.

Speaker 2 [12:22] Thank you guys for having me. You're awesome. It's, I'm, I'm just really happy that you're all here and hopefully you're having fun in Vegas and have been enjoying the sessions. Yeah,

Speaker 1 [12:31] it's been wonderful.