Former Middlebury College president continues drive for lower drinking age
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By Louis Porter Vermont Press Bureau - Published: February 17, 2009
MONTPELIER — John McCardell is continuing the national campaign to lower the drinking age that he began when he left his job as president of Middlebury College several years ago. A bill to do that has been introduced in Vermont this year.
Bill number H.77 has five co-sponsors in the Vermont House, and would lower the drinking age to 18.
But that effort would likely have to overcome a challenge presented by the federal government. Although the states set their drinking age, they face the loss of a significant amount of federal highway aid if they lower those limits to below 21 years old.
The loss of that 10 percent of federal highway funding — about $8 million in Vermont — particularly in a year in which state revenues across the country are in as tough shape as they are now, is hard to sell.
In Vermont's Statehouse late last week, McCardell said he is considering asking state legislators — including those in Vermont — to pass resolutions urging Congress to eliminate the threat of that funding loss. That could free states to lower the drinking age within their borders without fear of losing the federal transportation assistance.
As a former college president he has seen the effect of the higher drinking age, McCardell said.
"Its unintended consequences, largely negative, have outweighed its benefits," he said. "There is no data to show that young adults are waiting until 21 to consume alcohol. It has been very successful at banning consumption from public places and public view."
Not everyone agrees that the drinking age should be lowered, including the National Transportation Safety Board, which recommended in 1982 that states increase their legal drinking age limits. In 1984 the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was passed, reducing highway aid for states that retained a lower drinking age.
In 2007 Mark Rosenker, the chairman of the federal safety board, testified before Congress that the higher drinking age should be maintained.
"All of the rigorously drawn and peer-reviewed studies have essentially come to the same conclusion," he said. "Lowering the legal drinking age increases both alcohol consumption and alcohol-related fatalities among young drivers; and raising the drinking age reduces consumption and fatalities."
But McCardell disagrees. Instead of preventing teenagers or young adults from drinking, it merely makes it a clandestine activity, he said.
Gov. James Douglas said Thursday that he is not opposed to the idea of a lower drinking age, given that those under 21 can now be called on for service in the military, for instance.
"Philosophically I share those views," Douglas said. But, the governor added, "in this difficult financial situation … I am not sure about the practicality of it."
McCardell's nonprofit organization, called Choose Responsibility, is now based in Washington, D.C., not in Vermont. But the state remains important to his goal, McCardell said.
"This state has always been at the forefront of social and political change," he said.
And McCardell hopes that may be true once again.
Contact Louis Porter at louis.porter@timesargus.com.
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