Annie Starke has been named the Beer Institute’s (BI’s) new senior director of federal affairs, the national trade association announced today.
Starke brings to the BI more than a decade of legislative experience; most recently, she worked as an associate and policy advisor at the Washington, D.C.-based law firm, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, where she “worked extensively on federal tax policy,” BI president and CEO Jim McGreevy said in an email.
Starke is also a former congressional staffer for the House Ways and Means Committee, and worked for two year at the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA).
“I am so excited to start with the Beer Institute,” Starke told Brewound via email. “I look forward to promoting a creative and competitive industry that represents more than 6,400 brewers and supports over two million American jobs.”
Starke replaces Joe Heaton, who had worked at the BI since 2017, according to his LinkedIn page. McGreevy and Heaton were named Brewbound’s 2020 Persons of the Year for their efforts to make permanent reduced federal excise tax rates for all brewers and beer importers.
The BI’s federal affairs focuses for this year continue to be aluminum tariffs, the Midwest Premium and federal excise tax differentiation.
The BI is pushing to end the 10% tariff on imported aluminum, originally imposed by former-president Donald Trump in 2018 under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act.
In 2018, the BI commissioned a study that found the tariff would increase the annual cost of beer manufacturing by $347 million. President Joe Biden replaced tariffs on European and Japanese steel with a tariff rate quota system – inturn removing nearly half of the imports listed in Section 232 – but he has not announced any plans to change the aluminum tariff, according to the BI.
Additionally, the BI spoke out against the U.S. Department of Treasury’s findings in its ‘Competition in the Markets for Beer, Wine and Spirits’ report in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commision (FTC) last month.
The report identifies what the Treasury deemed “several competition issues in the beer, wine and spirits markets,” and gave several recommendations for regulatory enforcement to “better level the playing field for small businesses and new marketplace entrants.”
In a statement, McGreevy said the report was a “mischaracterization of the thriving American beer industry,” and that “despite being one of the most regulated industries in the United States, the beer industry is experiencing an unprecedented level of healthy competition.”
The Treasury also noted that the existing federal excise tax rates in beverage alcohol create a “competitive disadvantage for distilled spirits-based drinks when compared to beer or wine-based drinks with similar alcohol content.”
The BI continues to combat the spirit’s industry’s campaign for federal excise tax equalization with beer, which is “the biggest threat facing the industry,” McGreevy said on the Brewbound podcast in September.