With the Department of Government Efficiency aiming to reduce the size and scope of the federal bureaucracy, the Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) has not been immune. The agency recently reported a 13 percent reduction in its workforce since last year. While much of this appears to have come in the form of “voluntary resignations,” it’s clear that many of DOGE’s policies are directly targeted at encouraging such attrition.
The TTB is the primary federal regulatory body responsible for alcohol. The bulk of alcohol regulation has taken place at the state and local level since the end of Prohibition, but the feds have kept their hands in the pie through this agency, which oversees myriad tax issues, trade practice rules, and a label approval regime that determines what illustrations you’re allowed to see on your favorite beer can.
Under the TTB’s pre-approval process, the agency has to sign off on the labels that attach to alcohol bottles and cans before those products hit the market. This contrasts with the Food and Drug Administration’s system for food labels on non-alcoholic items, which polices label infractions only after products go on sale.
Speaking remotely to a recent Napa Valley wine conference, TTB spokesperson Janelle Christian said that the average processing time for label approval has increased in recent months. While she attributed this to the aforementioned staff reductions, she also provided a great real-world example of necessity becoming the mother of invention: The TTB is exploring the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to help with the label review and approval process.
The possibility that AI could enhance food labeling compliance has been touted for several years now, so this is an idea that the TTB should have pursued long ago. But before the staff reductions, it does not appear to have been on the agency’s radar. Downsizing is clearly forcing agencies to think more creatively and to explore new ideas for increasing efficiency and cutting costs. (Christian’s remarks via laptop to the wine conference are another example of that: TTB officials used to attend that conference in person.)
The TTB’s labeling regime has not only suffered from long processing times in the past. It is also a case study in the inanity of bureaucracy. The agency’s labeling rules prohibit “health-related statements,” which it has construed to be comically broad. The agency once rejected a label for King of Hearts beer because the picture—a playing card with a heart—was deemed to imply a health benefit. St. Paula’s Liquid Wisdom got in trouble because “wisdom” supposedly implied a medical claim.
That mentality is still alive and well at the TTB labeling office. In those same remarks to the Napa Valley conference, Christian declared that the two most common wine label violations the agency sees involve rosé and orange wine. “Rosé is a color. It does need to say ‘rosé wine,'” she said. “‘Orange wine’ is a fruit wine under TTB regulations. You aren’t allowed to call it ‘orange wine’ on your label. You can call it ‘orange-tinted Pinot Gris’ or an ‘amber-colored’ or an ‘orange-hued wine.'”
Something is wrong when the federal government has grown large enough to police the naming protocols of orange-tinted Pinot Grigio. If downsizing is what it takes to pull Washington back from that sort of micromanagement, we need more of it.
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