US House allocates funding for wine smoke-exposure research, permit processing

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a funding bill this past week that would provide additional money to help the U.S wine industry.

The bill would provide an additional $5 million for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to continue research into how wine grapes are affected by wildfire smoke exposure. That level of funding would be an increase of 11% over last year’s total and represents $15 million in overall research dollars to the topic over a four-year period.

The measure also would allocate $150 million to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau for its annual budget, which would be a 17% over the current fiscal year. The Wine Institute trade group said the additional funding would help the agency in processing permit approvals and for implementing the Craft Beverage Modernization Act that was originally passed in 2017.

Compiled by Bill Swindell. Submit items to bill.swindell@pressdemocrat.com.

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