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Brawl Over Fed's Alcohol Labeling Proposal

Pushed by consumer groups, the U.S. Treasury Department's Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau is proposing that alcoholic-beverage marketers be required to to put nutrition and alcohol-content labels on their containers. Consumers currently have almost no standardized information on calories, ingredients, or alcohol in a serving of beer, wine or liquor. Some producers, including brewers of light beer, list some of the information to help capture sales.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest petitioned the agency for ingredient labels in 1972. It filed another one in 2003 that asked for a list of ingredients, the alcohol content and a message like the one in the government's dietary guidelines. It says moderate drinking means one drink a day for women and two for men.

Wineries, brewers and distillers have competing concerns about cost, placement and shape of the label and how alcohol content is disclosed. Groups representing consumers have weighed in, too, asking for a label that expresses alcohol content by volume and in fluid ounces by serving.

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