Under current policy, any state that chooses to set its drinking age under 21 must forfeit 10% of its annual federal highway appropriation. Since this amounts to tens of millions of dollars in most states, state level changes in drinking age policy are effectively limited until Congress opts to issue a waiver to states interested in revising their underage drinking policies.

This problem is adapted from content originally published on the Choose Responsibility website, where you can read more about it.