Housing and Development Newsletter Under Pelosi’s leadership as House speaker, lawmakers tacked the restriction onto a $1.37 trillion appropriations bill that won congressional approval and was signed into law in December 2019. Three and a half decades earlier, Congress passed the 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act to limit the sale of alcoholic beverages to adults 21 and older. That measure used highway funds as leverage to wheedle states into changing their laws. The tobacco age increase relied on federal authority in the Commerce Clause of the Constitution to steamroll state legislatures and set nationwide policy. While most age restrictions limit young people’s rights, there’s a corollary push to reduce responsibilities.