They threw $2,000 in bills down to the Senate floor during a vote.
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The Senate bill would require foods with genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, to carry any of three types of labeling: words, a symbol or an electronic code readable by smartphone.
The legislation encompasses some foods that were exempted from the Vermont law, but it also allows the Agriculture Department to determine how much of a “bioengineered substance” must be present to require a GMO label. “What it’s trying to do is avoid the confusion and the cost when a state implements a law that becomes defacto federal law of the land and increases the cost of prices to consumers”. The food industry is backing the Senate bill. I urge you to oppose the current Roberts-Stabenow language, and instead support my comprehensive national labeling amendment, which would provide what almost 9 out of 10 consumers want.. While it is Democratic lawmakers who have been most sympathetic to food activists in the past, enough Democrats in Congress support the national label to make it a bi-partisan issue. Any changes in the bill would require the legislation to be sent back to the Senate. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a prepared statement Wednesday. It is a last-minute attack on Vermonts law, and on states right to set priorities at the state government level. “I will do everything that I can to see that it’s defeated”. The House could vote on the bill as early as next week, before legislators break for national party conventions and their August recess.
Farmers lobbied against the Vermont law, worrying that labeling stigmatizes GMO crops and could hurt demand for food containing those ingredients, but have applauded this law.
Grassley said a bill was needed “to prevent a single state from dictating food labeling laws to the rest of the country”. “It can be done”. American consumers want and deserve no less. The debate continued through the following day, and viewers reported that Senator Sanders chastised the Senate for not inviting “all voices” to testify in the Senate about GMO safety, and that Senator Stabenow dismissed popular conspiracy theories about GMOs, citing the recent National Academy of Sciences report on the subject.
If it passes the Senate, S. 764 will then go to the House, which past year adopted a voluntary GMO labeling bill by a large bipartisan margin.
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A Monsanto’s spokesperson said that the “overwhelming majority of food and agriculture is voicing support for this bill with the members of the U.S. Senate”, The Hill reports. The 65 votes means the bill can withstand filibuster.
