The House passed a bill previous year that would pre-empt states from enforcing such laws.
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Barring states from introducing their own GMO labeling laws is just one provision of the bill, which was introduced last month by Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow of MI and Republican Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas.
The bill is also expected to pass in the House of Representatives. On Wednesday, as the chamber was invoking cloture, protesters in the galleries heckled and then threw money at the bill’s sponsors, telling reporters they’d “made it rain” on the lawmakers who’d been “bought” by Monsanto. They want you to hold your cell phone as you go through the grocery store up to that box of macaroni and cheese to see if it has GMO in it or not by reading all that’s written on your cell phone.
Under the Senate legislation, major food makers would have three options to notify consumers if a product contains GMO ingredients: words, a symbol created by the Agriculture Department, or an electronic option such as a QR code consumers could scan with a smartphone.
Agricultural associations such as the American Soybean Association (ASA) and the National Corn Growers Association have already felt the impact of the Vermont bill that became effective on July 1st. “We urge the House to take swift action”.
“This bipartisan bill ensures that consumers and families throughout the United States will have access, for the first time ever, to information about their food through a mandatory, nationwide label for food products with GMOs”, Stabenow said in a statement, Reuters reported. “Now that the Senate has done its job, we ask the House to move swiftly so this needed legislation can be delivered to the President for his signature”. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Sen. The bill was rejected in the Senate.
What does it mean for us?
“DFA strongly supports the Roberts-Stabenow food biotechnology labeling agreement”, says John Wilson, Senior Vice President and Chief Fluid Marketing Officer, Dairy Farmers of America.
The bill exempts foods in which meat, poultry and egg products are the main ingredients and prohibits the secretary of agriculture from considering any food product derived from an animal to be bioengineered exclusively because the animal might have eaten bioengineered feed. This clarification would take a lot of poultry and meat items off of the GMO list.
Despite protests, the Senate passed the bill Thursday.
“It is deeply disturbing that a majority in the Senate would support a bill that openly discriminates against America’s low income, rural and elderly populations”.
The CRA report also noted that “Costs incurred by American food manufacturers to comply with Vermont’s GMO labeling mandate could lead to an increase of almost 2 percent (1.76 percent) in average food prices nationwide in the first year”. This gives S. 764 a window to reverse the more strict mandatory labeling law. Others, including Senator Bernie Sanders, expressed concerns that the law is too ambiguous and will lead to confusion.
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And this: “This labeling system requires consumers to jump through hoops for information that should be very basic and straightforward”.
