The U.S. Senate late Thursday approved a bill that outlaws states’ efforts to put labels on food products made with genetically-modified organisms and instead gives companies more leeway in disclosing GMOs. The bill requires food producers to include packaging that has information on GMO ingredients, but provides different ways to make that packing.
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Certain farm associations and beverage company have praised the legislation.
“After spending the past week and a half studying the legislation and meeting with agricultural producers, along with a variety of other stakeholders, I have come to the conclusion that the Senate bill is riddled with ambiguity and affords the Secretary a concerning level of discretion“, Conaway said in a statement the committee released Friday.
The National Milk Producers Federation thanked Senate members for approving a cloture motion that will set up a final vote on legislation that would create a federal, uniform labeling system for foods produced using biotechnology. The House could vote on the bill as early as next week, before legislators break for national party conventions and their August recess.
“Vermont’s mandatory on-package GMO labeling law took effect on July 1 and consumers and small businesses in the state are already facing fewer products on the shelves and higher costs of compliance on small businesses”, Bailey said. “What they want to do, these food companies, is not tell you as a consumer whether it has GMO’s or not”.
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.
If the bill doesn’t pass, Roberts warned, a patchwork of state labeling laws will soon wreak havoc on the flow of interstate commerce.
And it’s the digging that had protesters throwing money on the Senate floor Wednesday.
Hirono had this to say about the bill: “Regardless of your position on GMOs, most of us agree that we all have a right to know what is in the food we eat”.
Another opponent of the bill, Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of OR, said it would institute weak federal requirements making it virtually impossible for consumers to access information about GMOs.
GMO corn may also be excluded thanks to ambiguous language, some said. The domestic sugar market has been strained by rising demand for non-GMO ingredients like cane sugar.
The United States is the world’s largest market for food made with genetically modified ingredients.
Genetically modified foods are plants or animals that have had genes copied from other plants or animals inserted into their DNA.
The margin of victory indicates the bill easily will win the simple majority needed to pass this week after debate.
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The food industry, which battled for years against mandatory on-package GMO labels, has been generally supportive of the compromise.
