Thursday the House agreed 306 to 117 to move forward with changes to an amendment to an existing law that would overrule state GMO labeling laws like Vermont’s strong labeling law. Alternately, House members could try to iron out differences between their version of the bill, approved a year ago, and the Senate bill. Labeling advocates say many foods wouldn’t be labeled if the department sets a high threshold.
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President & CEO Andrew LaVigne praised “all the Republicans and Democrats in both the House and Senate who put politics aside and came together to do what’s right for American families and farmers…” He expects the House to be in session until well after midnight on Thursday night, but not on Friday.
President Obama is expected to sign the House’s ruling into law, making it the first nationwide standard for labeling foods with Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMOs. “It is crucial that American consumers receive clear and simple information about their food, so that they will see the benefit of these technologies that supply safe, sustainably-produced food”.
The bill supersedes a state labeling law that took effect July 1 in Vermont.
The bill, S.764, allows companies to choose a text label, a symbol or a QR or bar code for GMO products.
The Just Label It coalition, which includes the Environmental Working Group and a long list of food companies, declared the bill a victory of sorts, even while refusing to support it. The QR code won’t necessarily deter the keenly interested. “What mother shopping with her children is going to stop in the middle of the food aisle to call a company or go on a website to check the content of every product they would like to buy?”
Companies including ConAgra, Mars, Campbell’s, and Kellogg have adopted nationwide labeling, and Danone SA-the French food company better known as Dannon in the US -announced on Thursday that it will do the same in the American market.
Federal regulators will have two years to write rules for how the industry complies the labeling.
Regulations would apply to human food products that have an ingredient that “contains genetic material that has been modified through in vitro recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) techniques; and for which the modification could not otherwise be obtained through conventional breeding or found in nature“, according to the bill.
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Markley explained that because of loopholes in the legislation, Monsanto-made products “would not be covered by it, because the definition excludes them”.
