Senators who favor the labeling of foods with genetically modified ingredients hope to use the amendment process to pass a labeling measure in the Senate, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Thursday.
Blumenthal said the amendment process would offer an opportunity for the Senate to consider their bill as he and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., announced the reintroduction of their bills—titled the Genetically Engineered Food Right-to-Know Act—that would direct the Food and Drug Administration to require that food manufacturers label foods containing genetically modified ingredients.
Asked by a reporter what chance the bill had in a Republican-run Congress, Blumenthal said people should “think of the A word—amendment” and the Republican leadership’s commitment to allowing amendments to be offered.
DeFazio noted that he and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., had used the amendment process in 1990 to get the federal organic labeling law enacted. That effort succeeded “against all odds,” DeFazio said, even though the Democratic leadership was opposed to it.
“We need to set off a wave so that people know this is coming” and can tell their senators and representatives that they support the measure, Boxer said.
Boxer noted that when she first introduced a GMO labeling bill 15 years ago, she had no co-sponsors; now, she has 13. Boxer also noted that she succeeded in her campaign to enact the dolphin-safe tuna labeling bill and that it has saved “tens of thousands” of dolphins.
“Information is power,” Boxer said. “When we arm consumers with the facts, they make the decisions.”
She also said that FDA already requires labels for 3,000 products due to ingredients, additives, and processes.
Boxer also noted that Monsanto, an agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation headquartered in Missouri, has supported labeling in the United Kingdom but opposes it in the United States.
Blumenthal said that labeling “is a moral duty and it ought to be a legal duty. Nothing is more fundamental that the genetic makeup of ingredients in food.”
The senators said the issue is the consumer's right to know, rather than the safety of food.
But Tom Colicchio, a chef who is part of the Just Label It campaign, said that genetically modified seeds allow companies to sell more herbicides “that show up in the food supply and in the milk of breast-feeding mothers.”
The National Black Farmers Association also said today it supports consumer labeling of genetically modified foods.
Association President John Boyd said, “While NBFA does not object to farmers growing GMO crops per se, we are aware of the increased use of toxic weed killers associated with herbicide-tolerant GMO crops. As farmers, NFBA members know firsthand that consumers are demanding more information about the food they feed their families—not less.”
Boyd made the statement in a letter to Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., a co-sponsor with Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., of a competing GMO labeling bill supported by food companies and the biotech industry.
Boxer said that the bill would create national rather than state labeling, and she prefers a national label rather than state labels.
Claire Parker, a spokesperson for the Coalition for Safe Affordable Food, which represents the food and biotech companies, said in a news release that the Boxer/DeFazio bill “does not create a national labeling standard and would only exacerbate the labeling conundrum by adding a federal mandate and penalties, combined with a patchwork of state laws and regulations.”
Source: www.hagstromreport.com