The House of Representatives is expected to vote Thursday or Friday on a bill passed last week by the Senate that would nullify Vermont’s genetically modified organisms labeling law, which went into effect July 1, and prevent any state from enacting its own labeling law.
The bill would require food manufacturers to provide information on GMOs in their products nationwide in two years. But unlike Vermont’s law, it wouldn't mandate that words to the effect of “produced with genetic engineering” be on product labels. Instead, it would offer the option of labeling products with a QR code that would need to be scanned with a smartphone—something a third of Americans do not own—or a toll-free phone number consumers could call to get information.
The Senate passage of the bill was praised by food industry groups, such as the American Soybean Association, the National Corn Growers Association (soy and corn are largely GMO crops) and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA). The GMA, which has sued to block state GMO labeling laws, called the vote “a milestone moment in the efforts to provide consumers clear and consistent information about their food and beverage products and prevent a patchwork of costly and confusing state labeling laws” and called on the House to pass the bill before it adjourned for its July recess.
Critics say the bill is a big loss for consumers. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) released a statement that said “…instead of rejecting a misguided effort to limit the public’s right to know, the Senate approved a measure that is fundamentally anti-consumer.” (Connecticut has a GMO labeling law that would have gone into effect when nearby states passed their own GMO labeling laws.) A spokesperson for the senator said that the GMO labeling measure could have been improved, but amendments like the one the senator filed to preserve state laws like Connecticut's were not allowed into consideration.
Source: www.consumerreports.org