The Senate Agriculture committee advanced Chairman Pat Roberts’ voluntary GMO labeling bill Tuesday by a vote of 14 to 6.
Several Democrats voted for the bill, including North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp. She said the committee has taken a cavalier approach in preempting states’ rights – but needed to do so in order to facilitate interstate commerce.
“That’s what we’re doing today, we’re facilitating interstate commerce. But we’re also, in many ways, telling these consumers who have been activists and the grassroots that they don’t need to know, that we know better than they do about what kind of information they need to know about what’s in their food.”
Chairman Roberts disagreed that the approach has been cavalier, saying, “States still have the ability to enact a standard as long as it matches a voluntary standard for bioengineered food — we can’t have 50 different definitions – or may contain bioengineering, set through the rule-making process by the Secretary of Agriculture.”
The bill, as written, pre-empts the state GMO labeling law in Vermont set to go into effect this summer. Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy said the bill undermines the public’s right to know and voted against it. Democrat Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said she voted for advancing the bill with the understanding that it needs compromise in the final version.
Source: www.brownfieldagnews.com