The U.S. Senate on Wednesday advanced a bill to set national standards for labeling food produced with GMOs — a measure that would preempt the more stringent Vermont law that took effect just last week.
Vermont’s congressional delegation opposes the bipartisan Senate bill. The bill would allow food manufacturers to disclose GMO ingredients by labeling products with codes that consumers could scan via smartphone. Critics say that would be insufficient to inform consumers.
The bill cleared the 60-vote threshold to advance on Wednesday, setting the stage for a formal Senate vote to pass it that could occur as early as Thursday.
It would supersede Vermont’s law, which requires food manufacturers and retailers to label products made with GMOs. The state’s law confused some local retailers.
The food industry is backing the Senate bill. Supporters argue that a national versus a state-by-state approach is preferable. Labeling advocates have criticized the Senate bill as too lax.
“The timing of this legislation is not an accident,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a prepared statement Wednesday. “Its goal is to overturn and rescind the very significant legislation passed in the state of Vermont. I will do everything that I can to see that it’s defeated.”
If approved by the Senate, the bill would also need to be passed by the Republican-controlled House and signed by President Barack Obama to become law.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said he would offer a series of amendments to strengthen the Senate bill, including grandfathering Vermont’s labeling law.
“Companies are already labeling foods that contain genetic engineering,” Leahy said. “It can be done. It should be done. More than 60 countries across the globe require [GMO] labeling. American consumers want and deserve no less. I am proud that Vermont has led the way on a pro-consumer, pro-disclosure label, and I will continue to fight efforts to undermine it.”
Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, who signed the state’s GMO labeling law in 2014, released a statement Wednesday afternoon. “It’s a sad day when so many members of the U.S. Senate sell out to big food and big business and turn their backs on those who elected them,” Shumlin said. “This flawed bill is a capitulation to the food industry that does not even come close to providing the transparency that consumers deserve.”
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um… silly. so… anybody who is interested in knowing what their food is composed of should be required to scan stuff all day long? I personally have enjoyed the benefits of the new labeling law already; the other day we bought popcorn and i was happy to know that orville’s corn is not “roundup ready”. the corn tasted better to me. and just look at this tomfoolery in washington, proposing information barriers such as this. smells like more warranted mistrust in government.
i would happily look forward to a vt grandfather decision, and keep your garbage out of our state if you can’t tell us what is in it.
In response to Ben Thomas, the grandfather decision is not smart. Brands aren’t going to create two labels, one for national and one just for Vermont. What will happen is those brands will simply just not ship their products to Vermont. This will result in fewer choices for product selection, which in theory could lead to higher prices on items. While I believe the Vermont is better of course, the national law is a good compromise. At the end of the day, the national law is still informing customers the product has GMOs in it.
This is all a complete waste of taxpayer money. The subject of GMO safety is one of THE most studied in human history, ~ 2,300 peer reviewed papers in 15 years. And the results have been thoroughly consistent over all those years and across research institutes world-wide. There is no safety risk with consuming GMOs. Sugar and saturated fat? Now those are a problem, and products are already labeled for that.
Shumlin should recognise a sellout to big corporations. He and his buddies sold out to big wind and solar with no concern about the people who have to live near them or the towns that have no say in how they are sited.
S-260 is a sham and Shumlin is a hypocrite.
The “issue” about whether GMOs are safe or not is irrelevant. Giant U.S.-based corporations love GMOs because they vastly increase their profits, nevermind the fact that GMO agriculture leads to all sorts of problems including, but not limited to, human and animal consumption of pesticides, imbalancing the ecosystem, and too many more to list. There’s a reason so many other countries have banned GMOs. The U.S. is a failure in that regard.
No popcorn on the planet is GMO popcorn. The fact that you required a label to tell you that your popcorn isn’t a thing that doesn’t exist anyway is pretty friggen’ hilarious. Guess what? It also didn’t contain the blood of a million unicorns.