WASHINGTON, May 11, 2016
- After a week-long recess, Congress has just over 30 working days left to
enact a law that would stop Vermont’s first-in-the-nation GMO labeling law from
taking effect. No agreement on a preemption bill has yet to emerge, and Senate
Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts and ranking member Debbie Stabenow insist
their staffs continue to work on a deal.
“We’re doing our part.
We’re spending a tremendous amount of staff time on it,” Stabenow told Agri-Pulse
on Tuesday.
In a sign that biotechnology opponents fear
the talks are progressing, the advocacy group Center for Food Safety posted
on its Twitter feed a preemptive strike on a possible
agreement. Stabenow is “likely introducing new #DARKAct soon w/ discriminatory
QR codes,” the tweet says. The “DARK Act” is a reference to legislation that
would preempt GMO labeling laws. The group also set up a web
page urging GMO labeling proponents to call
Stabenow’s offices.
Here’s a look at some of
the key issues that senators and industry sources say remain unsettled:
Mandatory
disclosure. The food industry has
generally accepted the idea, pushed by Stabenow, that companies be required to
provide something on the label that allows consumers to tell whether a product
contains biotech ingredients.
The American Farm Bureau
Federation still opposes mandatory disclosure. Its official policy is that
disclosure must be voluntary, but AFBF’s top lobbyist, Dale Moore, told Agri-Pulse
the group would consider a mandatory plan once there is a deal that he can
present to the organization’s leadership.
Roberts, meanwhile, said
he still is concerned about the ability of small food processors to comply with
such a requirement.
On-package
labeling or not? Proponents of GMO
labeling, and their Democratic allies, argue that there has to be some kind of
wording or symbol on food labels, not just via smartphone or QR code, the
preferred disclosure method for food companies.
The Grocery Manufacturers
Association can’t accept a requirement for on-package GMO labeling, says Karin
Moore, GMA’s vice president and general counsel. “We feel it would be
stigmatizing,” she said.
The Farm Bureau has the
same concern, but Dale Moore didn’t rule out considering such a requirement. “I
can’t say that’s a nonstarter.” But he said, “Our concern is that a label in
and of itself could be viewed – or could be pushed by others to be seen – as a
symbol that somehow that food is not safe.”
GMA member Campbell Soup
Co. dissents from the association’s position. Campbell is already voluntarily
labeling and is currently testing wording that would specify that FDA affirms
the safety of GMOs. The idea is to present that wording to the government
agency that would be put in charge of writing rules for disclosure. If Congress
doesn’t act, the company will ask Vermont to consider changing its required
wording.
Exemption
for animal products. The meat and dairy
industry want the bill to make clear that meat and milk won’t have to be
labeled when the animals providing those products are fed genetically
engineered feed. Stabenow said she had provided language on that issue to
Roberts. He called the issue “a work in progress.”
Definition
of GMOs. This is a potentially
huge issue for biotech developers and the future of the technology. The Senate
Agriculture Committee’s preemption bill, which has been stalled since March,
would have tightly defined “bioengineering” to mean transgenic crops into which
genetic material has been inserted from another species. That could leave gene
editing and other new techniques out of any disclosure or labeling
requirements.
Campbell Soup’s top
lobbyist, Kelly Johnston, says he expects the final bill will include a
“relatively narrow definition” of biotechnology.
Who’s
in charge? Roberts says that the
Agriculture Department, not the Food and Drug Administration, must be put in
charge of writing rules for whatever disclosure or labeling program emerges.
Assigning the job to USDA would ensure that the law is under the jurisdiction of
the Senate and House agriculture committees. Other committees oversee FDA – Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions in the Senate, and Energy and Commerce in the
House.
Even as the senators and
aides try to work out these issues, there
is still the unknown of how and when the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will
rule on the food industry’s pending challenge to the Vermont law. The
court could have stayed the Vermont law if it was likely to rule against it.
“They could be waiting for a federal
solution,” said GMA’s Moore, speaking at a recent conference of food industry
lawyers. “They could be waiting for Vermont’s law to actually take effect.”
#30
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