Now on to the CT House—where the opposition is stronger. Action Alerts!
It’s good news/bad news in Connecticut for GMO labeling advocates this week, where the state Senate voted 35-1 in favor of SB 802, a GE labeling bill that ANH-USA helped draft. After the Senate passed the bill, the Connecticut House accepted an amendment from Governor Dan Malloy and Speaker Brendan Sharkey, despite strong protest from advocates, that weakened the bill.
The amendment was a triggering provision which requires that three more of the nine states that make up the Northeast—Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey—would need to pass a similar bill before it could go into effect in 2015. However—and this is back to the good news—if the other states failed to adopt GMO labeling statutes, the Connecticut GMO law would still go into effect on its own, but in 2016, as a standalone provision. This provision rescues the bill. SB 802 is sitting in the House, waiting for a vote.
However, on Friday around midnight, the House passed and sent to the Senate its own bill, HB 6527. This bill is weaker than SB 802 because it removes that all-important standalone provision, and increases the number of states needed to trigger the GMO labeling requirement to five. Moreover, before Connecticut citizens would have the right to know what is in their food, the combined total population of at least two of those five states would have be at least 25 million people! This also appears to be a deal worked out between the governor and Rep. Sharkey.
Action Alert! Connecticut residents, please contact your representatives and thank them for supporting GMO labeling in HB 6527, but ask them to vote YES on SB 802 since this the stronger bill and provides the greatest protections to consumers! Take Action!
Also please contact your senators and thank them for passing SB 802. Thank you to CT Senate!
Connecticut seems to be following a familiar pattern. Maine’s GMO labeling bill (LD 718) recently passed out of committee 8-5—with the same proviso that it will go into effect only if three more of its nine neighboring states pass similar laws by 2018.
So far, Vermont hasn’t put the same restriction into its GMO labeling bill. Vermont’s House just passed H 112 by 99-42. The bill is now in a great position to be taken up by the Senate when lawmakers return to their work next January.
On the federal level, however, the picture isn’t as bright. The Sanders amendment to the Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2013, which would have permitted states to require the labeling of GMOs, failed with a vote of 71-27.
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) added an amendment to the Farm Bill, which has passed through committee and is waiting on the floor of the House for a vote. The King Amendment would “reinforce the Commerce Clause by asserting the right of a state to trade agriculture products freely with another state. One state cannot deny the trade of an agricultural product from another state based on that product’s means of production.”
This amendment may well have negative implications for GMO labeling. A state that requires GMO labeling on its food, it could be argued, creates a trade barrier between a state that does not require GMO labeling. This could run up against the dormant commerce clause, which limits individual state authority to regulate intrastate commerce even in the absence of a conflicting federal law. This is a back-door way of dissuading states from passing labeling laws. It could also prevent states from banning GMO products altogether.
Action Alert! Please contact your representative immediately and ask him or her for an amendment to strike the King Amendment from the House Farm Bill.
I want that bumper sticker that says LABEL IT. Where do I get one?
Does the state of Connecticut have referendum or iniative laws so the will of the people can be enacted, and not ignored by the pliticians? That would seem the surest way to get this necessary legislation passed.
It passed in good health from the senate, but the democrat controlled house came up with their own butchered bill with a loophole big enough to drive a GMO grain truck through. Hardly a victory. I applaud the senate for a good try though.
If GMO is such a great thing, one would think Monsanto would be proud to label their work. The fact that they don’t tells us that they’re afraid of consuming their own products. What do the Monsanto elite actually eat? Inquiring minds wish to know (and probably wouldn’t believe them anyway, with all that money tied up in the scheme).
Monsanto employee’s only eat organic food. Can’t have sick & diseased employees while you poison the rest of us ya know.
There were marches this past Saturday May 25 all around the world trying to get people more aware of what is in their food and in the water, air, soil and bodies. – It is interesting in talking with people about GMO’s that so many are totally unaware of the health risks in the food – GM soy, GM corn, aspartame, GM canola – just to name a few things – and to know that powerful entities like Monsanto – which – I agree, if their stuff is so good, why not label it? I’m sure their corporate marketing and legal system is busy working hard to keep people from recognizing that what they are selling is chemicals and control – NOT food. No wonder their PR is to put Boxtops for Education for moms to buy the stuff so the schools can collect them and get gym equipment. grrrrrrrrrr.
Monsanto doesn’t want to label GMO foods because they know no one would buy GMO if it were labeled. Just like a lot of people stopped buying partially hydrogenated oils and foods that contain them as well as food that contain HFCS, once they learned about their dangers. Although those foods had always been labeled, why the secrecy regarding GMOs?
Ummmm…I find it very strange that everybody would be upset over an interracial Cheerios ad, where the mom tells the daughter that Cherrios is “heart healthy” so the little girl dumps the box of
Cheerios on her dad’s heart.
What really should upset everybody is that fact that Cheerios is saying GMO’s are healthy for
your heart. This is a medical claim which the FDA prohibits—same with all the foods and drugs that
are advertised.
You never see organic foods/homeopathy advertised—Why because it really works and they’re
not allowed to advertise to the mass media. What a joke!!!