GMO LABELING BATTLE BETWEEN AMERICANS AND US GOV'T BIOTECH BEDFELLOWS HEATS UP

The battle lines on food labeling

 

By JENNY HOPKINSON | 10/8/13 5:06 AM EDT

Washington state voters look ready to deliver the country’s first mandatory GMO labeling law with no strings attached early next month.
But the food and biotechnology industries are far from giving up in their battle against labeling requirements for food containing genetically modified organisms and, in fact, have several more arrows in their quill — including a bill to preempt all state laws.

The call for a law that requires foods to be labeled when they contain genetically engineered ingredients has been growing louder in recent years as the public has been subjected to a handful of controversial studies and worrisome reports about how bad health might be associated with the consumption of GMOs and the repeated message that the food industry has something to hide. Twenty-six states considered GMO labeling legislation last year, and many of those that didn’t pass laws are expected to revive the issue in 2014.

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When one state requires GMO labeling, many believe the industry will stop resisting and concede to a federal mandatory standard rather than deal with potentially different standards for each state.
Washington looks to be the state that will set this in motion. Nearly two-thirds of Washingtonians are prepared to vote for ballot initiative 522 and make the Evergreen State the first in the nation to require GMO labeling, according to a poll released Sept. 10. Votes are being accepted from Oct. 18 to Nov. 5 on the initiative, which would require labeling by July 1, 2015, on all food sold in the state that contains genetically engineered components with exceptions for such things as animal feed, alcohol and cheese.
“This is really a matter of when, not if,” said Scott Faber, a former lobbyist for the food industry who now leads one of the largest GMO labeling advocacy groups, Just Label It, as executive director. “It’s part of a larger trend, which is that consumers want to know more about their food than ever before.”
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But the food and biotech industries aren’t ready to give up the fight just yet. In fact, they appear to be ready for a long, drawn-out series of battles in which they have several strategies at their disposal:
Plan A: Campaign like crazy to win in Washington state
The GMO labeling vote in Washington isn’t decided yet. Note that polls in California showed a slightly larger number of voters in favor of Proposition 37, that state’s 2012 GMO labeling ballot initiative, in early October 2012 — less than a month before a $46 million marketing campaign helped defeat the measure with a 3-percentage-point voting margin.
Just like in California, the opponents to I-522 are lining up late in the game in Washington with campaign donations. As of the latest disclosure reports filed with the state Sept. 30, the opposition campaign had raised almost $17.2 million — roughly four times the size of the labeling advocates’ war chest. As they did in California, the labeling opponents are running multiple advertisements on YouTube and television stations that attack the way the law is written. They note, for example, that it would require labels for pet food while exempting beer and meat sold for human consumption.
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The cost borne by hard-working Washington farmers will be passed on to consumers, they say. In a Sept. 16 study prepared for the No on I-522 campaign, Northbridge Environmental Management Consultants found, if passed, the law would increase food expenditures for a family of four by at least $360 per year. A study by consumer groups, released Oct. 7, suggests instead that the added cost would only amount to $2.20 per year per person.
Also like in California, multiple newspaper editors have taken stands against the labeling initiative.
“All in all, the initiative holds the potential to create more problems than it solves — for farmers, manufacturers, retailers and consumers,” the editorial board of the Yakima Herald says in a column published Sept. 29. “Food makers and retailers already can use labels to inform consumers if they offer foods free of GMO; if advocates wish to further their cause, they can do so in a market-driven manner, by building demand through publicizing what they offer.”
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Similar editorials and columns have been published in the The Wenatchee World, Tri-City Herald, The Spokesman-Review and .
Plan B: File a lawsuit
It’s long been speculated that the food and biotech industries stand ready to file a suit against any state that passes a mandatory GMO labeling law, arguing both the violation of First Amendment rights and federal pre-emption.
For a seminar held a year ago in relation to California’s GMO labeling initiative, attorney Sarah Roller, a partner at Kelley Drye & Warren, spelled out the arguments that could be made. She suggested the industry would most likely cite a 1996 decision by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in the case International Dairy Foods Association v. Amestoy. In that case, the appeals court overturned a Vermont law that required dairy farmers to disclose the use of recombinant bovine somatotropin for milk products. The court found in that case that labels would be “the functional equivalent of a warning” and require dairy farmers to “speak against their will” on a matter that doesn’t involve “a reasonable concern for human health.”
It’s the fear of an expensive legal battle that has helped to keep some states from passing GMO labeling legislation and pushed both Connecticut and Maine to pass labeling laws in such a way that they don’t go into effect unless similar laws are passed by a certain number of other states representing a combined population of 20 million. Maine’s governor has yet to sign the state law.
Washington’s Initiative 522 has no such provisions.

 

When one state requires GMO labeling, many believe the industry will stop resisting. 

Plan C: Lobby for a federal law
The food and biotech industries apparently aren’t waiting for the vote in Washington to start working on this.

On Sept. 17, pro-labeling group Food Democracy Now sent an alert to its supporters warning that House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), after being lobbied by the food industry, “is working behind the scenes to introduce a bill that would kill state GMO labeling efforts by pre-empting it with a bill that would place GMO labeling under federal authority, circumventing successful citizen-led efforts in Maine and Connecticut and trying to invalidate the ballot initiative in Washington state before it even passes.”

A committee spokeswoman declines to confirm the advocacy group’s report but said, “Committee staff are hearing from a lot of different stakeholders on the issue. … We intend to do our due diligence and hear from all sides before determining a legislative future.”
The bill most likely would vest authority to regulate GMO labeling entirely with the Food and Drug Administration. The agency has long held that it lacks the authority to regulate genetically engineered foods. The industry is simultaneously encouraging FDA to finalize a 12-year-old draft guidance that would set voluntary standards.

“We support the FDA policy, and the FDA policy has held to a risk-based scientific approach on labeling,” said Cathleen Enright, executive vice president of food and agriculture for the Biotechnology Industry Organization. “In the U.S., for the most part, decisions for a mandatory label are reserved to communicate to consumers a safety issue.”

The Grocery Manufacturers Association, the food industry’s most influential group, wouldn’t confirm that it has been talking specifically to Upton, but it acknowledged a lobbying effort is taking place.
“A 50-state patchwork of laws governing the use of this important and safe technology would confuse consumers, raise food prices and do nothing to ensure product safety,” GMA said in an emailed statement. “We have been in communication with members of Congress because we believe this is an issue best addressed at the federal level. We will continue to explore a federal solution that protects consumers and ensures that decisions about the use of genetically modified food ingredients are based on sound science, not fear and misunderstanding.”
The Empire State waits in the wings
Meanwhile, advocates for mandatory GMO labeling have their own reasons to be confident.
For starters, Just Label It’s Faber thinks a GMO labeling law will be passed in Washington state. Many of the crops grown in the state are exported to Pacific Rim countries that already have restrictions on GMOs, he notes. Also, Washingtonians are leery that a proposed strain of GMO salmon — the approval for which has long been pending at the FDA — that could threaten the state’s fisheries.
A win for food labeling advocates in Washington could translate into momentum for efforts to gain requirements in other states, Faber adds.
Waiting in the wings most immediately behind Washington is New York, where state Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal introduced A3525A last summer just before the chamber went on its six-month break. New York has considered GMO labeling laws every year since 2001, but Rosenthal’s bill has gone the furthest, coming just one vote short of getting passed by a committee. It now has 46 bipartisan co-sponsors in the 150-member chamber. A parallel bill reportedly has eight bipartisan co-sponsors in the 63-member state Senate.
A GMO labeling law in New York gives Connecticut the number of votes it needs to activate its GMO law.
“People are more and more concerned about what they put in their bodies” said Rosenthal, whose district includes the Upper West Side of Manhattan. “The food industry says, ‘Oh, go buy organic.’ But organic is expensive; it’s not a good option; and it’s insulting. Not everyone can afford that. If there is nothing wrong with GMOs, then what’s wrong with saying there are GMOs [in food products]? This is a common-sense labeling effort.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/washington-state-gmo-law-97951_Page2.html#ixzz2hSOCcjC9