Federal GMO Labeling Makes Its Way to the Senate

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Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan) has introduced draft legislation to stop groups like SourceWatch, US Right To Know, and other "Deniers For Hire" from trying to sow fear about food, by driving wedges into states and creating patchwork laws that would make it expensive for traditional food companies to comply, which means the organic corporations that fund them could have an easier time competing.

H.R. 1599 passed last year in the House of Representatives.

Anti-science activists like Friends of the Earth are, predictably, outraged. It is hard to promote fear and doubt if the government actually takes over regulation of something, since environmental groups spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year promoting that government should take over regulation of everything.

Why are these groups -- which usually love to have more laws and ways to sue businesses and the government under new rules -- suddenly against a regulation? Because this is a sensible bill that would make it more difficult to drive wedges between states using capricious labeling laws. Groups that used to want a national law putting a warning label on conventional food now want a few hundred thousand people in Vermont to be exempt from federal oversight.

A federal standard would actually protect consumers from confusion, which is bad for environmental fundraising. However, it is good for the public, because higher costs are always passed on to the public. Ironically, what do the majority of voters who are against agriculture also claim to care more about than everyone else? Poor people.