In a vote with election-year implications, the Senate rejected a bill to pre-empt state GMO food-labeling laws in a roll call that broke along party-lines, highlighted by maneuvering by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to allow a new vote later. The bill’s sponsor, Republican Pat Roberts of Kansas, angrily accused Democrats, who called for mandatory disclosure of GMOs in food, of voting against U.S. farmers. “Where is their solution?” Roberts said in a statement. “Will their proposals pass the Senate, or better yet, the House?”
Senators blocked Roberts’ pre-emption bill on a 48-49 vote with 60 votes needed for the bill to advance. Republicans control the Senate 54-46, so they needed at least six Democrats to vote for the bill. Only three Democrats voted for it – Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Thomas Carper of Delaware. Seven Republicans joined Democrats in voting against the bill, including McConnell who switched at the last moment in a tactic that allowed him to file a motion to reconsider the vote. Only a senator on the winning side can ask for a re-vote.
Long a minor congressional issue, GMO labeling mushroomed into a partisan issue occasioned with heated rhetoric this week when Republican leaders decided to call a vote before the two-week Easter recess that begins on Friday and Democrats dug in their heels against state pre-emption. The food industry and farm groups have pressed for speedy action to override Vermont’s first-in-the-nation labeling law, which takes effect on July 1. The Republican-controlled House passed a pre-emption bill, HR 1599, by a 2-to-1 margin last summer.
“It’s a pretty simple vote. You’re either for agriculture or you’re not,” said Roberts, the Senate Agriculture Committee chairman. Responded Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley, sponsor of a mandatory labeling bill, “Do not crush state rights. Do not steal the consumer’s right to know.”
Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, senior Democrat on the Agriculture Committee, said consensus was possible with more time to negotiate. “I still believe we need and can achieve a policy that creates a uniform national system of disclosure for the use of GMO ingredients and do it in a way that has common sense and works for everybody,” said Stabenow. “The national disclosure system needs to provide real options for disclosing information about GMOs that work for both consumers and food companies.”
Farm and food groups have opposed GMO labeling since agricultural biotechnology was developed two decades ago. There is ample evidence GMO food is safe to eat, say the groups, who view pro-labeling activists as part of a seamless campaign at home and overseas to smear a U.S. invention and drive it out of use. The said the Vermont law would force food companies nationwide to change their inventory, processing and distribution chains at the cost of billions of dollars.
Half of U.S. cropland is planted with GMO crops, chiefly corn and soybeans but also cotton, sugarbeets, canola and alfalfa. The FDA, which oversees most of the food system, has a policy of voluntary labeling.
“We must not let anyone forget that rural America and our farmers and ranchers do matter,” said Zippy Duvall of the six million-member American Farm Bureau Federation. “To say we are angry with those senators who abandoned farmers and ranchers and turned their backs on rural America on this vote is an under-statement.” The Snack Food Association said the Senate vote was “a major failure … Only Congress has the ability to prevent a costly and confusing patchwork of state labeling laws from beginning to take effect in July 2016.”
Senate debate has become increasingly acrimonious due to wrangling over filling the Supreme Court vacancy. In a juxtaposition of the issues, McConnell spoke against President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court in the final moments before the vote on GMO pre-emption.
Republicans voting against the Roberts bill were Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, who want labeling of an FDA-approved GMO salmon; Susan Collins of Maine, which enacted a GMO label law that will not take effect unless neighboring states adopt similar laws; Dean Heller of Nevada, Mike Lee of Utah; and Rand Paul of Kentucky as well as McConnell, also from Kentucky.
Three senators tied up in presidential campaigns did not vote: Democrat Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Republicans Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida.
Originally, Roberts offered a straight-forward pre-emption bill. In hopes of winning over farm-state Democrats, he revised the bill to include a voluntary nationwide disclosure system that could convert to mandatory disclosure if less than 70 percent of products are covered after three years. In either case, food companies could disclose disclosure GMO ingredients through websites, toll-free telephone lines or QR codes on packages. Merkley, whose bill would require disclosure on the label, said the Roberts bill employed “shams and scams” to hide information.