Chairman Pat Roberts says the Senate Agriculture Committee “will prove to the American people their food is safe” before it considers legislation to over-ride state GMO food-labeling laws, said the Topeka (Kan) Capital-Journal. A committee hearing on agricultural biotechnology is scheduled for Oct 21. “We don’t call it GMO, we call it biotech for a purpose,” Roberts told the Capital-Journal. “We are trying to prove to the American people that their food is safe and we have everybody from the FDA to the USDA to EPA testifying.”
Only after the hearing on GMO food safety would Roberts have the Agriculture Committee consider a bill to pre-empt state labeling laws, said the Topeka newspaper, quoting Roberts: “We want to set the predicate that our food is safe, then move to the GMO issue in Vermont.” The first labeling law in the nation will take effect in Vermont next July 1. A federal appeals court is considering a food industry request to block the law. The House passed a pre-emption bill by a landslide vote last summer.
Kansas Rep Mike Pompeo told the Capital-Journal he has yet to find a Democrat willing to co-sponsor a Senate version of the bill. “The bill would require the vote of at least a half-dozen Democratic senators to pass,” said the newspaper.