Vermont will stand alone among states when its first-in-the-nation GMO-food-labeling law takes effect on July 1. Some food companies already have changed their labels nationwide to assure compliance with the Vermont law and a spokeswoman for Senate Agriculture chairman Pat Roberts said, “We hope to have something ready very soon” to preempt state labeling.
If Congress wants to override Vermont before July 1, it would have to act this week because the House is scheduled to adjourn this Friday, June 24, for the Independence Day holiday. “We are still working with ranking member Stabenow,” said the Roberts spokeswoman, referring to Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, the senior Democrat on the Agriculture Committee. Roberts and Stabenow have conferred on GMO legislation since party-line defeat of Roberts’ pre-emption bill on March 15.
Activists in Vermont called for a picnic on the statehouse lawn in Montpelier on July 1 “to celebrate this major milestone in food system transparency.” Said Vermont Right to Know GMOs, “This is a huge win for the state of Vermont.” A major argument by advocates is that labels are part of the consumers’ right to know what is in their food. The food industry says the labels will be misinterpreted as a warning and will drive away shoppers from food that is safe to eat.
The New York State legislature adjourned for the year on Saturday without a vote on GMO food labels, reducing the often-cited threat of a welter of conflicting state label laws. A label bill is pending in the Massachusetts legislature but, if passed, could not take effect without a New York law. As the most populous state in the Northeast, New York is the big prize in efforts to create a bloc of states that require special labels on food made with genetically modified organisms.
“The adjournment of the New York General Assembly without a vote on its GMO labeling bill does not reduce at all the critical need for Congress to find and pass a common-sense federal solution that sets a national standard instead of state laws such as Vermont’s mandatory on-package labeling bill, which goes into effect next week,” said the Grocery Manufacturers Association.
Rather than explicit wording on the label, GMA would prefer use of QR codes, toll-free telephone lines and websites to disclose ingredients. The Just Label It campaign, like other label advocates, insists on “GMO labels on food packaging, not technological gimmicks.”
Farm groups and foodmakers have pressed for federal pre-emption of state label laws; labeling is voluntary on the federal level.
The advocacy group GMO Free NY lamented there was no vote in the legislature although a majority of legislators sponsored the GMO labeling bill and it was cleared for debate. “This is a major achievement and a testament to our collective efforts these past three years,” said a GMO Free NY message. “For comparison’s sake, it took 11 years for the legislature to pass the bottle deposit bill.”
The Massachusetts legislative session runs to July 31. “They’re entering the crunch time now,” a period when bills can move suddenly to passage or be buried, said a spokesman for Massachusetts Right to Know. The GMO bill was referred to the House Ways and Means Committee in April after the Agriculture Committee amended it so the law could not take effect unless five other states in the Northeast, including one that borders Massachusetts, with a combined population of 20-million people enact similar laws. The population trigger cannot be met unless New York acts.
Connecticut and Maine have GMO-label laws on the books but they also have trigger provisions requiring other states in the region to enact label laws.
Retailers and food companies will have a six-month grace period to comply with the label law, Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell announced in February.
“It the [U.S. Senate] stalemate is not broken in the next week, the first of what will likely be many different state labeling requirements will take effect,” said an analysis by the National Conference of State Legislatures. “The many different state laws will be very troublesome and expensive for producers as they will be required to comply with the each individual state’s labeling law in order to market their product in that state. If the U.S. Congress does, however, manage to pass a bill regulating the labeling of genetically engineered foods, all indicators point towards the federal bill including a preemption clause and all state laws on the subject will likely be moot.”