Assistant House Majority Leader Kate Webb, a sponsor of Vermont’s GMO food labeling law, is scheduled to testify at a House subcommittee hearing on federal regulation of the foods on Wednesday. So is Tom Dempsey, head of the Snack Food Association, one of the trade groups suing in federal court to overturn the state law, according to the witness list for the hearing by the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health.
Also appearing are representatives of the Kansas Farm Bureau, the pro-labeling Environmental Working Group and the University of California-Davis. The lead witness is to be Michael Landa, director of FDA’s Center on Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. The Vermont law, enacted on May 8, would take effect on July 1, 2016, and, by one estimate, would affect eight of 10 food items in grocery stores.
Legislation is pending in Congress to mandate labeling nationwide and to pre-empt states from requiring labels. Final action is not expected this year.
Supporters of Oregon’s Measure 92 to require labeling of GMO foods filed suit to force the state to include 4,600 rejected ballots, says the Salem Statesman Journal, potentially enough votes to pass the initiative. Measure 92 lost by 812 votes out of 1.5 million cast, according to returns certified by Secretary of State Kate Brown. An automatic recount is under way and, with two-thirds of the ballots checked, the referendum was likely to fail.
The 4,600 ballots were among 13,000 that were not counted because the signatures on the vote-by-mail ballots did not match county records. The lawsuit says election officials were unduly strict. The lawsuit, filed in state court in Portland, names Brown and the Multnomah County elections director. Multnomah County covers Portland and was the strongest supporter of the labeling drive. The newspaper quoted an official from the No on 92 Coalition as saying, “The proponents of the measure don’t like the outcome, so now they want the court to change Oregon’s election system just for them.”
The mayor of Kauai, Hawaii, vetoed a county council bill that probably would have resulted in higher property taxes on farmland used for research on GMO crops, says Associated Press.