GMO labeling

In the past year, major food companies have trumpeted the changes they are making in how they produce food, rolling out long-term plans to remove antibiotics from livestock production, reformulating favorites like mac and cheese to get rid of artificial ingredients, and in some cases, aiming to improve the lives of animals destined to be eaten. Yet one major campaign has stood out in its inability to achieve what activists hoped — GMO labeling.

Reversing a two-decade federal policy on labeling, President Obama has signed a law that mandates disclosure of GMO ingredients in food via a symbol, a digital code or wording on food packages.

When Congress passed the GMOs-in-food disclosure bill a week ago, the White House said President Obama would sign it. The bill, which reverses a longstanding federal policy that labels are not needed, is likely to be treated matter of factly, to be marked by a written notice rather than the pubic signing ceremony given to major legislation.

Two decades after U.S. farmers began cultivating genetically engineered crops, the United States is headed for mandatory nationwide disclosure of GMO ingredients in food, reversing the long-standing federal policy that labels are not needed because the foods are safe to eat.

President Obama is ready to sign the GMOs-in-food disclosure bill that is speeding through Congress and would punctuate more than two decades of controversy over agricultural biotechnology. The House was expected to give final congressional approval to the bill today, sending it to the White House one week after Senate passage.

If a gate-keeping committee has its way, the House will have one hour to debate a GMO-disclosure bill with no opportunity to amend it before being asked to pass the most talked-about food-and-ag legislation of the year. House approval would send the bill, which pre-empts state GMO-labeling laws and mandates nationwide disclosure of GMO ingredients, to President Obama, who is expected to sign it.

Food processors, grocers, farm groups and exporters asked House leaders for speedy passage this week of the GMO-disclosure bill to resolve "one of the most significant issues that the agriculture and food industry has faced in recent years." The Rules Committee would take the first step toward a vote at a meeting today to set the parameters of debate on the bill, which senators passed last week.

In a 2-to-1 vote, senators cleared the way for passage as early as today of the GMO-disclosure bill that pre-empts state labeling laws and allows foodmakers to use a digital code, a symbol or wording on food packages to alert consumers to genetically engineered ingredients. That would leave one week for the House to act before Congress adjourns for the summer.

The Republican leaders of the House may call the GMO-in-food disclosure bill for a vote as early as Wednesday, the last hurdle before sending the bill to the White House to be signed into law. The advocacy group Just Label It, which opposes the bill but considers passage certain, said "the fight for national mandatory GMO transparency now shifts to USDA and the marketplace."

Senate backers of the GMO-disclosure bill are optimistic of winning a showdown vote today that would allow passage of the bill this week. With little time for Congress to act before its summer recess, Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley said the Senate bill would arrive as a "take it or leave it proposition" for the House — and Rep. Mike Pompeo, sponsor of a successful GMO bill, said the House probably would accept the Senate version.

Two decades into the era of agricultural biotechnology, the Senate passed, 63-30, a bill that requires foodmakers nationwide to say if their products contain GMO ingredients. The bill, which also pre-empts state GMO food-labeling laws, now goes to the House for action one week before Congress adjourns for the summer.

After the showdown vote scheduled for Wednesday in the Senate, the outlook for a GMO-disclosure bill may darken. The Senate bill, which preempts state GMO food-labeling laws along with allowing foodmakers to use a symbol, a digital code or wording on a package to disclose GMO ingredients, has few friends in the House, which has voted against mandatory labeling.

The Senate will vote on Wednesday on whether to limit debate on the Roberts-Stabenow GMO disclosure bill, a key test of support for pre-empting state GMO food-labeling laws and mandating nationwide disclosure of GMO ingredients in food. If the vote is successful, the Senate could move quickly to pass the bill.

The GMOs-in-food disclosure bill written by leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee "is actually a non-labeling bill" that "exempts major portions of current and future GMO foods from labeling," said a coalition of organic food, environmental and consumer groups on the same day the largest U.S. farm group announced support for the bill. "The bill is not perfect but it correctly puts the federal government in the driver's seat in important areas such as protecting interstate commerce and new crop development techniques," said the American Farm Bureau Federation.