By Jerry Hagstrom
DTN Political Correspondent
WASHINGTON (DTN) -- As the Senate prepares for a possible vote this week on a bill on the labeling of foods with genetically modified ingredients, the opponents and advocates for labeling waged war Sunday in ads on CNN following articles published on the issue Friday in The Hill.
The ad sponsored by the Coalition for a Safe Affordable Food said that state laws mandating labels for foods with genetically modified ingredients, including the Vermont law scheduled to go into effect July 1, would demonize a useful technology and raise food costs.
The ad urged viewers to call the senators and tell them to vote for the Biotech Labeling Solutions Act, which was sponsored by Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and was passed out of the Senate Agriculture Committee in a bipartisan 14-6 vote.
The ad sponsored by the Center for Food Safety Action Fund on Sunday said biotech foods should be labeled because crops from genetically modified seed are often sprayed with glyphosate, which the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the cancer-research arm of the World Health Organization, announced last May is probably carcinogenic to humans.
Using that argument is somewhat different from most of the campaign to defend state labeling or mandatory federal labeling, which has been based on the consumer's right to know. Monsanto, which makes Roundup, an herbicide that includes glyphosate, has disputed the IARC finding and noted that other scientific bodies have found it safe.
The Roberts bill as written would ban state labeling laws and set up a system of voluntary labeling run by USDA.
But Democrats who voted to move that bill out of committee say its labeling system is not strong enough to win 60 votes in the Senate to pass the bill.
Sens. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who voted to move the bill to the Senate floor, have written a bill that would set up a voluntary system that would convert to mandatory if companies do not label 85% of products voluntarily.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. and others have introduced a bill with a system of labeling on food packages.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, meanwhile, has endorsed a mandatory system of disclosing genetic modification through a "smart label" that can be read by a smartphone, or by a website or toll-free number.
On Friday, Charles Conner, the president and CEO of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, wrote positively about the Roberts bill in a blog post in The Hill, but added, "There's no question that consumers want more ingredient information about their food, and there are a growing number of ways for them to get access to it — without stigmatizing a safe, beneficial tool farmers use every day."
Conner said the smart label is "a modern way to provide consumers with more information than ever before — and more than can ever fit on a package label."
He did not say whether it should be voluntary or mandatory, which seemed to confirm that the food industry would accept federal mandatory disclosure through smart labels, websites or toll-free numbers in exchange for the ban on state labeling laws, which they say would require many different labels and segregation of products.
Also on Friday, the sponsors of the Vermont law wrote that Klobuchar had made errors when she said Vermont's law was different from those in Maine and Connecticut and protected Vermont's dairy industry.
Kate Webb, a Democrat Vermont state representative, and David Zuckerman, a Progressive Party state senator, wrote, "All three state laws require labeling of foods with genetically engineered ingredients, and all three and the European Union countries do not require labels just because food was acquired from animals that consumed GMO feed."
"In contrast to Klobuchar's comments, the word 'dairy' does not appear anywhere in our bill," they said.
At a Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee hearing last week, Merkley vigorously defended labeling on packages, saying that shoppers should not have to call companies for information.
Industry sources have said that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., wants to bring a bill up before the Senate leaves for a two-week break on Friday.
The House has passed a bill banning state labeling laws, but is expected to reconsider the measure if the Senate passes a bill. House Agriculture Committee ranking member Collin Peterson, D-Minn., has said that the House will not pass mandatory labeling but perhaps the Senate will come up with a compromise that would be acceptable.
Vilsack has said that President Barack Obama would pass a bill that bans state labels but requires disclosure through a smart label, a website or a toll-free number.
-The Hill - Vermont legislators: What Sen. Klobuchar got wrong about our bill http://dld.bz/…
-Center for Food Safety — U.S. Citizens Demand Right to Know: Is it GMO? http://dld.bz/…
-Coalition for Safe Affordable Food Video — Protect Families and our Farms http://dld.bz/…
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