U.S. Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) may want to send some thank-you letters out to state legislative leaders who shut down efforts to get in his way this year. Pompeo is the GOP’s point man in Congress on federal policy to preempt the states from writing their own laws requiring the labeling of food containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
This legislative season appears to be ending without another state willing to join Vermont in requiring that GMO food be labeled. State legislatures are adjourned in Hawaii, Alaska, the entire Western region except for the three Pacific Coast states, the Midwest, the South except for the Carolinas, and the Border States.
The North and Northeast states bordering Canada also remain in session, along with Illinois, which is holding a special special session looking to close a $3-billion budget gap by July 1.
The fact that GMO-labeling bills were introduced but mostly failed to go anywhere gives Congress more time to work on the issue before the food industry is confronted with a maze of state, territorial, and federal labeling rules.
Related on the SLP
The bottom line is that for the rest of this year, most attention on the issue will be focused back in the nation’s capital on Pompeo’s H.R. 1599, the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015. That bill would require the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to set standards for companies that want to label food products as containing or not containing GMOs and would preempt state action on the issue.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: State Legislatures Pass on Adopting GMO-Labeling Policies This Year
