Source – San Francisco Chronicle
By Kristen Wyatt, AP
Date – 21 Feb 2013
Website – www.sfgate.com
DENVER (AP) — Colorado lawmakers Thursday rejected a proposal that would have required genetically engineered food to be labeled, amid fears that the mandate would burden farmers and raise food prices.
A Democratic House committee voted 7-2 against the bill after more than five hours of emotional testimony from mothers seeking labels and farmers saying the requirement would hurt them. The lawmakers ultimately sided with farm groups that said the change would need to be done on a federal level and not by an individual state.
“That’s a price Washington should not ask one state’s citizens to bear,” concluded Rep. Kathleen Conti, R-Littleton.
More than 60 countries require genetically modified foods to be labeled, but the U.S. isn’t one of them. Only Alaska has enacted legislation requiring the labeling of genetically engineered fish and shellfish products.
The federal government and dozens more states are considering similar label requirements amid complaints from consumers that genetically engineered foods may be unsafe.
“Who’s going to protect us? Who’s going to let us know what’s in our food?” asked Marie Weller, a Colorado Springs mother of three who brought her daughters and son to the hearing.
The bill’s sponsor, Democratic Rep. Jeanne Labuda of Denver, said consumers deserve to know more about how their food is produced.
“People want to know what’s in the food that we’re eating,” said Labuda, who argued that food producers already have to label foods containing certain additives or allergens, so an added GMO label shouldn’t be a burden.
“For some reason, we are not afforded that same information when it comes to genetically engineered foods,” Labuda said. “We consumers deserve to know that information.”
Lawmakers also heard from a wheat farmer who said genetically modified foods can require fewer pesticides and less water, and that label requirements wouldn’t help consumers but would burden food producers.
“Should this bill become a law, the real impact will be felt by consumers at the checkout counter,” said Dusty Talmon of the Colorado Association of Wheat Growers.
Many scientists say the labels aren’t useful because genetically modified or engineered foods are safe. California voters last year rejected a statewide labeling requirement.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science — publisher of Science magazine — has said genetically engineered food is no different from conventional foods and that labels for GMO, or genetically modified organisms, would “mislead and falsely alarm consumers.”
One of Colorado’s members of Congress has suggested a national labeling law. Democratic Rep. Jared Polis has said consumers need the information.
Labuda said she wasn’t sure whether a label requirement would boost food prices. But she said the requirement is worthwhile as consumers face stores full of produce that seems to have changed over the years. Labuda talked about seeing fresh tomatoes in the dead of winter.
“All I know is, they don’t taste like tomatoes,” she said.
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Online:
House Bill 1992: http://bit.ly/UMvh9a
This is why the Bill was ambushed in Committee. “WE The People”, not only know better than this tired old “It-Will-Be-A-Financial-Burden-For-Farmers-Seniors-And-Consumers” Shtick for the baloney it is, but so do 64 nations that not only have labeling, but are getting our popular brands reformulated to their standards WITH negligible impact to Consumers on price. If it had made it out to the voters, it would have passed, a fact those committeemen will be reminded of next election, and one Food Companies are starting to “get” even now. The hilarity never ceases.
Hmm, farm groups? That must mean U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Assoc. which is a front group for Biotech, or maybe The Colorado Farm Bureau which is an extension of Biotech. The same tired line of ‘it will raise prices’ when labeling has never raised the price of food. We lost in California by a very slim margin. That was with Monsanto and the other Biotech companies as well as all the Big Food companies that Americans know and trust, putting up over $45 million dollars to make sure we don’t know GMO’s are in our food. Guess what? Now everyone knows and everyone wants labels. We will have them too.
“The American Association for the Advancement of Science — publisher of Science magazine — has said genetically engineered food is no different from conventional foods and that labels for GMO, or genetically modified organisms, would “mislead and falsely alarm consumers.” Who the hell is this organization. They have a very authoritative name and little else. The FDA, specifically Michael Taylor came up with the ‘substantially equivalent’ routine. Really, substantially equivalent? Why are GMO’s patented if they’re “the same”? Let’s see, why are they patented as EPA registered insecticides BtCorn and BtCotton? Substantially equivalent? Yet GMO’s can live in a toxic RoundUp Ready environment but nothing else can. Wise up Colorado. Check Miss Conti’s campaign contributions. Has she received any money from Monsanto or any biotech. Labeling is common sense, a not too common commodity.