Organic Consumers Association, February 18, 2016
Last week, we were told that introduction of a Senate bill to kill GMO labeling was “imminent.” When the bill never materialized, its sponsor, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), toldthe press that it “wasn’t ready yet.”
Now we know why. It seems that Gary Hirshberg, chairman of the board of JustLabelIt (JLI), along with USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), are working behind the scenes to broker an (unacceptable) compromise, and to sell that compromise to the GMO labeling movement.
Reliable sources tell us that the compromise Hirshberg, Vilsack and Stabenow are floating is one that would delay implementation of Vermont’s GMO labeling law for two years, while giving corporations the option to adopt QR barcode technology to label GMO ingredients.