Senate Will Have Votes for GMO Labeling Bill: Stabenow

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Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said the Senate probably won’t vote on a GMO labeling vote this week, but “it will have the 60 votes” when it comes up likely after July 5. Stabenow is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Agriculture committee.

Senate Ag Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and ranking member Stabenow released their measure last week to create a mandatory, nationwide standard for labeling GMO foods. Stabenow must now convince Democrats who voted down a previous labeling bill in March that this version is the best possible outcome from the months of negotiations.

Meanwhile, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said in a statement that he would put a hold on the bill. “The agreement announced by Sens. Pat Roberts and Debbie Stabenow would create a confusing, misleading and unenforceable national standard for labeling GMOs,” Sanders said. “It would impose no penalties for violating the labeling requirement, making the law essentially meaningless.”

Overcoming a hold could draw the legislative process well into July, Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said. “That’s a matter of days to get to that, if there is a true hold on it,” Durbin said. Durbin voted against the March GMO labeling bill, but issued cautious optimism toward the new measure.

Durbin’s comments are interesting and likely errant because congressional sources advise that the likely parliamentary procedure (a privileged motion) for the Senate GMO measure makes a perceived hold on the bill meaningless.

Meanwhile, Coca-Cola expects to pull some of its beverages from Vermont stores this week as the state imposes a new law requiring all products made with genetically modified organisms to include warning labels. Although its top beverages will stay on shelves, including Coca-Cola, Diet Coke and Coke Zero, some smaller brands or configurations may temporarily disappear. Kellogg, Campbell Soup and Mars previously announced they would bow to the Vermont law and begin labeling their products for GMOs.

Comments: While others are stressing Sanders’ hold threat, they apparently do not know that the parliamentary procedure Sen. Roberts used in introducing the bill (privileged motion) makes any such hold threat meaningless. Contacts advise that Senate leadership will likely take moves this week to ensure a vote on the measure sometime next week. GMO food labeling bill proponents stress that the final work on the measure, including House action, must occur on or before July 15, when Congress exits for the political conventions in the last few weeks of July, and they are also off the month of August – thus the need for action on the bill by July 15.

NOTE: This column is copyrighted material; therefore reproduction or retransmission is prohibited under U.S. copyright laws.