She Said, He Said

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We are still waiting to see if the Senate can ever come to any agreement on a GMO food labeling bill that would preempt Vermont’s state law on this matter. Recall that Senate Ag Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) at least got the bill out of his panel with the help of a few Democratic members, but that it failed on the full floor when he couldn’t find 60 votes to invoke cloture. Just three Democratic senators voted with Roberts – Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.), Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.).

Notice that Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) was not one of the three Democratic senators. She is the ranking member on the Senate Ag panel.

She said...

The blame game on issues is nothing new in Washington, especially in the Senate. And this is the case with the GMO food labeling bill, or the lack of it.

Sen. Stabenow in remarks to Politico, said that, “We were negotiating before he (Roberts) made the decision to suddenly put forward something else before the Senate. So I’m hopeful that we can go back to negotiations.”

Now the he said part...

Sen. Roberts Monday evening told reporters that he is still waiting for Stabenow to put forth any solid proposal to work with,” adding that right up the Senate vote, “I kept hearing, ‘There is a compromise coming! There is a compromise coming,’ though no language ever appeared. If the bill that went to the [Senate] floor is not good enough for Democrats, I need legislative language on what they want to do because it never appeared.”

Comments: There are not many easy things in the Senate, especially with its current makeup. But one thing is easy: stopping something from happening. It is unclear whether or not Stabenow just wants to run the clock out ahead of the July 1, 2016, implementation of the Vermont food labeling law (there is a delay in enforcement). She keeps saying publicly she supports a compromise. But what compromise? Roberts wants something on paper.

Various farm and commodity groups are anxious about this but veteran Capitol Hill contacts say the lobbyists for some of the groups are very reluctant to take Stabenow on. Why? She may return as Senate Ag Chairwoman if the Democratic Party regains control of the Senate. And those groups who got what they wanted from Stabenow during the 2014 Farm Bill certainly do not want to cross her ahead of the next one, some note.

The Detroit News ran a commentary item about the topic on March 30, from Carol Keiser, who volunteers on the board of the Global Farmer Network. She certainly is not reluctant to take on Stabenow. Read her comments at this link.

So what’s going to happen? Ask Stabenow. Not just for her comments – she has had plenty of those – but for an alternative bill so Roberts can say yes, or no.

If the Vermont law is not preempted, then other states are expected to follow with similar but likely nuanced versions of their own GMO labeling law. Rather than a single path to preempt Vermont’s law, the issue would truly become a patchwork of approaches.

Some food company officials say they don’t want that to occur but out of necessity are gearing up to deal with the Vermont law. If nothing is done in the Senate on a national basis, then those food companies may have to deal with multiple state approaches. With today’s technology that just may not be as difficult as some think. We shall see if Roberts and Stabenow cannot find an accord.

But this is not the biggest issue on this topic. If the Vermont law is actually implemented, and others follow, some observers say some food companies increasingly may just reformulate the ingredients in their products. If that were to occur, some farmers planting GMO corn and soybeans may wish they had confronted Stabenow before it was too late.

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