GMO Labeling Bill Passes Senate, Headed for House Vote
The U.S. Senate has approved a controversial bill which would create a federal standard for labeling foods that contain genetically engineered or modified ingredients.
On Thursday, the U.S. Senate approved the “Agriculture Biotechnology Solution” bill which will require foods containing genetically modified ingredients to be labeled with words, pictures, or a QR code that must be scanned by a smartphone. The Senate voted 63 to 30 to approve the bill after a controversial cloture vote on Wednesday. The bill will now head to the House of Representatives for a vote. If approved in the House the bill would go on to President Obama to be signed into law.
“Food ingredients like beet sugar and soybean oil, which can be derived from genetically-engineered crops but contain next to no genetic material by the time they are processed, may not fall under the law’s definition of a bioengineered food, critics say,” Reuters reported.
Other critics of the bill say that GMO corn may also be excluded from the bill. This means that beet sugar, soy, and corn (the crops which are among the most genetically modified in the world) might not be covered under the current language of the bill.
“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) raised concerns about the involvement of the USDA in a list of worries sent in a June 27 memo to the Senate Agriculture Committee,” Reuters noted.
Thursday’s vote came after a contentious vote on Wednesday which invoked cloture, a rule that prevents attempts to delay or filibuster a bill. The U.S. Senate voted 65 to 32 in favor of cloture, forcing an up-or-down vote to take place within 30 hours.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1470694951173-5'); });
//tags-cdn.deployads.com/a/activistpost.com.js
(deployads = window.deployads || ).push({});