GMO Labeling Law Dubbed ‘DARK Act’ Is Being Considered by the Senate
Campbell’s Soup, the rare major food company to embrace mandatory GMO labeling, released images in early January of a SpaghettiO’s can with labeling language it said meets the Vermont standards. Below the Nutrition Facts panel, shoppers will see a few lines of type that read: “Partially produced with genetic engineering. For more information about G.M.O. ingredients, visit WhatsinMyFood.com.”
On July 1, products sold in Vermont will be required to bear labels disclosing genetically engineered ingredients.
That’s the brave new world that mandatory labeling promises, and advocates are pushing for additional laws similar to Vermont’s on the state and federal level. It’s an impending future that many in both the food industry and politics have fought through lobbying, lawsuits, and counter-legislation. Following efforts by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to find a compromise ahead of the Vermont law’s rollout, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, introduced a bill on Friday that would set a voluntary federal labeling standard and prevent states from passing stricter mandatory labeling laws. It’s a version of the food-industry-backed bill that passed in the House last July that detractors have taken to calling the “DARK Act”—the acronym standing for “Deny Americans the Right to Know.”
“We are out of time,” Roberts said in a statement. “The time to act is now.”
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The sense of urgency to limit label transparency is a bit confusing when polling suggests 90 percent of Americans support mandatory labeling. But considering that the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the leading trade group, spent more than $5 million lobbying against GMO labeling in 2015, according to the Environmental Working Group, there’s clearly a lot on the line for the industry and its backers.
The Corn Refiners Association—a trade group that represents those who produce high-fructose corn syrup, nearly all of which is made from GMO corn—would like consumers to believe that they have money riding on this too. It published a study on Monday that projected the Vermont law would cost all American families an additional $1,050 in grocery costs annually. The higher bills would result from “the new labeling system and because consumers will likely view the GMO labels as warnings, leading food companies to switch from GMO ingredients to more expensive non-GMO ingredients,” according to a release. However, a 2014 review of existing studies on labeling costs funded by Consumer Union found that the median annual cost of a mandatory GMO labeling law would be just $2.30 per person. The high end of the range presented in the papers reviewed in the study was $15.01 annually.
News that the Senate would take up the bill was relayed in a flurry of press releases from prolabeling and environmental groups, who are unanimously opposed to the bill.
“Allowing food companies to make voluntary disclosures will simply perpetuate the status quo that has left consumers in the dark,” Gary Hirshberg, chairman of Just Label It, said in one statement. “Nine out of 10 consumers—regardless of age, income, or even party affiliation—want the right to know whether their food contains GMOs, and food leaders like Campbell’s have shown that mandatory GMO labeling will not increase food prices.”
But as the arguments fly over what, if anything, will happen to the retail food market on July 1, the clock continues to tick, and there’s plenty of politicking (and lobbying) to come before the full Senate votes on the bill. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., the ranking Democrat on the Agriculture Committee, said in statement, “There is still a lot of work to do to get to a bill that can get the broad bipartisan support needed to pass the U.S. Senate.” But it seems unlikely that she and fellow Democrats could amend their way to a bill that doesn’t undercut state laws like Vermont’s.