Farm Bill Amendment could Wipe Out State GMO Labeling Laws

Image: womenslifestyle.com/

A 2013 Farm Bill is one step closer to reality after last week’s decision by the House and Senate to go to conference to hammer out the differences be their two versions.

The bad news is that the House version still contains an amendment, introduced by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) that could wipe out state laws on food and farming, including state laws requiring labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Please call your Senator or Representative (listed below) and ask them to drop the King Amendment from the Farm Bill.

The King Amendment is intended to block California from implementing a law, already passed, that requires farm animals to be given enough space to spread their limbs and turn around. But the way the amendment is written, it would take away states' rights to pass laws on food and farming, including GMO labeling laws like the ones passed earlier this year in Maine and Connecticut, and the citizens’ initiative we’re working so hard to pass next month in Washington State.

On Saturday, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives chose a group of legislators who are now tasked with hammering out the differences between their two versions of the Farm Bill. You're receiving this email because your Senator or Representative is going to be part of this Farm Bill conference committee.

The King Amendment is only in the House version of the bill, so the conference committee could choose to drop it. And the committee is a lot more likely to do that if members get thousands of phone calls from constituents warning them not to pass this anti-democratic law that helps factory farms, hurts animals and takes away states' rights to regulate food and farming.

The conference committee members are listed below with their phone numbers. Please call the one that represents your state or district.

You can say:

"I'm calling because my congressperson has been chosen to join the Farm Bill conference committee. I oppose the King Amendment in the House version of the bill and urge my congressperson to remove it. The King Amendment is aimed at blocking the implementation of a California law I support that says farm animals should have enough space to spread their limbs and turn around. Farm animals shouldn't be tortured in factory farms. It's cruel to the animals and crowded conditions create food safety problems. But the King Amendment doesn't just block one law; it takes away the rights of states to enforce any law that regulates food or farming. Please tell my congressperson to stop the King Amendment."

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R., Okla.) 202-225-5565
Rep. Michael Conaway (R., Texas) 202-225-3605
Rep. Rick Crawford (R., Ark.) 202-225-4076
Rep. Steve King (R., Iowa) 202-225-4426
Rep. Austin Scott (R., Ga.) 202-225-6531
Rep. Glenn Thompson (R., Pa.) 202-225-5121
Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Ala.) 202-225-3261
Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R., Texas) 202-225-4005
Rep. Martha Roby (R., Ala.) 202-225-2901
Rep. Kristi Noem (R., S.D.) 202-225-2801
Rep. Rodney Davis (R., Ill.) 202-225-2371
Rep. Jeff Denham (R., Ca.) 202-225-4540
Rep. Steve Southerland (R., Fla.). 202-225-5235

House Agriculture Committee ranking member Collin Peterson (D., Minn.) 202-225-2165
Rep. Mike McIntyre (D., N.C.) 202-225-2731
Rep. Jim Costa (D., Calif.) 202-225-3341
Rep. Tim Walz (D., Minn.) 202-225-2472
Rep. Kurt Schrader (D., Ore.) 202-225-5711
Rep. Jim McGovern (D., Mass.) 202-225-6101
Rep. Suzan DelBene (D., Wash.) 202-225-6311
Rep. Gloria Negrete McLeod (D., Calif.) 202-225-6161
Rep. Filemon Vela (D., Texas) 202-225-9901
Rep. Ed Royce (R., Calif.) 202-225-4111
Rep. Tom Marino (R., Pa.) 202-225-3731
Rep. Eliot Engel (D., N.Y.) 202-225-2464
Rep. Dave Camp (R., Mich.) 202-225-3561
Rep. Sam Johnson (R., Texas) 202-225-4201
Rep. Sandy Levin (D., Mich.) 202-225-4961

Senate Agriculture Committee chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.) (202) 224-4822
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) (202) 224-4242
Sen. Tom Harkin (D., Iowa) (202) 224-3254
Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.) (202) 224-2651
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) (202) 224-2315
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) (202) 224-3244
Sen. Michael Bennet (D., Colo.) (202) 224-5852

Senate Ag Committee ranking member Thad Cochran (R., Miss.) (202) 224-5054
Sen. Pat Roberts (R., Kan.) (202) 224-4774
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R., Ga.) (202) 224-3521
Sen. John Boozman (R., Ark.) (202) 224-4843
Sen. John Hoeven (R., N.D.) (202) 224-2551

Thanks!

Alexis and the OCA Team

Source: Organic Consumers Association 6771 South Silver Hill Drive - Finland, MN 55603 - Phone: 218-226-4164 - Fax: 218-353-7652

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Activists score a victory in Senate against ‘Monsanto Protection Act’

Called “The Monsanto Protection Act” by opponents, the budget rider shields biotech behemoths like Monsanto, Cargill and others from the threat of lawsuits and bars federal courts from intervening to force an end to the sale of a GMO (genetically-modified organism) even if the genetically-engineered product causes damaging health effects.

Image: Reuters/Eduardo Munoz 

Related: Join the March Against Monsanto on 10/12/13: march-against-mosanto.com

The US House of Representatives approved a three-month extension to the rider in their own short-term FY14 Continuing Resolution spending bill, which was approved last week by the lower chamber.

The Senate version of the legislation will make clear the provision expires on Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year.

“That provision will be gone,” Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) told Politico.

Pryor chairs the Senate subcommittee on agriculture appropriations.

The Center for Food Safety said the Senate’s eradication of the rider was “a major victory for the food movement” and a “sea change in a political climate that all too often allows corporate earmarks to slide through must-pass legislation.”

“Short-term appropriations bills are not an excuse for Congress to grandfather in bad policy,” said Colin O’Neil, the Center for Food Safety’s director of government affairs.

The biotech rider first made news in March when it was a last-minute addition to the successfully-passed House Agriculture Appropriations Bill for 2013, a short-term funding bill that was approved to avoid a federal government shutdown.

Following the original vote in March, President Barack Obama signed the provision into law as part of larger legislation to avoid a government shutdown. Rallies took place worldwide in May protesting the clandestine effort to protect the powerful companies from judicial scrutiny.

Largely as a result of prior lawsuits, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is required to complete environmental impact statements (EIS) to assess risk prior to both the planting and sale of GMO crops. The extent and effectiveness to which the USDA exercises this rule is in itself a source of serious dispute.

The reviews have been the focus of heated debate between food safety advocacy groups and the biotech industry in the past. In December of 2009, for example, Food Democracy Now collected signatures during the EIS commenting period in a bid to prevent the approval of Monsanto’s GMO alfalfa, which many feared would contaminate organic feed used by dairy farmers; it was approved regardless.

The biotech rider “could override any court-mandated caution and could instead allow continued planting.  Further, it forces USDA to approve permits for such continued planting immediately, putting industry completely in charge by allowing for a ‘back door approval’ mechanism,” the Center for Food Safety said earlier this month upon news the House was reviving the measure.

Source: RT.com & minds.com

Jon Stewart on The Monsanto Protection Act

Natural Cures Not Medicine on Facebook: www.facebook.com/naturalcuresnotmedicine

Jon Stewart faults Congress for being mostly unaware that the legislation protecting businesses that want to sell genetically modified foods was hidden in a bigger bill. 



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Jeff Merkley Pushes To Repeal 'Monsanto Protection Act'

Sen. Jeff Merkley (A democrat from Oregon) is planning to push an amendment into the upcoming farm bill that would repeal the secret provision known as the "Monsanto Protection Act" a highly ambiguous loophole attached anonymously to a spending bill that sailed through Congress in March.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/16/jeff-merkley-monsanto-repeal_n_3288209.html