Vermont passed a
statute in 2014 requiring GMO labelling, to take effect July 1, 2016.
The controversy about food labeling laws from Vermont is not new. It started long ago with their first labeling law, passed in 1994, against milk containing added rBST a hormone that already exists in milk, and an FDA approved process. The Vermont law was struck down as an unconstitutional burden on the "right not to speak", because making companies' label products that was contrary to the FDA finding that there was no difference in milk with added rBST and any other milk would mislead the public into thinking there was a risk. Many believed it was a state protectionist law to promote Vermont milk sales, which is also unconstitutional. Vermont is now at it again, this time labelling GMO foods.
Pres. Obama
promised to "immediately" start labeling GMO food in his campaign promises in 2007. The Obama Administration which purports to care about science-based decisionmaking was going off the rails, already. They responded to their squeaky wheel group of people who are obviously not interested in scientific evidence but believe they should have this statement on the labels with food containing GMOs like this one required in the Vermont law: "potentially pose risks to health, safety, agriculture, and the environment".
This is a good example of using up resources on a no risk problem when there are much more serious problems like processed sugar, excessive fat in American diets -- proven risks--but that is something no one wants to hear about in a campaign stump speech.
Let's consider the right to know if you are eating GMOs and how to make that palatable for groups who have this misplaced sense of risk. There is no "right" but let's go on the presumption that we need to meet this need, legislatively and constitutionally. Manufacturers could be facing 50 different state laws on GMO labeling with different requirements. The action that would remedy this burden would be to have a federal law to avoid the constitutional "substantial burden on interstate commerce". If there is a uniform label in federal law, then manufacturers would not have to create 50 different labels for potentially 50 different state laws, and thereby passing the "substantial burden" test. However, the U.S. Congress recently blocked a bill that would have made at least voluntary labeling, uniform. One has to wonder if there is a strategy to allow this "substantial burden on interstate commerce" to play out with the Vermont law, the test for an unconstitutional statute, so that the federal courts can strike down the Vermont law, yet again.
This squeak wheel group has created a new market for those companies which market primarily on the claim they sell non-GMO foods, so why not just buy the non-GMO products? They would be doing something positive in the market to encourage and grow these industries. But that is not what this coalition has chosen to do. For these people it seems they are out to punish GMO manufacturers because they clearly have an alternative way of shopping for non-GMO food.
