Last week, just before they adjourned for summer recess, Congress passed a bill that will establish national standards for labeling food containing ingredients which are genetically engineered (GE) also known as genetically modified organisms (GMOs). President Obama is expected to sign the bill into law in the coming weeks. However, the fight is not over, and the new battleground will be the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is charged with implementing the mandatory nationwide labeling requirements.
Under the legislation, USDA has two years to write the rules and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who has been involved in the debate over the GMO labeling legislation, will need to move quickly to get the rulemaking underway before the next administration takes over and momentum is lost.
The bill (S.764) is a carefully crafted compromise that gives companies three options for disclosing if their products contain GMOs. Those choices include a label on the food package, a USDA-developed symbol on the package, or an electronic label in the form of a QR code that can be scanned or a toll-free number consumers can call for additional information. USDA will need to work out the language or symbol conveying that products contain GMOs. USDA will also need to determine the threshold amount of genetically engineered contents a product must contain in order to trigger the labeling regulation.
The bill exempts from the labeling requirements all animal feed, as well as foods in which poultry and meat are the main ingredients.
Whatever regulations USDA crafts are likely to trigger a lawsuit as food companies or advocacy groups may conclude that the standards are too strict, too weak, or taking too long to promulgate and thus handing the final decision over what labeling appears on packages across the United States to the courts. “In anticipation of signature by the president, a working group has already been established to begin the important work of crafting rules to properly and promptly implement the new law,” a USDA spokesman said.
Pro-labeling groups state that anything short of printing words on the package is not sufficient. The provision that “allows companies to conceal genetically engineered ingredient information behind QR codes, websites, or 800 numbers” requiring consumers to have internet access and a smartphone to determine what is in the food “is confusing and discriminatory,” a collation of 286 consumer, environmental, and health groups wrote in a letter asking President Obama to veto the measure.
