Right now, Congress is debating a bill (proposed law) called The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act. It is time to let our senators know how we feel about GMO labeling. This bill has a very high likelihood of being enacted in 2015, and it threatens to undo the momentum co-ops and our partners have built behind the GMO labeling movement.
The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act is a voluntary GMO labeling bill. If it passes, it will block mandatory GMO labeling at the state and national levels. For this reason, GMO labeling advocates have dubbed this bill The Denying Americans the Right-to-Know, or DARK, Act.
What would The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act do?
- Establish significant barriers to a mandatory national GMO labeling system.
- Undermine the public will by nullifying GMO labeling laws already on the books in Maine, Connecticut and Vermont; block any future state legislation that would require GMO labeling.
- Essentially maintain the status quo by codifying the existing voluntary labeling system via a USDA non-GMO labeling program, and creating a safety review system based on the FDA’s existing process. FDA has already declared that GMOs are safe.
- Potentially create a pathway for defining GMOs as “natural” by requiring FDA to define the marketing term as part of a bill about GMO labeling.
Our congressmen and women in the senate will be voting on The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act very soon. If you would like to see GMOs in your food labelled, now is the time to act. Contact Senator Klobuchar and Senator Franken today. These example letters and phone messages may help you share why stopping this bill is important to you.
