The Campaign Reporter Table of Contents June 2006
ACTION ALERT: Contact your House Representative and ask him or her to support HR 5269, the Genetically Engineered Food Right to Know Act
ACTION ALERT: Contact the USDA, your House Representative and two U.S. Senators requesting hearings into the contamination of organic crops by GMOs
A Closer Look : Did the United States really "win" the WTO case against the European Union?
Vermont Governor veto prevents landmark seed-labeling legislation
Election 2006: Strategy to elect candidates that support GMO labeling
1st Annual BioREALITY Conference: March 27-29, 2007, Washington, D.C.
Contact your House Representative and ask him or her to support HR 5269, the Genetically Engineered Food Right to Know Act
In May, Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH-10th) introduced six bills before the U.S. House of Representatives that deal with the labeling, safety testing and overall regulation of genetically engineered foods and crops.
While The Campaign supports all these bills, our primary focus is on HR 5269, the Genetically Engineered Food Right to Know Act.
We are requesting that everyone contact your House Representative and ask him or her to co-sponsor this important legislation.
Besides sending an instant e-mail, we strongly encourage everyone to print out and mail a form letter to your House Representative by U.S. mail. Letters sent by U.S. mail have far more impact than e-mail.
Before a bill can pass into law, it normally needs to have committee hearings. Plus, matching legislation needs to be passed through the U.S. Senate. We had hoped the Genetically Engineered Food Right to Know Act would have been introduced earlier in the current 109th Congress. (Each Congress is two years and we are now in the second year, otherwise know as the second session, of the 109th Congress.)
Because the introduction of the labeling legislation before the 109th Congress was delayed, it is unlikely that we will be able to pass it before Congress adjourns this fall. However, as we move towards the November elections, we have an excellent opportunity to lay the groundwork for support of the labeling legislation in the 110th Congress that begins next January.
Since we will hold the BioREALITY Conference in Washington, DC, March 27-29, 2007, and will lobby Congress at that time, we anticipate Representative Kucinich will be happy to re-introduce the labeling legislation very early next year. So all efforts this year should provide ongoing benefits into the 110th Congress next year.
Remember that each member of the U.S. House of Representatives is up for re-election in November. In a separate article in this newsletter, we discuss our strategyfor electing candidates to Congress who support labeling legislation.
Here is a list of the current co-sponsors of HR 5269, the Genetically Engineered Food Right to Know Act:
Rep Brown, Sherrod [OH-13]
Rep Conyers, John, Jr. [MI-14]
Rep Gutierrez, Luis V. [IL-4]
Rep Lee, Barbara [CA-9]
Rep Maloney, Carolyn B. [NY-14]
Rep Miller, George [CA-7]
Rep Nadler, Jerrold [NY-8]
Rep Olver, John W. [MA-1]
Rep Sanders, Bernard [VT]
Rep Schakowsky, Janice D. [IL-9]
Rep Shays, Christopher [CT-4]
Rep Waters, Maxine [CA-35]
Rep Woolsey, Lynn C. [CA-6]
If your House Representative is not on this list, then please contact him or her now -- and tell your friends to do the same!
If you would like to know more about all the bills introduced by Representative Dennis Kucinich that regulate genetically engineered foods and crops, then visit the following legislation page on The Campaign's web site: http://www.thecampaign.org/legislation.php
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Contact the USDA, your House Representative and two U.S. Senators requesting hearings into the contamination of organic crops by GMOs
As we reported in the last edition of The Campaign Reporter, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has released a report titled "The First Decade of Genetically Engineered Crops in United States."
This important report totally ignores the fact that organic crops are being contaminated by the cross-pollination from genetically engineered crops.
Therefore, we are asking everyone to send an e-mail and letter to the Secretary of Agriculture, your House Representative and your two U.S. Senators. We are requesting that the agriculture committees of both the House and Senate hold hearings into this matter.
We want Congress to call the USDA "on the carpet" in front of Congressional oversight committees for continuing to ignore this growing problem. The USDA is clearly allowing the biotech industry to benefit at the expense of the organic industry. This has the potential to develop into a national scandal if organic crops become widely contaminated by GMOs.
Hopefully the pressure these Congressional hearings put on the USDA will cause the agency to enact a ban on the growing of GMO corn. However, if the USDA continues to allow the contamination to take place, we will then push for Congress to pass a bill into law requiring the USDA to ban the growing of GMO corn.
So it is essential to put pressure on your members of Congress to push for these hearings. The longer the contamination continues, the more organic crops are going to suffer as a result of this ongoing attack from biotech crops.
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A Closer Look: Did the United States really "win" the WTO case against the European Union?
The European Union (EU) / World Trade Organization (WTO) arbitrationdecisions announced on May 10th do not hold up under scrutiny as a "victory" for U.S. Agribusiness. Last February, news was circulated thatthe "confidential ruling" favored the United States.
Now that further details have become available, it appears that some U.S. officials were "spinning" the results in February to appear to favor the United States.
There is really no evidence that the European Union has "caved" to U.S. interest regarding international trade laws on genetically engineered food and crops.
The WTO ruling itself does absolutely nothing to change the European Union's stance on genetically engineered food and crops.
Even though the ban on biotech crops has been dropped, no changes were made to the stringent regulatory framework already in place. The WTO ruling doesn't recommend any action on the moratorium, nor does it strike down the EU Bloc's rightto treat genetically engineered crops as different from other crops.
The ruling cannot change the stark fact that more than half of Europe's 450 million consumers consider genetically engineered foods to be dangerous. According to an EU poll last June, people have been avoiding them in increasing numbers.
New field trials are in place, and new laws since 2004 allow for biotech seeds to be planted, traced and labeled. More than 30 new biotech products are approved to be marketed in the EU, and still the opposition has grown stronger almost daily.
As the WTO was handing down its ruling on May 10th, Moscow was preparing to mandate that all school lunch programs be GE-free. Poland was in the process of declaring itself GE-free, banning the trade and growing of genetically engineered seed.
According to a Greenpeace press release: "Poland is the second largest agricultural producer in the EU and their act of solidarity with farmers and consumers across the EU and beyond sends a strong signal that Poland and Europe have chosen the road of GE-free rather than contamination by GE crops."
If anything, the opposition is mounting in face of U.S. attempts to "win" the right to force genetically modified food and crops on the populations of Europe. Opposition is also growing in other countries that keep their labeling laws stringent, such as India, Japan, and Russia.
On June 6th, The New York Times featured an excellent article titled "Biotech Food Tears Rifts in Europe." This article is posted in the "GMO News Updates" section in The Campaign Forums. To read the article, click on the link below: http://www.thecampaign.org/forums/showthread.php?t=321
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Vermont Governor veto prevents landmark seed-labeling legislation
Despite winning in the House and Senate of the Vermont state legislature, Governor Jim Douglas vetoed seed-labeling legislation that would have made seed manufacturers liable for drift and contamination by genetically engineered crops.
The measure passed the Vermont House 77-63 and the Senate 19-8.
According to an Associated Press (AP) article of May 16th, the governor is quoted as regretting the veto, saying:
"I greatly respect how passionate the arguments are around the issue of genetically engineered crops, and the work of the Legislature in attempting a compromise. However, S.18 fails to find a middle ground between the competing interests, but instead dives into new legal territory that may only promote needless litigation that pits farmer against farmer and neighbor against neighbor."
The labeling legislation began as a grassroots effort and was spearheaded by Vermont farmers. In the same AP article, Rep. Dexter Randall, P-Troy, primary sponsor of the bill and a dairy farmer stated:
"Gov. Douglas has chosen hypocrisy over democracy in siding with the chemical giants and not listening to the farmers. This is a huge insult for the farm community of Vermont only widening the gap between conventional and organic farmers."
It is interesting to note the governor's comments about pitting "farmer against farmer and neighbor against neighbor." Many farmers charge that Monsanto is creating such an environment by encouraging them to spy on their fellow farmers. Some farmers claim that Monsanto has even offered them rewards for reporting on neighbors who are reusing seed or otherwise violating Monsanto's "patent rights".
Vermont's seed-labeling legislation was an worthwhile effort to keep the pressure on biotech companies to take responsibility for their pollution. It would be beneficial for similar legislative activities to take place in other states.
On a more local level, grassroots efforts to pass city council resolutions supporting the federal labeling legislation are perhaps the most efficient form of intense local activism. Model language for city council resolutions can be found on The Campaign'swebsite at: http://www.thecampaign.org/resolutions.php
Supporters of the Vermont seed-labeling bill remain undeterred as New England activists redouble their efforts against genetically engineered food and crops.
The farmer/consumer movement against GMOs across the United States is alive and well. With city and state grassroots actions, federal legislation pending in Congress, and the BioREALITY conference in Washington, DC, the opposition to genetically engineered foods and crops is steadily growing.
To paraphrase the words of American Revolution Captain John Paul Jones, when it comes to genetically engineered foods in the United States: "We have not yet begun to fight."
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Election 2006: Strategy to elect candidates that support GMO labeling
The Campaign is urging our members to take a strategic role in directly influencing politicians and their opponents.
We now have bills before the United States House of Representatives calling for mandatory labeling and safety testing. We strongly urge our members to make regular and repeated contact with their U.S. House Representative, AS WELL AS their challengers in the next election!
Strategy: Make sure each candidate knows that YOU are actively seeking their opinion on whether or not they think genetically engineered foods should be labeled and why or why not. In doing so, you are forcing the issue to get on each candidate's agenda, and into debate.
All 435 voting members of the U.S. House of Representatives are up for re-election every two years. Because House members must be re-elected so frequently, they are quite susceptible to pressure from the voters who elect them.
U.S. Senators are elected for a six-year term with one-third of the Senators coming up for re-election every two years.
Over the summer, The Campaign will develop a comprehensive program to put pressure on these members of Congress who are up for re-election in November.
A key factor will be to get the opponents of the members of Congress up for re-election to take a public position in support of labeling of genetically engineered foods. That will create a lot of pressure for the incumbents to take a position in favor of labeling. House Representatives can prove they are taking that position by co-sponsoring HR 5269, the Genetically Engineered Food Right to Know Act.
We will notify you when our comprehensive "Election 2006 Action Plan" is ready to go. In the meantime, take action now by participating in the ACTION ALERT regarding HR 5269.
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1st Annual BioREALITY Conference: March 27-29, 2007, Washington, D.C.
Please mark your calendars to join us in Washington, DC, March 27-29, 2007, for the 1st Annual BioREALITY Conference. There will be three exciting days of education, lobbying and strategic planning on the issues surrounding genetically engineered foods.
Organizations and individuals from the farming, religious, and scientific communities will join with grassroots activists for the birth of what will be a major event each year.
We will take our message calling for labeling and safety testing of genetically engineered foods straight to the offices of our members of Congress. And we will ask our elected officials to hold congressional hearings investigating why the U.S. Department of Agriculture is allowing organic crops to be contaminated by GMOs.
The Campaign's management is currently researching the various locations available in Washington, DC to hold the BioREALITY Conference. And we are networking with other organizations who appear eager to join in on this landmark event.
Donations Encouraged: As you can imagine, we are going to need to raise a significant amount of money to put on the BioREALITY Conference. Therefore we welcome and encourage you to make a donation to The Campaign to help fund this important conference. Whether you can afford to give $5, $50, $500 or $5,000, rest assured that your donation will be put to good use.
You can make a donation by mailing a check payable to The Campaign to:
The Campaign PO Box 55699 Seattle, WA 98155
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Campaign to Label GE Foods Newsletter June 2006
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Genetically Engineered Food Labeling Legislation Pending Before U.S.
By The Campaign Reporter
June 12, 2006
