Last week, the Senate defeated S. 2609—or what we call the DARK Act, the bill that would Deny Americans our Right to Know about GMOs.

We hope you celebrated last week. Because this week, we have to get back to work. With a vengeance.

TAKE ACTION: Call Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) at (202) 224-4822. Tell her: “Thank you for voting against the DARK Act. Please hold on to that victory for the GMO labeling movement. Don’t propose a weak compromise that would keep Vermont’s law from taking effect on July 1.”

Dial 888-897-0174 to tell your Senators to vote against any compromise that would block or delay Vermont’s bill from taking effect.

Also, can you help organize an April Fool’s Day action at the home office of your Senator? To keep the pressure on to protect Vermont’s labeling law? Email campaigns (at) organicconsumers.org if you can help!

Will consumers be the April Fools?

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) didn’t have the votes on March 16 to pass a bill to preempt Vermont’s labeling law.  But that doesn’t mean we’ve seen the last of Roberts, Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association. 

Here’s why. After the vote on the DARK Act failed last week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) flipped his vote from yes to no. It’s not that McConnell had a sudden change of heart. Hardly. He just used a procedural maneuver in order to allow the Senate to bring back an amended version of the DARK Act for another vote.

So what’s next? When Congress returns on April 1, after a two-week recess, we expect the pro-GMO, Monsanto-funded Democrats in the Senate, led by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), to keep working on a compromise bill. Stabenow has said all along that she wants a federal labeling bill that preempts Vermont. Can she come up with a compromise bill that accomplishes preemption, but is acceptable enough to win over a few more Senators? Enough to get the bill passed in the Senate?

We’ll talk a little about what sort of compromise we might expect. But before we get that far, here’s the real kicker: It doesn’t matter what the compromise Senate bill looks like, as long as it passes. Because once there are enough votes in the Senate to pass Roberts’ bill, no matter how it’s amended, the bill has to be “reconciled” with the House version of the DARK Act (H.R. 1599) (a bill even worse than the Senate version, and which in July 2015 passed the House by 275-150).

This next step, “reconciliation,” will take place in a Republican-controlled joint standing conference committee.  So, even if our allies in the Senate could pass a federal mandatory GMO labeling law with standards as high as Vermont’s law (unlikely of course), by the time the bill makes it out of the conference committee, we might not even recognize it.

In other words, if the Senate passes a compromise bill, any compromise bill, the joke will be on us. Unless of course, once that bill goes back to the House and Senate for a full vote, it’s voted down.

Back to the compromise

Stabenow has always been clear about wanting to preempt state GMO labeling laws in general, and Vermont’s in a hurry—before the July 1 enactment date. But she also says any Senate compromise bill “must contain a pathway to a national system of mandatory disclosure that provides consumers the information they need and want to make informed choices.”

What could Stabenow’s alternative DARK Act look like? Other than a mandatory federal standard that preempts Vermont and gives food companies another two years before they have to comply, we don’t really know. Stabenow hasn’t yet made public the text of her proposal, and she’s not likely to tip her hand before the next vote. But according to Politico reporter Jenny Hopkinson, whatever the compromise is, it could “provide enough cover” for Democrats to vote to preempt state GMO labeling laws.

We know that President Obama (USDA Sec. Tom Vilsack speaks for Obama on this issue) would be happy to sign a crappy compromise law that takes away states’ rights to label GMOs and leaves us with the GMA’s SmartLabels (for only those consumers with smart phones and internet access),or befuddling 1-800 numbers that consumers can call for “more information.”

It’s even possible that the Senate could pass something as strong as Sen. Jeff Merkley’s (D-Ore.) bill that would require manufacturers to put the words “genetically engineered” or the acronym “GE” in parentheses next to a relevant ingredient, or use a symbol on the label, designed by the Agriculture Secretary, to disclosure the presence of GMOs.

But remember: It doesn’t really matter what form a Senate bill takes. Once it gets to the House Conference Committee, they can rewrite it any which way they like.

The bottom line is this. The only good bill is no bill. The only way we can guarantee that our campaign for meaningful mandatory GMO labels will live to see another day is to make sure that Congress backs off and doesn’t pass any bill before Vermont’s law takes effect on July 1.

TAKE ACTION: Call Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) at (202) 224-4822. Tell her: “Thank you for voting against the DARK Act. Please hold on to that victory for the GMO labeling movement. Don’t propose a weak compromise that would keep Vermont’s law from taking effect on July 1.”

Dial 888-897-0174 to tell your Senators to vote against any compromise that would block or delay Vermont’s bill from taking effect.

Also, can you help organize an April Fool’s Day action at the home office of your Senator? To keep the pressure on to protect Vermont’s labeling law? Email campaigns (at) organicconsumers.org if you can help!