Consumer group asks lawmakers to kill revised GMO labeling bill

The Center for Food Safety is calling on lawmakers to throw out a Republican-backed bill that keeps states from regulating food with genetically modified ingredients.

The consumer group is upset over new revisions to Rep. Mike Pompeo’s (R-Kan.) genetically engineered food labeling bill.  It said the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act, which originally denied states the right to enact their own labeling laws for genetically modified foods, now prohibit state and local governments from restricting GE crops as well.

The bill, previously dubbed the Denying Americans the Right-to-Know, or DARK Act, is now being called the Monsanto Protection Act, after one of the nation’s largest biotech companies.

“This bill would strip away a state or local government’s basic rights of local control, and hands the biotech industry everything it wants on a silver platter,” Andrew Kimbrell, executive director at Center for Food Safety, said in a news release. “No Member of Congress that cares about the rights and concerns of his or her constituents should support this bill.”

If passed, the Center for Food Safety said the bill would overturn mandatory labeling laws that have passed in Vermont, Connecticut and Maine. The labeling of Genetically Modifies Organisms, of GMOs, in Food has been the center of a fierce fight between consumer and industry groups.

Groups like the Center for Food Safety argue that the public has a right to know what’s in the food products their buying, but industry groups

The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health will hold a hearing Thursday to discuss Pompeo’s bill.

Pompeo’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.