Monsanto Provision Tucked in Spending Bill Draws Critics
By Alan Bjerga & Derek Wallbank -
Apr 1, 2013 9:00 PM PT
The measure, tucked into a bill to fund the federal government through Sept. 30, was backed by Republican Senator Roy Blunt from Monsanto’s home state of Missouri. The provision allows farmers to plant products developed by the world’s biggest seed seller while their approval is being challenged in federal court.
Critics including the Center for Food Safety and the American Civil Liberties Union have said the legislation passed last month allows Monsanto to circumvent due process and potentially place unapproved products into the U.S. food supply. The provision, though, applies only to crop approvals overturned by a federal judge, and it probably won’t have much effect unless extended beyond the bill’s Sept. 30 expiration.
Still, in an era in which Congress has disavowed so-called earmarks to benefit home-state interests, the Monsanto-related measurer shows how lawmakers can still do so, said Josh Sewell, a policy analyst for Taxpayers for Common Sense, an open- government advocacy group in Washington.
“This was done in secret, behind closed doors, and then it shows up in a bill right before a vote,” Sewell said in a telephone interview. “This is just not how things should be getting done.”
Neither Blunt’s office nor Republican Representative Jack Kingston of Georgia, who was responsible for writing legislative language last year that included the provision, returned requests for comment yesterday.
Sugar Beets
The measure follows a decision by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2011 that allowed farmers to plant St. Louis- based Monsanto’s Roundup Ready sugar beets while the agency completed a court-mandated environmental impact statement. A federal judge in San Francisco ruled in 2009 that the USDA erred in approving the crop without more scrutiny.Such rulings have slowed the adoption of products by Monsanto, and second-leading seed-seller DuPont Co. (DD), Syngenta AG (SYNN) and others.
Under the measure, first included in appropriations legislation last year, the USDA would be required to allow modified crops to be temporarily planted and sold into the food supply even after the approvals were invalidated in court. Some products that could receive approval are intended to replace or complement Roundup Ready crops, which are engineered to survive applications of the Roundup weed killer.
Along with Monsanto, Dow Chemical Co. (DOW), DuPont Co., ArborGen Inc. and Syngenta AG are among firms that have genetically engineered plants pending regulatory approval.
Blunt’s Support
Blunt praised the plan last year as lawmakers debated a measure that would become part of the basis for this year’s spending bill.“We must make sure that farmers have certainty that their planting decisions will not be upended by judicial intervention,” he said.
Sara Miller, a Monsanto spokeswoman, said the provision strikes “a careful balance allowing farmers to continue to plant and cultivate their crops subject to appropriate environmental safeguards, while USDA conducts any necessary further environmental reviews.”
Farm organizations representing growers of sugar beets, corn, soybeans and cotton, all of which have genetically modified varieties, support the measure.
Enforcement Question
The USDA is reviewing the provision as it may be unenforceable, agency spokeswoman Courtney Rowe said in an e- mail yesterday.The Washington-based Center for Food Safety, which has sued the USDA to stop genetically modified crops, is among groups that refer to the spending-bill provision as the “Monsanto Protection Act.”
“Congress shouldn’t be handcuffing the judiciary on important public policy like this,” said Colin O’Neil, the group’s director of government affairs, in a telephone interview.
The National Farmers Union, the second-biggest U.S. farmer group, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, the Sierra Club and others have criticized the concept.
Mikulski Opposition
Senator Barbara Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat who supported the overall spending bill, opposes the provision. Her office said in a statement it was part of an agreement on agriculture spending reached in 2012 -- before Mikulski took over as chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee -- that she didn’t renegotiate.Mikulski’s “first responsibility” in shepherding the overall funding bill in the Senate was to prevent a government shutdown, spokeswoman Rachel MacKnight said in a statement. “That meant she had to compromise on many of her own priorities to get a bill through the Senate that the House would pass,” MacKnight said.
During debate over the appropriations bill last month, Senator Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat and organic farmer, said the plan sets a “dangerous” legal precedent and shows the government supports companies at the expense of the public.
“Montanans elected me to go to the Senate to do away with these shady backroom deals, to get rid of handouts to big corporations, to make government work better,” he said. “We simply have to do a better job on both policy and process.”
The USDA’s approval of Roundup Ready alfalfa, which spurred the lawsuits, was overturned in 2007 by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco. He banned further plantings pending completion of a more thorough environmental impact statement.
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the planting ban in June 2010, and the USDA re-approved the crop in January 2011 after completing the court-ordered study.
To contact the reporters on this story: Alan Bjerga in Washington at abjerga@bloomberg.net; Derek Wallbank in Washington at dwallbank@bloomberg.net
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This is why is it so hard for people in the U.S. to fight genetically modified food. Even though it has been proven to sterilize people who eat very much of it and even though people who are dying from it has mostly been suppressed in the news who are allergic to it, trying to protect yourself from genetically modified food is very difficult here in the U.S. For example, it is well known that 93% of the soybeans grown in the U.S. are genetically modified. So, if you want to use soy protein powder what are the chances that it is genetically modified? That's right about 93%. So, even if you are trying to be healthy in the U.S. sometimes you can't be.
Also, Roundup Ready sugar beets(do you know what this actually means?) It means that Roundup is in the genetic makeup of the beet itself. You cannot wash off the Roundup. And Roundup is related to Agent Orange and dioxin. Dioxin has no safe level for any human or other organic organism. The main result of exposure to enough dioxin is still births and deformed babies. Viet Nam in the DMZ still has babies being born with 2 heads, 3 or 4 legs or arms etc. Why would a company want you to eat something that is poison?
I suppose another way to look at it is Monsanto is reducing human births on earth by sterilizing or killing people with it's products. Pretty Crazy huh?
Europe has banned all genetically modified foods and China has banned all genetically modified rice.
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