Barbara Boxer: “I rise to speak about a very important issue for the American people--what they feed their families. Here is a photo of…”

“I rise to speak about a very important issue for the American people--what they feed their families. Here is a photo of a dad--a pretty typical photo of a dad taking his two kids shopping. You can see he has one toddler there and he has one infant in the cart. How well I remember doing this with my own kids and then watching my kids with their kids. It is kind of a tradition. So we have a couple of questions we have to ask ourselves when we look at a photo like this. If this dad wants to know what ingredients are in the food that he gives his kids, he should have a right to know that. That is my deep belief. He has a right to know that, just as they do in so many countries all over the world. The bill that is going to come before us, called the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act, is anything but that. I would call it the ``no label'' act. It is a ``no label.'' There is no label required. It is a totally voluntary system. It is a ``no label'' label. Even if in 3 years Senator Roberts' mandatory labeling kicked in, you still would not have a true label. I think it is an embarrassment. I think it is an insult to consumers, and it is a sham. The goal of the bill--and I hope we vote it down--is to hide the information from consumers. It is going to make it harder, not easier, for consumers to know if they are feeding their families genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. So here again is our typical dad, and he has his kids in the cart.…”