Political Quotes

On the recordMarch 14, 2016
Mr. President, I rise to address the motion that is on the floor right now, which is a motion to adopt an amendment that is essentially a new version of the Monsanto DARK Act. Now, DARK is an acronym that stands for ``Denying Americans the Right to Know.'' This is, by the way, an amendment that has not been seen in any committee in the Senate ever. We heard a lot of discussion about how we were going to have a process in this Chamber where things would be in the ordinary fashion-- go through the committee so it could be digested and analyzed--but instead this amendment is to an underlying bill that has been ping- ponging back and forth between the House and Senate. This legislation has never been heard in committee. It was crafted over the last few hours. Here we are with a fundamental issue of citizens' right to know, and the majority leader of this Chamber has decided to bypass any ordinary consideration to jam this through on behalf of Monsanto. What is at stake here? What is citizens' right to know about? It is about genetically modified or genetically engineered ingredients that are in their food. Across the country 90 percent of Americans want to have some indication of what is in their food and whether there are GE ingredients. They feel this is relevant to what they would like to buy. Even if they don't personally look it up when they buy a product, they feel citizens should have a right to know. I rounded it off and said 90 percent, but it is actually 89 percent.…
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Jeff Merkley
Democratic · Oregon

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