Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we have had a lively debate over this bill. I have argued today that it is deeply flawed in several key ways. This was emphasized in an editorial in the New York Times this morning. It said: The biggest problem with the Senate bill is that--instead of requiring a simple label, as the Vermont law does--it would allow food companies to put the information in electronic codes that consumers would have to scan with smartphones or at scanners installed at grocery stores. The only reason to do this would be to make the information less accessible. Another problem is that the bill might not cover some kinds of genetic engineering. The Food and Drug Administration warned that the bill ``would result in a somewhat narrow scope of coverage''--for example, food that includes oil made from genetically engineered soybeans might not need to be labeled. We have amendments to fix these things. If one really believes in a mandatory GMO labeling bill, these amendments would be allowed to come up and be debated. We offered to agree for every Republican amendment filed to be debated and voted on. We asked, simply, for three amendments on the Democratic side, in balance to all the Republican amendments being considered, and that was objected to by the majority leader. So let me just close by saying that I will offer a motion to take away the roadblock to amendments put in place, and that is McConnell amendment No. 4936.…”