Political Quotes

On the recordMarch 15, 2016
this debate on the Monsanto DARK Act, which stands for Denying Americans the Right to Know, centers around two basic propositions. The first proposition is that it would be chaotic to have 50 States with 50 different labeling standards. How could a food company possibly always get the right label to the right store if there are 50 different State standards? This is not a problem we actually have yet because we have no States that have adopted a standard for GE labeling. We have one State--I should say no States have implemented it. One State has adopted a standard, and that won't be implemented until July. So we are far away from having any issue over conflicting standards. But I acknowledge the basic point. This makes sense. It makes sense that we don't want to have a world in which every State has a different approach: In this State you do X, Y, and Z, and in this State you do A, B, and C, and what the exemptions are differ, and the formats differ, and so on and so forth. So let's just concede that at this point, it makes sense to have a single standard for the country. But a single standard about what? That brings us to the second basic proposition, which is that there be a consumer-friendly alert that there are GE ingredients in a product. That is all. If a State says they want to have a simple, consumer-friendly alert that there are GE ingredients, then they should be able to do that.…
Said by
Jeff Merkley
Democratic · Oregon
Source
govinfo.gov
Mar 15, 2016

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