Political Quotes

“Mr. President, let me begin by congratulating Senators Stabenow and Cochran for their hard work on this very important piece of legislation, especially for rural States such as Vermont, but I guess for everybody who eats, which is the majority of the people in our country, I would imagine. I want to spend a few minutes talking about some important amendments I am offering. I think one of them--the amendment I will talk about first--will be coming up for a vote either later tonight or tomorrow, and that deals with the right of States to label genetically engineered food. That is amendment No. 965. This year, the Vermont State House of Representatives passed a bill by a vote of 99 to 42 requiring that genetically engineered food be labeled. I can tell you with absolute certainty the people of Vermont want to know what is in their food and are extremely supportive of what the State legislature has done. But this is an issue certainly not just limited to Vermont. Yesterday, as I understand it, the Connecticut State Senate, by an overwhelming vote of 35 to 1, also passed legislation to require labeling of genetically engineered food. In California, our largest State, where the issue was on the ballot last November, 47 percent of the people there voted for labeling, despite the biotech industry spending over $47 million in a campaign in opposition to that proposition. That is an enormous sum of money, and yet 47 percent of the people voted for labeling of GMOs.…”