Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I will be very brief, as I spoke on this issue before. Here is the story, using my own State of Vermont as an example, but it exists all over the country. This year the Vermont House of Representatives passed a bill by a vote of 99 to 42 requiring that genetically engineered food be labeled. 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 this issue was on the ballot. Monsanto and the other biotech companies spent something like $47 million against the right of people of California to have labeling on GMO products, and they won. The people who support labeling got 47 percent of the vote despite a huge amount of money being spent against them. In the State of Washington, over 300,000 people have signed petitions in support of an initiative there to label genetically engineered food in that State. A poll done earlier this year indicated that some 82 percent of the American people believe labeling should take place with regard to genetically engineered ingredients. This is a pretty simple issue, and the issue is do the American people have a right to know what they are eating, what is in the food they are ingesting and what their kids are eating. The problem is that a number of States, including Vermont, have gone forward on this issue.…”