On the recordJuly 23, 2015
I thank the gentleman from Kansas. As a third-generation farmer and a former director of my State's Department of Agriculture, I cannot stress enough the importance of this legislation for our Nation and our world's food supply. Yesterday, I spoke on the merits of preventing a patchwork of conflicting State and local GMO labeling laws which would require producers to sell under potentially hundreds of different labels, and I still believe that is a very important element to this debate. However, there is another aspect I would like to address on why I believe this mandatory labeling law, which some of my colleagues have called for, is a very poor idea. Mr. Chairman, I question the motives behind some of these arguments. They say they ``want consumers to have information'' but that can't actually be their concern because this legislation gives consumers information. It is disingenuous to claim it doesn't. If you want to go to a store and buy a ``non-GMO'' product, much like ``organic'' or ``cage-free,'' you can do that under this legislation. It will provide consumers all the information they need to purchase food they think is right for their families. So what is their motive? Is it they want to try to scare consumers, to demonize this technology? Point of Order
