Maine Is Second State to Pass GMO Labeling Law

Right To Know activists rally in DC.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/daquellamanera/6303167472/in/photolist-aAZo6f-aAZnL9-bDTbmX-aAZo1f-aAZnD5-78xt8S-anff7P-e6oLD5-axqpA7-anvVsW-axJyer-dkq2w4-dhnaNY-dhnaVz-9U1cEs-9U1mZC-9i9kek-9U1cDh-9U1PuA-9U1cDu-9U1mZo-9U1HE9-e1T6kZ-9XXr8F-9Y1oyh-9XXsi6-9Y1hS9-9XXthk-9XXvuB-9Y1fP7-9Y1jbU-9XXzXT-9Y1shb-9Y1qvE-9Y1rr9-9XXz3K-9Y23BA-9XYbyV-9XY1Gc-9Y1PWu-anuKGE-6HJPHq-dxDPTg-antTjH-anwrsY-duQNiX-etV6fy-9HJGmM-83kLWq-8DnVuf-dnxVoA/">Daniel Lobo</a>/Flickr

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Just nine days after Connecticut passed its genetically-engineered food labeling law, Maine lawmakers approved their own legislation requiring food manufacturers to reveal genetically engineered ingredients on products’ packaging. The governors in both New England states are expected to sign the bills into law soon.

Last week, Paul Towers, a spokesman for the Pesticide Action Network, described Connecticut’s bill as “important” but also “cautious.” Both it and the Maine bill include stipulations requiring other states—including at least one border state—to pass their own GMO labeling laws before they go into effect—so Maine’s bill, for example, does nothing unless New Hampshire and a few other states pass similar bills. Still, members of the Right To Know movement consider the bills a victory—especially after last November’s narrow defeat of California’s GMO labeling bill Prop. 37.

Last October, Michael Pollan worried that the defeat of Prop. 37 would be a sign that a “food movement” may not truly exist in this country. But when California voters turned down the labeling bill in November—after the biotech and Big Food lobbies poured millions of dollars into a campaign to defeat it—Right To Know organizers only became more determined. Since then, 26 state legislatures have introduced labeling or GMO prohibition bills.

Right To Know members see the bills as a direct challenge to the monolithic Monsanto Co. and other biotech giants BASF, Bayer, Dow, DuPont and Syngenta—known as the “Big Six“—which control the world’s seed, pesticide, and biotechnology industries. An industry spokesperson from the trade group Council for Biotechnology Information told me via e-mail that mandatory labeling laws are unnecessary, since there is insufficient evidence that genetically modified foods are unsafe. But Right To Know advocates argue that even if the jury is still out on GMO foods safety, consumers are entitled to know what’s in their food.

Sen. Barbara Boxer’s (D-Calif.) federal GMO labeling bill has been referred to committee where Govtrack estimates it has a 3 percent chance of survival. She and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also added amendments to the federal Farm Bill that would back up the states in their decision to pursue GMO labeling standards against lawsuits from Monsanto and crew, but those were struck down. However, Sanders’ home state is expected to pass a GMO labeling bill next winter, and Washington state is the next GMO battleground with a labeling initiative on its November ballot. So it appears the food movement remains robust, at least in the states.

“I think Prop. 37 in California was a wake up call and industry is recognizing that,” Towers told Mother Jones. “As more and more states work to pass these laws that would require labeling of GE foods, industry will continue to focus its pressure in Washington D.C. because it has greater access there than it does in each of these state legislatures.”

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate