The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act — recently hailed by the American Seed Trade Association as “a common sense solution” to a potentially conflicting patchwork of state laws and regulations governing the labeling of GMO and non-GMO foods — is reportedly in limbo due to House committee wrangling.
Environment & Energy Publishing reports:
House Agriculture Committee lawmakers want more control over deciding which government agency — the Agriculture Department or the Food and Drug Administration — would control the regulation of labels for genetically modified foods.
… H.R. 1599 appears to have stalled. This frustrates members of the Agriculture Committee, which has some jurisdiction over the bill but less control than the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has oversight of FDA.
“There doesn’t seem to be a lot of enthusiasm to move the bill in that committee, not as much enthusiasm as there is in the Ag Committee — that’s the problem,” said Agriculture Committee ranking member Collin Peterson (D-Minn.).
The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act, brought forward by Reps. Mike Pompeo of Kansas and G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina, establishes one common framework for labeling at the national level.
The full story is available at http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060017117.
