For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Genetic Engineering page, Millions Against Monsanto page and our Washington News page.

A national trade group that represents familiar brands such as Coca-Cola, General Mills, and Hershey’s is hot on the offensive when it comes to using its legal firepower to keep using genetically modified ingredients-and dictating how those products will be labeled.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association has petitioned the FDA in recent weeks to allow the term “natural” to appear on labels for food products that contain genetically modified ingredients. That move came after a slew of lawsuits calling for the term to be removed from packaging. The trade group is also trying to introduce its own national labeling legislation that would nullify individual state GMO labeling laws.

Now the big food industry representatives are trying to invalidate Washington state’s finance disclosure laws and have also brought a civil rights complaint against the state’s attorney general, Bob Ferguson.

Why? Because in the midst of Washington’s ballot-initiative battle over GMO labeling (the proposition was known as I-522), Ferguson’s office slapped the trade group with a lawsuit, saying the industry backers failed to form a political action committee that was properly registered with the state.