GMO LEGISLATION UPDATE
Vermont lawmakers have a choice. They can pull the trigger on H.112, and pass the state’s proposed GMO labeling law. Or they can fall victim to the pesticide and junk food industries’ ‘trigger trap.’
In 2013, Connecticut and Maine passed GMO labeling bills. Both those laws are in limbo, where they’ll stay until four neighboring states, with a combined population of 20 million inhabitants, pass similar labeling bills. That’s because Connecticut and Maine lawmakers added ‘triggers’ to their bills. A trigger adds an additional condition to a bill, a condition that must be met before the law can be enacted.
Connecticut and Maine legislators justified adding the triggers in order to shield their states from the potential financial burden of millions of dollars in legal costs, if Monsanto and Big Food followed through on threats to sue.
Yesterday, at a Vermont public hearing, citizens demanded that their politicians stand up to industry, by passing a clean, trigger-free GMO labeling law. Will they? Or will they fall for industry’s trigger trap?