Agricultural News
Cloture Approved for S764- Senate Set to Approve GMO Labeling Compromise Thursday
Wed, 06 Jul 2016 15:39:11 CDT
The US Senate has voted to invoke Cloture for S. 764, the so called Roberts-Stabenow GMO Labeling Compromise. The vote on the Senate Floor was 65 to 32. Final passage of the bill in the US Senate is expected to happen as early as Thursday. Eighteen Democrats joined GOP Senators in invoking cloture.
Senate Ag Committee Chairman Pat Roberts of Kansas cheers the vote- "I'm pleased with the outcome of today's cloture vote. This clears the pathway for a final vote on passage, and I remain optimistic sound science and affordable food will prevail. Both farmers and consumers deserve this certainty."
Click here for text of S. 764.
Click on the PLAY button in the VIDEO BOX below to watch the comments from Senator Roberts on the floor of the Senate earlier on Wednesday.
Already, the American Soybean Association is calling on the US House to quickly take up the measure, getting ahead of the actual passage of the measure . Here is the statement released by the ASA:
"American Soybean Association (ASA) President Richard Wilkins, a soybean farmer from Greenwood, Del., congratulated the Senate on its passage of compromise labeling legislation from Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts and Ranking Member Debbie Stabenow earlier this afternoon. In a statement, Wilkins called on the House to immediately take up and pass the Senate version to provide certainty in the marketplace for the nation's farmers and consumers:
"ASA welcomes today's vote in the Senate, and we appreciate very much the hard work from Chairman Roberts and Ranking Member Stabenow to get us this far. Their cooperation and coordination has yielded a package that provides consumers the information they need without stigmatizing a completely safe and sustainable food technology. We will now turn our efforts to the House of Representatives and call on House leadership to take up and pass this bill as soon as possible.
"We're now six days in to the implementation of the Vermont law, and already we've seen more than 3,000 products removed from shelves in Vermont. That drop in sales, coupled with the potential drop in sales due to consumer misperception of the misleading Vermont on-pack label is already beginning to manifest itself in the marketplace. The House must act quickly.
"In calling for the House to take up and pass this measure, we have to acknowledge and give credit that the House has already done its job once in passing the voluntary labeling bill from Reps. Pompeo and Butterfield last year, with significant support from House Agriculture Committee Chairman Conaway and Ranking Member Peterson, something for which ASA is extremely grateful. We recognize that the Roberts/Stabenow package is a different bill, but hope that the House will acknowledge that achieving a bill that can pass is paramount to achieving the ideal piece of legislation at this point. We are frankly too late in the process, and there is too much at stake."
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