The American Soybean Association (ASA) is working to support development of a GMO labeling compromise between Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts and Ranking Member Debbie Stabenow.

ASA CEO Steve Censky was in Washington last week to meet with the chiefs of staff for both, and the two offices are making progress toward a solution that averts the impending crisis in Vermont. The state's labeling law goes into effect July 1, and at least five major food manufacturers--with more to come—have taken the preemptive step to nationally label their products that contain GMOs in advance to avoid the significant fines under the Vermont law.

A likely compromise will come from reconciling the main provisions of Roberts’ bill S.2609, which had bipartisan support, and the language provided to the Chairman by Ranking Member Stabenow. ASA believes that the concepts in each of these proposals can be combined to achieve the compromise that we need. We will strongly support the resulting bill.

We will need both Republican and Democratic support to get a bill across the finish line. To gain the support of Democrats we believe a compromise bill will need to provide for mandatory disclosure of GM content through a range of electronic solutions like quick-response (QR) codes or 800-numbers through which consumers can access information about GMO content.  To gain the support of Republicans we believe a compromise will need to specifically provide that the products of animals fed GM feeds are excluded from labeling, there are exemptions for certain products depending on their content, and preemption language is airtight.

Time is extremely short to accomplish our goal. This week and next, calls are needed to all 60 soy-state Senate offices. Additionally, it is not safe to assume your Senator is on board, especially if you have Republican offices. It is exceptionally important that the leaders of your state affiliates contact all offices immediately and relay our message. Talking points have been loaded into the Soy Action Center for your reference, and please share the Soy Action Center link (https://capwiz.com/soyactioncenter/callalert/index.tt?alertid=72093626).