Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell announced today that, since President Barack Obama signed the national bioengineering food labeling law on Friday, he will not enforce Act 120, Vermont’s labeling law that went into effect on July 1.
“We successfully defended our law for two years, and as a result many companies are now disclosing that their products are produced with genetic engineering,” said Sorrell said in a news release. “We hope they will continue to do so going forward, not because our law requires it, but because it is the right thing to do,”
“Without question, Vermont’s law spurred the federal government into action, requiring mandatory labels for GE foods,” said Sorrell.
“It is unfortunate that corporate interests were ultimately able to water down Vermont’s clear disclosure standard through the passage of this federal law.”
Among other things, the new federal law could permit companies to provide a scannable code to access a website with a smartphone, rather than a clear on-package disclosure, Sorrell noted.
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Under the federal law, the Agriculture Department has two years to draft regulations to implement the labeling standard.
“My office intends to take an active role as the labeling fight shifts from the legislative process in Congress to the regulatory process at the USDA,” said Sorrell. “We will work hard to give consumers the same access to information, in plain English, that they had under Vermont’s law.”
