Fallout Of Vermont GMO Labelling Bill

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

"GROCERY MANUFACTURERS TO VERMONT: DITCH THE GMO LAW OR LOSE THE SNACKS: The Grocery Manufacturers Association is warning Vermont officials that the cost to food companies to comply with the state's GMO labeling law could exceed their sales revenue, forcing many of them to leave. But even if companies decide to go elsewhere, they could still be liable for any products sold on Vermont grocery store shelves. In a letter Wednesday to Gov. Peter Shumlin, the packaged food industry group argues that food manufacturers, who are responsible for labeling under the law, often have very little oversight of the distribution network that gets items onto store shelves. As a result, "even if a company decided not to sell a product in Vermont, manufacturers are liable and subject to fines should a product mistakenly or inadvertently end up on a store shelf in Vermont.""

well, if Vermont can get California to go along, the grocery manufacturers are stuck.  they can label or die.

Does this sound like China deciding to not take Syngenta corn?

[Kay/NC]

I think this is something of what we call a pissing match.

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

According to news reports, the Vermont attorney general is hoping to be a national test case.

[Kay/NC]

Jim, you point out an interesting phenomenon, the government official with grandiose visions of sticking it to ' em. We had a county health directir back in the '90s, who thought he was going to waltz onto hog farms and shut them down. Not that it was a real problem to anyine, since all the farms in the county are pretty remote...he was just going to solve a politically correct problem, that didn't exist.

I went to the public hearing, and met the attorney representing our integrator there. Pointed out problems to him in the way the proposed ordinance was drafted, and we worked the thing over, each getting several objections into the hearing record. Evidently, the county attorney, who hated hog farms...actually sll farms (we have had several showdowns, some public...he is finally retired now). This is the kind of guy who stands in his yard and shakes his fist at aerial applicators.

Anyway, the facts we got into the record were basically insurmountable. Never heard about it again, and Dr. Whateverhusnamewas disappeared not long afterwards. These rightfighters cost someone a ton of money in legal fees, and rarely succeed.


This one is up a very big bear, in the GMA. I think right off, he has some pretty steep constitutional interstate trade hills to climb...