National Sea Grant College Program Amendments Act Of 2015

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. TILLIS. Thank you, Madam President.

I thank the distinguished Senator from North Dakota for his comments, and I would like to be associated with all of them, in fact, particularly recognizing our farmers in North Carolina. The Senator from North Dakota and I have had discussions about the friendly competition among the agriculture States and the hard work they are doing to feed America and the world, but today I rise to express my support for Chairman Roberts' bill for the biotechnology labeling legislation.

I am supporting Chairman Roberts' effort because it addresses a real problem. The problem is that a small portion of the food industry is trying to impose their policy preferences onto the entire food supply chain in the United States. We are where we are because the Vermont law is not written in a way that merely impacts the citizens of Vermont. It is astonishing to hear the misleading claim that the Vermont law is about the right to know. If the Vermont law is about the right to know, why is it that the law exempts so many products?

Here are some examples of the absurdity of the Vermont law. Vegetable cheese lasagna would be labeled, but meat lasagna wouldn't. Soy milk would need to be labeled, but cow's milk would not. Frozen pizza would need to be labeled, but delivered pizza would not. Chocolate syrup would need to be labeled, but maple syrup would not. Vegetable soup would need to be labeled, but vegetable beef soup would not. Food at a restaurant would be totally exempt, but not food at a grocery store. Vegetarian chili would need to be labeled, but meat chili would not. Veggie burgers made with soy would need to be labeled, but cheeseburgers would not.

By my way of thinking, it is a patchwork that doesn't make sense if you are trying to come up with a consistent way to communicate to consumers what is in the food they are eating. The Vermont law is a classic case of the government picking winners and losers and putting the burden of those decisions on the backs of hard- working Americans.

I had this slide up to begin with, but this is something we have to continue to be focused on. If you were to take the Vermont law and have a couple dozen States create their own variance and have all the complexity added, it is estimated the added cost of compliance would result in a cost of some 1,000 additional dollars per household. In this economy, how many families can afford another $1,000 a year for food?

I am surprised that number is not higher. It most likely will be and here is why: Manufacturers are subject to a $1,000 fine if one of their products is mistakenly or inadvertently found for sale in Vermont on a store shelf. The food industry will have over 100,000 items in the State of Vermont--a State that has roughly 625,000 residents. If only 5 percent to 10 percent of those products are even unintentionally mislabeled, that means fines of as much as $10 million per day, in addition to the millions per year companies will have to pay to actually change their supply chains to comply with the law to serve a population of 625,000.

We are often told in this Chamber we need to be more cognizant of the science. Those who are irresponsibly scaring the American people to defend the Vermont mandatory labeling law need to understand the science is against them. Late last year, the FDA rejected a petition calling for mandatory labeling of foods from genetically engineered products stating that ``the simple fact that a plant is produced by one method over another does not necessarily mean that there will be a difference in the safety or other characteristics of the resulting foods. . . . To date, we have completed over 155 consultations for GE plant varieties. The numbers of consultations completed, coupled with the rigor of the evaluations, demonstrate that foods from GE plants can be as safe as comparable foods produced using conventional plant breeding.''

During a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing last week, USDA Secretary Vilsack responded to questions regarding GMOs by emphasizing that the mandatory labeling efforts are not about food safety, nutritional benefits, or sound science. Two weeks ago, the Secretary was quoted at a conference referring to genetically modified products saying, ``I am here to unequivocally say they are safe to consumers.''

Chairman Roberts' language does exactly what Congress should be doing with regard to marketing standards; that is, setting rules of engagement that are consistent, balanced, and fair for all players in the industry by providing consistent information to consumers about the content of their food. With the chairman's bill, the marketplace has an opportunity to find the best approaches to getting consumers the information they want without imposing new regulations that add costs to our food supply, complexity, and no more real information or clarity.

If we as a nation are going to have a discussion on the necessity of labeling biotechnology products, fine, but the Vermont law is not the catalyst for that debate, and that conversation should be with the American people, not one State with roughly 625,000 people dictating to the market of more than 317 million people.

I encourage my colleagues to recognize that we should do everything we can to inform consumers about the content of their food. There is a right way to do it and there is a wrong way to do it. There is a more costly way to do it as proposed by the Vermont law or there is a more straightforward, effective, and consistent way, and that is what Chairman Roberts is trying to accomplish with this bill. I encourage everyone to support it.

Thank you, Madam President.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source