National Sea Grant College Program Amendments Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

We have heard today that we have three Republican amendments--three Republican amendments that address a prohibition on Federal labeling, that address criminal penalties, that address salmon. We also have three Democratic amendments we would like to have votes on.

Once upon a time--it now starts to seem like a fairy tale--this Senate was known as a great deliberative body. Well, a great deliberative body entertains ideas, discusses them, and votes on them. So in support and honor of the tradition of the Senate to put amendments forward and have them debated and voted upon, we are offering an alternative. 764 with an amendment: Sanders No. 4948, Leahy No. 4966, Merkley No. 4969, Sasse No. 4972, Paul No. 4947, and Murkowski No. 4954; that there be 1 hour for debate, to run concurrently, prior to votes in relation to the amendments in the order listed; that all amendments be subject to a 60-vote threshold required for adoption; and that upon disposition of the amendments, all postcloture time be yielded back with no intervening action or debate.
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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I do not control the time. I was prepared to speak, but when my colleague requested to go first, I asked if he might keep his comments to a reasonable period.

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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, tonight in this Chamber, we are discussing an issue that is of concern to millions of Americans. It is an issue that goes to the heart of one of the most important concerns to a family, and that is the food that we eat as adults or parents and that we provide to our children. The real heart of the question is, Does a citizen have a right to know what is in the food they are putting into their own mouths or putting on the dinner table for their children?

The simple point that I will argue day and night is that a citizen does have that right. It is the right to have information about an issue related to your family's health and related to the environment. How can you, as a consumer, make responsible choices related to both the health of your family and the health of the environment if you do not have the information at the point you are purchasing a product? That is why we have all kinds of information disclosure rules in America. For example, let's say you are considering buying fish in the supermarket. If the fish is farm-raised, it has to say on the package that it is farm-raised. Why is that rule in place? Well, that rule is in place because people buying the fish often care a lot about whether it is a wild fish or a farm-raised fish. They care in part because it may differ in the quality of the food they are putting in their body and because the way that farmed fish are raised may raise concerns about the environment and they may want to exercise a choice of only buying wild fish. That is why it is on the label.

Why do we put the number of calories on the label? This is an issue citizens care about. Folks often wonder how much that food is going to add to their weight or how much they may need to exercise.

By the way, folks also want to know how much sugar is in a product, how much fat is in a product, how much unsaturated fat, and whether there are peanuts in a product. We answer these questions because consumers care about these issues. It is related to the consumers' health, and that is the key. The consumer has a right to know. Tonight we are addressing a specific issue, which is the right to know whether the ingredients in the food we are eating are genetically modified, has gene splicing occurred to change the makeup of the food we are eating.

Just a little while ago, the Senator from Illinois was sharing a study with this body from the New England Journal of Medicine in which two doctors looked very carefully at this question and they came away with a simple conclusion: It is reasonable, they found, for citizens to be concerned about the impact of consuming GMO ingredients, and therefore it is reasonable for citizens to be able to have this information on the package and they supported labeling.

I know from other studies I have examined, that in areas where glyphosate, a weedkiller, is applied, which is very much tied to glyphosate resistance to genetically modified crops--crops such as sugar beets and soybeans and corn--we have results that show the glyphosate actually ends up in samples of the rainwater because it is dispersed in a spray. We have results that show it ends up in the urine of people who live in these areas, and we know various international bodies have said glyphosate is a probable carcinogen. So if it is showing up in urine, as a parent, you might have concern about a probable carcinogen showing up in that fashion and what impact it might have on your health.

There are those here who say we can't find an established cancer cluster that is directly related so we are comfortable making the decision for the men and women and children of America. We are comfortable denying the right to know. That is why this bill is labeled the DARK Act: Deny Americans the Right to Know.

I am going to go through how it is that this act that is before us tonight--which has been presented as a mandatory labeling bill and is nothing of the such. In fact, it is an effort to guarantee that citizens do not get a label they can use.

So let's talk about these various loopholes in this bill--these Monsanto loopholes. Monsanto loophole No. 1. One may wonder why I call it a Monsanto loophole. Well, first, Monsanto is the biggest producer of Roundup. That is the commercial name for glyphosate. They sell it across the country, and they sell it along with their seed for GMO soybeans and GMO sugar beets and GMO corn. So they sell the plants to be raised that are tolerant to this weedkiller, glyphosate, and then they sell the glyphosate itself, and that has resulted in a massive increase in the amount of weedkiller applied across America.

That has a variety of impacts that people are concerned about related to the environment. It has an impact because we start to see the emergence of superweeds--which are weeds that because they are exposed so often and there are random mutations, they start to become resistant to glyphosate so you have to apply more of it than you did before--or, as pointed out in this article my colleague from Illinois was reading from a little while ago, you have to start applying a different weedkiller because of the emerging superweeds resistant to the weedkiller Roundup.

Also, we have the evolution of superbugs. Now, what is a superbug? The corn has been modified so then not only is it resistant to glyphosate or the weedkiller, but it also produces a pesticide inside the cells called Bt corn. I think many citizens would want to know more about that. They would be a little bit concerned that there is a genetic code inside every cell of the corn plant that is designed to generate a pesticide within the cell of the corn. And then if they looked into it a little further, they would find out the insect this is attempting to kill is also starting to evolve to be resistant to this pesticide. So not only are they concerned about does this pesticide get generated inside the corn kernel, since the DNA grower of this pesticide is now inside every cell, but what about the evolution of superbugs--bugs which now, because they are resistant to the pesticide inside the corn, are in a cornfield and the farmer has to start to apply other pesticides to the corn as well.

What happens when this pesticide runs off the cornfield? What happens when the weedkiller, glyphosate--Roundup--runs off the cornfield or the sugar beet field? This runoff puts a lot of weedkiller into our creeks and into our streams and into our rivers, and that has an impact on the biology of the streams. So a key concern is the issue of the impact of this type of farming surrounding these particular genetic modifications and its impact on our environment.

In addition, we have another impact where it is heavily applied. It has killed the milkweed, and the milkweed has been the primary food for monarch butterflies so we see a huge crash in the Midwest population of the monarch butterfly. Well, that is reasonable for people to be concerned about.

Just this weekend, I was talking to some friends and we were all relating that when we were kids, we saw monarch butterflies all the time, and this is in Oregon. Now, the population hasn't crashed equally everywhere, but it certainly has diminished greatly, even in my State of Oregon. We were noting that our kids are not even sure what a monarch butterfly looks like. That is how much of the population has decreased.

In a very short period of time, we have had a profound impact on the environment. That is a reasonable concern for individuals.

Here we have a bill that says we are going to label products as GMO in order to address the citizens' concern, except the bill doesn't actually do that, and it has some serious loopholes that serve Monsanto and its various crops very well. So let's look at the first Monsanto loophole; that is, that the definition exempts most of the Monsanto GMO crop. Let's address that a little bit.

What does the bill actually say? Well, it starts with a definition of bioengineering that is not used anywhere else in the world. I will just read it: ``The term `bioengineering,' and any similar term, as determined by the Secretary with respect to a food, refers to food: that contains genetic material''--those key words, ``contains genetic material''--``that has been modified through in vitro recombinant techniques.''

And I will go to the second loophole in a moment. So it says ``that contains genetic material.''

Isn't that clever because, you see, here is the way it works. When you take genetically modified corn and you make high-fructose corn syrup, the genetic material is stripped out. So what this definition does is it says that GMO high-fructose corn syrup used in products throughout America is magically no longer considered GMO in the definition in this bill. Furthermore, the same thing with sugar beets. GMO sugar beets produce GMO sugar, except that under this definition, once again, the genetic material is stripped out so the sugar is magically not a GMO ingredient. How about soybeans? The same issue. Soybean oil does not contain genetic material. So this definition, used nowhere else in the world, was written specifically targeted to exempt the three big Monsanto GMO crops and the things that are made from them.

We have looked across the country and many people--many scientists, many groups--have pointed out this shortcoming. The Food and Drug Administration gave technical advice and made it very clear that this definition fails the test of covering these products--high-fructose corn syrup and soybean oil--but here is what another person from outside government said: ``This definition leaves out a large number of foods derived from GMOs such as corn and soybean oil, sugar beet sugar, and HFCS''--high-fructose corn syrup. ``That is because, although these products are derived from or are GMOs, the level of DNA in the products is very low and it is generally not sufficient to be detected in DNA based assays.''

So here is what happens then. If we were to look at definitions around the world--everywhere in the world--corn oil from GMO corn would be a GMO ingredient. That would be true whether you are talking about the two dozen-plus countries in the European Union or you go south to Brazil or you go around the world to China, but under this definition in the USA, magically, this GMO corn oil is no longer a GMO ingredient.

Soybean oil is covered if it comes from GMO soybeans in the European countries--in Brazil, in China, all around world--but not in the United States.

Sugar from sugar beets, GMO sugar beets. It is a GMO ingredient in every undertaking around the world to provide labels, except in the United States of America under this bill.

So this is a massive GMO loophole. That is not the only Monsanto loophole in this bill. Let's go to the second one. The second one is there is no requirement for a GMO label. You say: Wait, wait, wait. We have heard from the proponents that this is a GMO labeling bill--a mandatory GMO labeling bill. Let me say it again. There is no requirement in this bill to put a GMO label on your product. This is the no label required, no GMO label required bill. So it is a little bit of false advertising or actually a lot of false advertising to call this a mandatory GMO labeling bill.

What the bill says is, there are a couple of options that exist today that people can use voluntarily. Let me show my colleagues an example of that. This is a Mars product. It is the omnipresent Mars peanut M&Ms, one of my particular favorites. Mars has said we want to make sure our consumers know what is in the product so they list all of the traditional things--the serving size and the calories and the total fat, cholesterol, the protein, and the sodium. But our consumers also want to know if there are GMO ingredients so they answer the question: ``Partially produced with genetic engineering.'' It is a GMO product. Now, we don't know from this label which ingredient is the one they are referring to, but to the consumer, that tells them the first important thing they want to know, and the consumer can look into the details elsewhere if they want to explore it more thoroughly.

That is integrity. That is honesty. That is responsiveness to consumer concerns. Why do I say responsiveness to consumer concerns? Here is why: Because across the country there have been surveys of whether individuals want to have a simple label on their product. The answer is, rounding off slightly, 9 out of 10 Americans want a simple label on the product.

Here is something else that is kind of intriguing. This number is essentially the same whether you are a Republican or a Democrat or an Independent. Think: Here we are in a campaign year--a campaign year where the differences between Americans are highlighted with great emotion, great passion, and great determination that one side is right and the other side is wrong. But here we have an issue where Democrats and Republicans and Independents all agree they want a simple label on the package. It is kind of exciting. It is kind of exciting to have something that Americans completely agree on. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have Congress say: Finally, we found something we can all agree on, and we are going to honor the desire of our citizens of every political stripe to have a simple consumer label on the package.

Well, I would love to state that this Senate, these 100 Members of the Senate, actually are honoring the perspective of their Republican, Democratic, and Independent citizens and that they are determined to make sure that any bill written honors this desire for a simple on- label indication of whether there are GMO ingredients. I would love to tell you that is the case. Wouldn't that be complimentary of this Chamber of 100 Members, this Chamber that I have been so honored to serve in and affectionate toward since I was an intern here 40 years ago?

But something destructive has happened in America. This Chamber seems to no longer care about the opinions of consumers and Americans. They seem to care about one thing: Is there a powerful special interest that I need to toe the line for, that I need to be obedient to, that I need to make sure will help me when the next election comes up?

So we have that powerful special interest that doesn't want American citizens to know what is in the food products, and that is Monsanto and friends--powerful special interests versus 90 percent of American citizens. Powerful special interests, 90 percent of American citizens, and this Chamber tonight is prepared to vote for that powerful special interest instead of the American people.

That is not the way it is supposed to be in our country. In fact, the first three words of our Constitution sum it up: ``We the people.'' The whole idea was that, contrary to Europe where there was this powerful, elite class and monarchies and Kings and Queens who made decisions for the people, here we were going to have a system of government that was responsive to the people. Well, if we are going to be responsive to the people tonight, we will vote down this Monsanto DARK Act, the Deny Americans the Right to Know Act. Unfortunately, I am sorry to say--I am sorry to feed the cynicism across the country--that tonight, instead, you are going to see a majority vote with Monsanto and against the people. Our Founders wrote those three words, ``We the people,'' in supersized font. They put them in really big font so you can read that part of the Constitution from across the room. You have to get very close up to read the rest. They put those three words in supersized font to remind all of us, the citizens, the legislators, the President, years and years later, decades later, centuries later, that is what our Constitution is all about.

Jefferson summed this up. He said: We can only claim to be a republic to the extent that the decisions we make as a government reflect the will of the people. He said that will happen only if the people, each member of the citizenry, have an equal voice. What he was basically conveying in a powerful way is that in order to have a ``we the people'' government, you can run a test. This Jefferson test--he referred to it as the ``mother principle'' of our republic--was that we were only a republic if our decisions reflected the will of the people, and that would only happen if people, each member of the citizenry, have an equal voice.

But today citizens no longer have an equal voice because of a couple of court decisions that have created disproportionate voices, giving multimillionaires and billionaires a very powerful, loud voice and giving ordinary people a very tiny, quiet voice.

The first of these decisions was Buckley v. Valeo, 40 years ago. The second was Citizens United. These two decisions turn our Constitution on its head. They change it from ``We the people,'' and they take the word ``people,'' and they pluck it out of our Constitution, and they change it to the word ``powerful''--``We the powerful.'' That is what those two corporate decisions do because they allow the very wealthy and they allow powerful corporations to spend unlimited sums in campaigns in America, and that spending corrupts this body so that when this body is making a choice between that powerful special interests and the people, it chooses the powerful special interests. That vote-- that type of vote--is being held tonight. You are going to see Members of this body voting with that powerful special interest rather than the people.

So let's return to this Monsanto loophole No. 2. Essentially, if this bill were a true labeling bill it would do this: This is a poster of a Campbell's label. Now Campbell's, like Mars, values its integrity with its customers, so it put a simple label on its soup that states ``Partially produced with genetic engineering.'' Then it says ``For more information about G.M.O. ingredients, visit [our Web site].'' And it lists the Web site. Well, that is pretty cool. They are going the extra step. They are not only saying, yes, there are GMO ingredients, but we will give you all the details on our Web site. The customer at the store, at the point of sale, immediately has an answer to the question, and they know where to go for immediate information.

Mars, Campbell's, and so many other big companies--those that value honesty and integrity with their customers--are answering the questions of customers even though at this point it is not required by law.

Let's go back again to that Mars label on Peanut M&Ms: ``Partially produced with genetic engineering.'' Campbell's says ``Partially produced with genetic engineering.'' They chose the same phrase even though there is no law that lays it out.

Why can't we have a bill that says that if there are GMO ingredients you will put below your ingredients list ``Partially produced with genetic engineering.'' Why can't we have that? That would be an honest labeling bill.

This is being done voluntarily right now. Under this bill that is coming up, it can still be done voluntarily. But the proponents of this bill aren't saying it is a voluntary labeling bill; they are saying this is a mandatory labeling bill. This is simply not true. This is a voluntary option.

Another option is to put a symbol on the package--a symbol to be chosen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That would be a reasonable way to go. What if we said you either need to put in this phrase and maybe a Web site to go to for more information or you can put in a symbol? Brazil uses a symbol. They use a T in a triangle. Why do they use a T? Because T means transgenetic, which means one gene has been plucked out and inserted into another. It is another way of saying bioengineering. We can use Brazil's approach--a T with a triangle. It is easy to see at the bottom. We can take a B for bioengineering and put it in a circle or we can proceed to put the letters GMO in a rectangle. It doesn't really matter what the symbol is, as long as it has some connection, and an ordinary consumer knows the answer to the question if a symbol is there that means it is partially produced with genetic engineering.

So a requirement for a phrase or a symbol--that would be a labeling bill. But they are voluntary now, and they are voluntary in this bill.

What is required if you don't voluntarily put this phrase or voluntarily put a symbol? Here is what is required.

All right. I wonder if anyone in this Chamber can look at this computer code, this box, and tell me if there are GMO ingredients in this product. Well, humans are not very good at reading computer boxes, so I think I can safely say that no one here can look at this box and tell me if there are GMO ingredients. It says to ``scan here for more food information.'' What type of information would that be? There is no connection to GMOs. It is just any old food information. It could be information about the entire product line of this company. What food do they produce? It could be information about the details of what type of tomato puree it has or about what type of wheat flour or how much there is in it. Or maybe it is a repetition of the other list of how much sugar is there or how much glucose or how much salt or how many calories or so on and so forth--everything that might go into the ingredients. No one can look at this code and know that has anything to do with saying that this is a GMO product. And that is the idea.

So I proposed an amendment. The amendment simply says that instead of saying ``Scan here for more food information,'' it says ``Scan here for more GMO food information'' or, alternatively, it could be ``Scan here for more information on GMO ingredients of this product.'' But see, that would actually be a label. That would be a GMO label. That would actually be honestly labeling the product, and Monsanto is determined that the products not be labeled.

So perhaps we are wondering, what do we do with this code? Just scan it. Well, most Americans have never scanned something with a smartphone. You can get an app and you can put it on your phone and you can take a picture of this, and it can take you to a Web site. That is what they are talking about. OK. That is an obstacle course. It is an obstacle course because you have to have your phone with you. You have to have wireless service in the grocery store. You would have to have a digital plan on your phone. Most importantly, you would have to be willing to take the enormous amount of time that it takes.

If what is on the package is ``Partially produced with genetic engineering,'' I flip it over, and I see it in one second. I know the answer. I can compare five products in 5 seconds. That is functional for a consumer shopping in a grocery store. Maybe you have 20 things on your list. You spend 5 seconds reviewing products on GMO ingredients. That is 100 seconds.

Here you would probably have to spend one-half an hour to go to five different Web sites and scroll through all the information to try to find the answer--that is, if you had a smartphone and you had an app for reading this and you wanted to spend your digital time doing that. No shopper--no shopper--is going to make use of this in ordinary shopping in a grocery store to make decisions. That is the whole idea. Set up an obstacle course to ensure that shoppers never find out that there are GMO ingredients, not in any fashion that helps them at the point of sale.

Some say, of course, that people don't have to have a smartphone. We will ask stores to set up a scanner. Well, I found this interesting because when there wasn't a price on a product that I was shopping for one Christmas, I asked somebody who worked in the store--I said: Hey, what is the price of this product?

And they said: Oh, well, there is a scanner here in the store somewhere, and you can scan the code on this, and you can find out about the price.

They weren't sure where the scanner was, and they went and checked and found out where the scanner was. They helped me find the scanner, and the scanner didn't work. They said: We think there is another scanner in the store somewhere. And they checked that out, and it was on the far side of the store--all of which shows you the ridiculousness of this whole scanning option, this whole obstacle course being set up.

What really bothers me the most is that the Members here are presenting this as a mandatory GMO labeling bill when they know darn well it doesn't require a GMO label. That really bothers me. It is deception of the public.

(Mr. ROBERTS assumed the Chair.)

That is not the only problem with this bill. Monsanto was very thorough in the number of loopholes they included. Here is of the third one. The bill prohibits basic enforcement of its own provisions. I know you are thinking it cannot be true that, unlike every other labeling requirement we have which has penalties if you don't participate in it according to the rules, this law has no penalties. Well, I am sorry to say that is the case. There are no penalties in this bill. Isn't that amazing? Even if you ignore this bill completely, the U.S. Department of Agriculture doesn't have the power to tell you not to sell your food in the grocery stores. It doesn't have the power to tell you to recall your products from the grocery stores. It doesn't have the power to levy a fine on you, no. Here is the only thing that comes close to being a penalty in this bill. It says the U.S. Department of Agriculture can audit to determine whether you are complying, and they can release the results of that audit to the public.

So if you choose to not proceed in any way to adhere to this law, you get an audit, and the Department, after a long period of time, says: Well, OK, we are telling the public we audited you and you are not compliant with the law. And you say: Oh, my goodness. That really worries me.

Of course, it wouldn't worry you at all. No civil fine, no impact on the distribution of your products, no recall of your product, no teeth. This is like the old man whose teeth have all fallen out, and all they can do is gum the food. That is what this law is like. They can just kind of gum a little bit, which doesn't worry anyone.

It is kind of amazing the three levels of complete protection Monsanto incorporated into this bill--the three levels of completely betraying the American public, those 9 out of 10 Americans who want a very simple, a very simple label on their food products. Let me put it another way on this enforcement provision. This bill would create the first and only food label without a fine for violators--the first and only food label without a fine for violators.

We have had other food label requirements. I mentioned one that if you have farmed fish, you have to put a label on it that it has been farmed rather than wild caught, and you sell it in a grocery store.

We can look at another that is called COOL, C-O-O-L, country-of- origin labeling. COOL is something that has disappeared from the American lawbooks. It has disappeared because of a trade agreement called WTO, the World Trade Organization, something the United States signed up to. In this World Trade Organization, someone can complain that your requirements for disclosure inhibit the entry of their products into the market. So various countries complained that labeling meat, chicken, or pork and beef, specifically--labeling them would unfairly prejudice people against buying their out-of-country beef or their out-of-country pork. I will tell you something. I want to live in a country where an American citizen who wants to support American ranchers can make that decision when they buy their beef, when they buy their steak, when they buy their pork chops. That should be the right of every consumer to choose to buy a product grown in America by red, white, and blue American ranchers.

But we signed a trade agreement that gave away our sovereignty on this issue to an international tribunal, an international tribunal that has no stake in the future of America. It has no stake in our vision, our ``we the people'' Republic. We gave away our sovereignty and that court said: No, that discriminates. They didn't see it as the consumer right to choose, as simply information that would be provided, no. They said that discriminates and therefore we are striking down the American law.

Our law, our COOL law--it wasn't struck down by a vote on the floor of the Senate, it wasn't struck down by some amendment slipped into a last-minute bill over in the House, it wasn't struck down because a coalition of American ranchers wanted to strike it down, it was struck down by a court that had no foundation in America, but we were controlled by it because we gave away our sovereignty.

By the way, that is something we should be very concerned about when thinking about the Trans-Pacific Partnership because that can have an impact as well on the flow of goods, and I might just take a while to address that, but right now what I wanted to convey is before the WTO court struck down our country-of-origin labeling law, there were teeth in that law, teeth that we put in the law, teeth that were put into the law on the floor of the Senate and on the floor of the House. It provided a fine if you didn't comply. You had to label where the meat was grown. That was great because it meant that people followed the law. But in this case do we have the same fine structure that was in country-of-origin labeling or that affects other provisions like, for example, labeling fish as wild? No, we don't.

We even require labeling as to whether juice is fresh squeezed or reconstituted. Why is that? Because the consumer wants to know, and it is their right to know. In fact, this belief that the consumer right to know about the food they put in their mouth is so powerful--so powerful--that the advocates for this bill put forward the idea that this actually provides that information, that it actually labels it when it doesn't, when it doesn't say it is a GMO product, but it is a kind of testimony as to how powerful that consumer concern is. So there we are with these three fundamental loopholes in this bill that serve Monsanto very well.

You can see now why this is simply a repackaged version of the earlier DARK Act, the Deny Americans the Right to Know Act. That is why some have called this the DARK Act 2.0, because it is simply a rehashing of what we saw previously.

This is representational. It is a quote from a letter to Senators from a group of 76 pro-organic organizations and farmer groups. They are writing specifically about this act we have before us tonight, the DARK Act 2.0, that we will be voting on tonight--this act that tonight we will be voting on that takes away the power of States to put the type of label on the package that consumers want across this entire country.

This is what they said: ``We oppose the bill because it is actually a non-labeling bill under the guise of a mandatory labeling bill.''

Well, who are these organizations? Let's just give them their opportunity to be recognized.

The Center for Food Safety, Food & Water Watch, the Abundance Cooperative Market, the Beyond Pesticides, the BioSafety Alliance, the Cedar Circle Farm & Education Center, the Central Park West CSA, Citizens for GMO Labeling, Crop CSA, Crush Wine & Spirits, Dr. Bronner's, the East New York Farms, the Empire State Consumer Project, the Family Farm Defenders, Farm Aid, Food Democracy Now, Foundation Earth, Friends of the Earth, Genesis Farm, the GMO Action Alliance, GMO Free NY, GMO Free USA, GMO Inside, Good Earth Natural Foods, iEatGreen, the Institute for Responsible Technology, the International Center for Technology Assessment, Katchkie Farm, the Institute for Responsible Technology, the International Center for Technology Assessment, the Institute for Responsible Technology, the Keep the Soil in Organic Coalition, Diesel Lane Farm, Kezialain Farm, the LIC Brewery, Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, the Midwest Organic & Sustainable Education Service, Miskell's Premium Organics, Moms Across America, the National Family Farm Coalition, the National Organic Coalition, Nature's Path, the Nine Mile Market, the Non-GMO Project.

I am reading all these names to convey how, within just a few days, just a short period of time in which this bill has been brought to this floor in a fashion that completely bypassed committee process in the U.S. Senate, how many have responded. I am only partway through this list so we will give respect and voice to all of these organizations: Nutiva, the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance, the Northeast Organic Farming Association, the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Hampshire, the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, NYC H2O, Oregon Right to Know, the Organic Consumers Association, the Organic Farmers' Agency for Relationship Marketing, the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, Our Family Farms, PCC Natural Markets, the Pesticide Action Network North America, Presence Marketing, Regeneration Vermont, the Riverside- Salem United Church of Christ/Disciples of Christ, Rodale Institute, the Rural Advancement Foundation International, Rural Vermont, the Sierra Club, Slow Food California, Slow Food Hudson Valley, Slow Food North Shore, Slow Food USA, Soil Not Oil Coalition, Sunnyside CSA, the Cornucopia Institute, the Organic & Non-GMO Report, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Vermont Public Interest Research Group, Vermont Right to Know GMOs Coalition, and Wood Prairie Farm.

Now, if this bill had gone to committee, there would have been people coming to testify pro and against this all-new definition put here on the Senate floor with no review. They would have analyzed it. They would have educated Members of the Senate about why this new definition was included in the bill. Senators would have been able to ask questions directly of the sponsors, such as, when did you decide to use a definition that excludes the major products from GMO Monsanto crops in America? When did you decide to do that? They could have asked the question: Why did you decide to do it?

Doesn't this mislead the public--pretending to cover GMO products but slipping in a definition that excludes the big three in America--the GMO soybeans, the GMO corn, and the GMO sugar beets? Isn't that a little misleading? They could have asked that question if there had been a committee hearing on this definition. And, in fact, they could have explored it further and asked: Why not use one of the definitions from the 64 countries around the world that have a mandatory GMO labeling bill that actually covers what most people consider to be GMO products?

In fact, here is an interesting point about the definition included in this bill. This definition speaks about recombinant DNA--genetic modification through recombinant DNA--but there is a new technique called CRISPR that changes the genetic code with a completely different technology. Why isn't that included, or would it be included? That is a reasonable thing to ask. What about other new techniques for modifying genetic code? Someone might have asked: Why not include those future techniques rather than excluding them?

In fact, if this definition had been examined in committee, we could have asked another question about something I referred to earlier, which was a second loophole in the definition. But before we talk about that, remember that we looked at the first part of this, which said that it has to contain genetic material. I have already explained how it is that the major products--the oil, high-fructose corn syrup, sugar from genetically modified plants--don't actually contain genetic materials. That is a big loophole.

If this bill had been in committee, my sincere colleagues exploring this could have asked about this second piece of the definition that says that it only refers to a food as ``bioengineered'' if the modification could not otherwise be obtained through conventional breeding or found in nature. Well, that is very interesting. Why is that in the bill? Is that designed to allow a genetically modified plant, under this provision, to be considered nongenetically modified because it might possibly have been obtained through conventional breeding or is found in nature? I don't know why this was included because there has never been a hearing on this definition.

So here we are, violating a major premise that Americans believe-- Americans who are Republicans, who are Democrats, who are Independents. That major premise is that they have a right to know what is in the food they put into their mouths. And this says: Well, you know what, we are not going to define it as GMO, even if it is genetically modified, if it could possibly be found in nature.

I would love to know exactly what executive came up with this phrase and what product they are trying to protect, but we don't know because no one will tell us. I would be interested in having Senator Roberts, who leads the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, come and tell us where this phrase came from, who suggested it, and why it was suggested.

I will tell you what it makes me think of. I talked earlier about the fact that with the massive application of glyphosate weedkiller across America--in a moment, I will show you how much of an increase there has been--with that massive application on millions of acres across this country, so many weeds have been exposed that, slowly, genetic mutations in the weeds that make the weeds naturally resistant to glyphosate have, in fact, started to spread because those are the weeds that can reproduce because they are not killed by the glyphosate. So we have this growth in superweeds, essentially through natural selection driven by this massive application of weedkiller. Can one say, therefore, that we now have resistance to glyphosate found in nature? We find it in the weeds. The weeds haven't been genetically modified; they have been modified through the driving force of millions of tons of weedkiller applied across America. The natural mutations that occur in nature have slowly started to spread as those weeds survive and reproduce. So is this another way of saying that the GMO crops--the Monsanto big three--are not actually GMO because they are resistant to glyphosate and can be found in nature? It sure sounds like that is what is going on here.

There is something interesting here as well. This first loophole, which says ``contains genetic material'' only provides a free pass for the derivatives of the big three crops. By that, I mean the soybean oil that comes from GMO soybean, the sugar that comes from GMO sugar, and the high-fructose syrup that comes from GMO corn. But this second loophole here could be a way of saying that even the GMO corn itself, if you were to eat it as corn on the cob, wouldn't be GMO because it is resistant to glyphosate and is found in nature. I am not sure if that is what drove this because there was no committee hearing; there was no explanation; there was no investigation; there was no testing of what is here.

I made reference to the fact that the massive application of glyphosate is, in fact, changing what is happening in America and producing superweeds, but I thought it would be useful to show how much that has changed.

This chart shows a couple of things. First, let's look at the increased use of glyphosate--and that is Monsanto's Roundup product. It was introduced around 1994 here, and we are talking about 7.4 million, I believe that was--I want to read the notes to be sure I have it right. It is pounds or tons. I thought it was 7.4 million tons. I may be wrong. I may have to come back and correct that. But you can see that as the distribution of GMO seed for sugar beets and corn and soybeans spread across America, the application of this weedkiller increased enormously, until in 2012 we are up to 158.9 million--and I believe that is tons, but I will have to check. It is a massive amount of weedkiller being sprayed all across America.

This note is from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They say:

The wide-scale adoption of herbicide-resistant corn and soy crops has drastically changed the agricultural landscape. This resistance enables broad and non-targeted application of herbicides that indiscriminately kills vegetation growing around farm fields and in nearby habitat, including Milkweed.

That is a statement from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service dated April 25, 2015.

And we see here this massive increase in the application of weedkiller. That certainly supports what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is saying. When they are referring to the fact that the spray affects nearby habitat, that reflects that this spray drifts in the wind and it affects weeds off the field, and one of the things it affects is milkweed. Milkweed is the foundational support plant, the foundational food for the monarch butterfly. So we see a massive decrease in the monarch butterfly populations. A high here in 1997. In 1997 there was very little glyphosate being applied, and then there was a massive increase, and by the time we get out here--and we don't have 2013, 2014, 2015, but if we did have it, we would see high bars as well--we see the monarch population crashing. Sometimes we use the word ``decimation,'' meaning one-tenth of a population, but this is in the more broad use of the term because it is far more than a reduction to one-tenth. It is more reduction than that. It is a smaller fraction from this high in 1997 on down to 2015. So that certainly is the case.

Mr. President, I think this would be a good moment to take a pause and reserve the remainder of my time.
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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, it seems as though every time we turn around, we have a situation where some individual in the African- American community is shot while in the custody of police, and many in America, myself included, are mourning the death of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, the individuals who were shot in Minneapolis and Baton Rouge.

The ubiquity of video cameras today has shown the rest of the country what African-Americans have always known: That with shocking and horrifying regularity, African-American men and boys are the victims of police--the very people who are charged with keeping all of us safe.

I don't know what it is like to be fearful for my life during a traffic stop by law enforcement. Unacceptably, however, that is the everyday reality of Black Americans in our Nation. While I will never know this experience firsthand, I stand with communities of color and demand that those who swear to uphold our laws to protect and serve all in America do so equally and that they are held accountable when they don't.

We must also realize that this is not just a police problem; it is an American problem. We need to come to terms with our Nation's long history of racism and the many ways that racism continues to permeate nearly every aspect of our society.

Our country has made enormous progress from the worst days of Jim Crow. We elected an African-American President to two terms, but there is an enormous difference between progress and success, and that difference is measured in Black lives cut short, the resegregation of our schools, health disparities, housing patterns, dropout rates, and incarceration rates.

We will not end the scourge of racism until we understand that racism is not just Bull Connor, firehoses, and dogs. We will never solve the problem if we don't admit we have one.

I was thinking about the situation back in the 1980s when I was working with a friend from across the street. He was actually the brother of the woman who lived across the street. He had come up to DC for a while and was helping me install some windows.

We needed to go to a hardware store but didn't know exactly where the store was, so when we pulled up next to the sheriff's car, I asked my friend to roll down his window and ask the sheriff for directions to the hardware store. He looked over at the sheriff, and he turned back straight ahead. He just looked straight ahead and didn't say a word.

Then I looked over and I saw the two sheriffs, and I saw the gun mounted between them at an upward angle. It was a shotgun or a rifle. But, as I looked to the right past him, I saw the absolute fear on his face. There was absolutely no way he was going to roll down his window and ask the sheriff--the sheriff in the car next to ours--for directions. To me it was just a casual interaction among folks getting a little bit of help, which was to him a potential life-threatening situation.

Nobody in our society should live in fear of our public safety officials. Of course, I celebrate that the vast majority of our public safety officials treat everyone equally, but we need for 100 percent of our public safety teams to treat everyone equally. That small fraction that doesn't is responsible for an enormous number of lives cut short, and that is unacceptable, and we have to change that. We have to talk about it, and we have to wrestle with it.

So, once again, it seems like this is the case every week or so. We have another death that seems like it should have been possible to avoid, and sometimes these deaths are very clearly ones of intentional infliction. We have to work hard together to change this.

Mr. President, I thought it would be worthwhile to consider a little bit about the organics provision in the bill we are considering tonight. Now, there are several organics labeling provisions, and the sponsors of the bill said this is very wonderful stuff. I know that we only have one organic farmer that I am aware of in the Senate, and that individual is the Senator from Montana, Jon Tester. I have heard him speak to this issue. I know that he feels that the bill does not do for organics anything that the organic community doesn't already have. That is my understanding of his perspective.

So it is important to call attention to the fact that many organic organizations across the country, despite the language that has been placed in this bill, are strongly opposed to it. They believe that if you are going to put out a bill that is a mandatory GMO labeling bill, it has to actually have mandatory GMO labeling in it. So let me read this from Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety. Andrew says:

Organic organizations, farmers and companies rightly fear that this bill could change important regulations governing the federal organic program including those prohibiting the use of genetic engineering in organic. They also refuse to be part of a sham labeling bill that blatantly discriminates against low-income, rural, elderly and a disproportionately high number of minority Americans.

Then let me read this as well:

Organic organizations, farmer groups and companies around the nation representing millions of organic consumers and thousands of organic farmers have voiced their opposition to the discriminatory and deeply-flawed GMO labeling bill being offered. Thirty-six major organic groups have signed on to a letter sent by a national coalition of consumer, food safety, farm, environmental, and religious groups to all members of the Senate earlier this week. The groups condemn the so- called compromise bill which could be devastating to the organic standard.

Organic groups that have signed on to this letter include the following: Beyond Pesticides, Consumers Union, Center for Food Safety, Dr. Bronner's, Equal Exchange, Farm Aid, Food and Water Watch, Genesis Farm, Good Earth Natural Foods, Katchkie Farm, Keep the Soil in Organic Coalition, Kezialain Farm, Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, Midwest Organic & Sustainable Education Service, Miskell's Premium Organics, the National Grocers Coop, the National Organic Coalition, Nature's Path, the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance, the Northeast Organic Farming Association, the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Hampshire, the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, Nutiva, Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association, Organically Grown Company, Organic Consumers Association, Organic Seed Alliance, Organic Farmers Agency for Relationship Marketing, Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, Our Family Farms, PCC Family Farms, PCC Natural Markets, Rural Advancement Foundation International, the Organic & Non-GMO Report, Sunnyside CSA, and Wood Prairie Family Farm.

So these are organic organizations, farmer groups, and companies from around the Nation that are representing millions of organic consumers and thousands of organic farmers who are voicing their opposition to the bill that we are considering in this Chamber tonight.

So I thought that was worth noting.

It is very important because one of the items that the proponents of this bill have said is that they have put some wonderful stuff in there for organic farmers. If there is wonderful stuff, why are the organic farmers saying that this bill could change important regulations governing the Federal organic program, including those prohibiting the use of genetic engineering or organic?

That is right. You heard that it is actually possible that this bill would enable those growing GMO crops to label their crops organic--how completely absurd. What hall of mirrors have we entered into with the twisted definitions in this bill that GMO crops could be labeled organic because of this bill?

Now, let me turn to why we are here on the floor waiting for these 30 hours to run out. We attempted to strike a deal earlier today simply to have amendments voted on. In fact, get this: We agreed to vote on every single Republican amendment--every single one. We asked for the ability to vote on some Democratic amendments as well.

Now, that is what the Senate used to do. This body was known as a deliberative body because people were actually here arguing with each other, debating with each other, offering amendments, debating the amendments, voting on the amendments, voting on the bills--almost always by simple majority. That is why this was a deliberative body. The Members brought the power of their life experiences into this room. They brought their intellect, their knowledge, their reading, and their wisdom into this room. They brought the stories of their constituents, the experiences from the front line in America into this room. They debated, and they argued, and they voted.

That Senate is the opposite of what we are experiencing here at this moment--a Senate where the majority leader refuses to allow any amendments on these bills to be debated or to be voted on.

Now, the unanimous consent proposal that I put forward a couple of hours ago said there are three Republican amendments that have been filed. Let's vote on all of them. One of them is from my colleague who is sitting in the chair, and that amendment puts a prohibition on Federal labeling. Now, I tell my colleague that if that was up, I would be voting against it, and I would be happy to explain why. He would be happy to explain why it is a good amendment, and that is called a debate. That is called a discussion. The vote is a decision in which we are all bringing our best insights to bear. But, unfortunately, we are not debating the amendment of my colleague on a prohibition on Federal labeling because the majority leader refused to allow him to bring it up. He rejected the unanimous consent request that would allow the amendment of my colleague who is sitting in the chair to be considered.

We agreed that the amendment of my colleague from Kentucky, Senator Paul, could be considered. His amendment seeks to clarify and make sure that there are no criminal penalties in this labeling law. Well, I would be happy to vote for that amendment, because there are no criminal penalties and there shouldn't be any, and if we want to put an exclamation point behind that through this particular amendment from my colleague, I would be fine with that. If he were allowed to bring up that amendment, maybe he would show some other aspects of it on the floor--some other ways that reverberate and some other ways that I don't actually recognize when I read his amendment.

But he can't fill us in on the details of what his amendment would do because he is not allowed to bring it up. Even though he is a Republican, he is not allowed to bring it up, even though the Chamber is governed by a Republican majority. His own leader refuses to allow him to have his amendment brought up and debated. In fact, we agreed for another Republican amendment, the Murkowski amendment, on the labeling of genetically engineered salmon to be brought up and debated--an issue we have wrestled with here before. We have probably all heard most of the pros and cons. But perhaps in the formulation of this amendment, there are some new aspects that would have been brought to bear that would have influenced us to support it or to oppose it.

But this Republican amendment can't be brought up because the Republican leader rejected a unanimous consent request that would have allowed all of these amendments to be brought up. In fact, there were only three Republican amendments, and we agreed to hear all of them and, in exchange, we asked for three Democratic amendments.

I see that my colleague Senator Blumenthal has arrived to speak. I think I will come back and explain what those Democratic amendments were a bit from now.

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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, we have had a lively debate over this bill. I have argued today that it is deeply flawed in several key ways. This was emphasized in an editorial in the New York Times this morning. It said:

The biggest problem with the Senate bill is that--instead of requiring a simple label, as the Vermont law does--it would allow food companies to put the information in electronic codes that consumers would have to scan with smartphones or at scanners installed at grocery stores. The only reason to do this would be to make the information less accessible.

Another problem is that the bill might not cover some kinds of genetic engineering. The Food and Drug Administration warned that the bill ``would result in a somewhat narrow scope of coverage''--for example, food that includes oil made from genetically engineered soybeans might not need to be labeled.

We have amendments to fix these things. If one really believes in a mandatory GMO labeling bill, these amendments would be allowed to come up and be debated. We offered to agree for every Republican amendment filed to be debated and voted on. We asked, simply, for three amendments on the Democratic side, in balance to all the Republican amendments being considered, and that was objected to by the majority leader.

So let me just close by saying that I will offer a motion to take away the roadblock to amendments put in place, and that is McConnell amendment No. 4936. I will move to table that amendment so that amendments--Republican amendments, Democratic amendments, six amendments, three on each side--can be considered so we can truly debate and fix the problems that are in this bill.

I also want to close by thanking my colleague from Michigan, who has done an incredible effort. She will be so relieved to have this bill completed. We have debated many, many times. Really, there is so much we agree on--a single national standard that will work across this country, a single national GMO standard. She has made the case that we are achieving that. I responded: Not quite, and we need to still fix the bill. That is the type of debate we should have on the floor of the Senate, and it is why we should allow amendments. Amendment No. 4936, and ask for the yeas and nays, so that we could consider amendments such as those presented by my Republican colleagues and my Democratic colleagues.

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