Senator Stabenow Works Hard to Help Biotech Push GMOs
We had a big win against Monsanto recently when the DARK ACT (Monsanto’s favorite bill that would effectively ruin the food supply and halt GMO labeling initiatives) was stopped cold in Congress. Make no mistake, though; Senator Debbie Stabenow has been working overtime to make sure that you won’t know what’s in your food.
She worked overtime for biotech interests to make sure that DARK-Act provisions were attached to the end-of-the-year budget bill, and though they didn’t pass, she will do her bidding again come January.
She used familiar tactics to avoid high-profile votes on controversial issues that members of the House and Congress KNOW would upset their constituents. This is why the anti-labeling clauses were ‘slipped’ into the omnibus with riders. She was hoping that no one would notice. [1]
Stabenow must not realize that we’re watching her actions. For instance, the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) recently thanked Senators Stabenow (D-MI), Coons (D-DE), and Franken (D-MN) for introducing S. 2271 (the Renewable Chemicals Act of 2015). It’s a bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide credits for the production of renewable chemicals and investments in renewable chemical production facilities – a fancy way of saying biotech and chemical companies would get tax write-offs for continuing to pollute the planet. [2]
Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said clearly that she supports the biotech industry in her opening statement at a recent hearing on agriculture:
“That’s one reason why I support the use of biotechnology in agriculture.” [3]
Sen. Debbie Stabenow is the chair of the Agriculture Committee, and is often referred to as a mouthpiece of Monsanto – one of the world’s largest biotech companies responsible for manufacturing chemicals and genetically modified organisms. Incidentally, she received over three quarters of a million dollars from agribusiness interests ($739,926 to be exact) in agribusiness donations. Stabenow utilizes the propaganda being dispersed by the likes of Monsanto and the Gates Foundation to argue her point.
She recently spoke on behalf of the biotech giant seizing the opportunity to focus primarily on the myth that genetically modified ingredients are needed to feed the hungry people of the world, ignoring the fact that 64 countries now require GMO labeling. [4]
Senator Stabenow may have tried to get legislation supporting GMOs past us once, but we’ll fight hard to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Sources:
[1] Convio.net
[2] BusinessWire
[3] Biotech-Now
Stabenow is also one of the people (USDA head Vilsack is another) behind the push to use voluntary quick response (QR) codes on products instead of mandatory, prominent, easily read LABELS that say “made by genetic engineering” or “contains genetically modified ingredients” or the like.
The QR scam is not only another way for the GMO indusrry to keep us from knowing what’s in our food, it’s also an advertisement and market perk for the ‘smart phone’ industry.
The QR scam requires that we non-rich people BUY and EXPENSIVE smart phone, learn how to use it, buy an app, learn how to use it, remember to lug the phone to the store, take out the phone, scan the product, be directed (if the computers are working) to essentially an advertising site for the product, wade through tons of ads, and finally learn that the product is or is not GMO. What expensive and useless bull. A prominent, easily read LABEL is what’s needed.
Moreover, the labels would Not cost the food industry terrible losses. The industry Routinely changes its labels as a normal part of doing biz – “new & improved” – “now contains less X” – “now contains neurotoxic aspartame under a different name” (ok, I made that one up) – and so forth.