State Of The GMO Union

Just how hot is GMO-labeling legislation? On Jan. 6, 2015, a Republican state senator introduced just such a bill − in Indiana, the nation's breadbasket. Still, federal legislation on both sides of the issue has stalled, the first federal court decisions have denied localities the right to regulate genetically engineered crops, and two mandatory-labeling proposals were recently defeated at the polls. In the first weeks of 2015, even as bills like Indiana's were also introduced in New York, Virginia, Arizona, and Missouri, a federal court heard arguments implicating states' rights in the battle over Vermont's new labeling law.

Since 2013, state and local measures aimed at regulating genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have proceeded along two tracks. Some are aimed at restricting − or increasing the transparency of − GMO cultivation, while others would require the disclosure of genetically engineered ingredients on product labels. Both approaches have been hotly contested at the ballot box and in the courts. In the latter half of 2014, a federal court in Hawaii twice struck local ordinances aimed at regulating GMO husbandry, citing state and federal preemption. In November 2014, voters in Colorado declined, by a 2-to-1 margin, to require mandatory labeling, but a vote in Oregon on a similar measure was so close it required a recount. That same month, a lawsuit filed by two farmers prompted Jackson County, Oregon, to suspend its six-month-old ban on the cultivation of genetically engineered plants.

For now, the frenzy has culminated in a hearing on a motion to enjoin the country's first statewide mandatory labeling law, in Vermont. The argument, which was heard on Jan. 7, is expected to produce the first federal court decision regarding how such laws fare against free speech and preemption arguments. It will have clear implications for the various bills introduced in state legislative sessions on that very same day.

Varied Legislative Outcomes Leave Mandatory Labeling in a State of Flux

In April 2013, six months after a mandatory labeling measure failed to pass in California, two U.S. legislators − Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-CA, and Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-OR − got in front of a groundswell of GMO activity in New England by introducing identical bills known as the Genetically Engineered Food Right-to-Know Act. The law would have amended the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FD&CA) to classify as "misbranded" any food that has been genetically engineered, or that contains genetically engineered ingredients, unless that fact is clearly disclosed. Later that year, in November 2013, a mandatory-labeling measure on the ballot in Washington failed after a sustained and expensive campaign by opponents. Boxer's and DeFazio's bills ultimately died in...