Bush Wants to Ease GMO Regulations

Further trying to highlight its failures, the Bush administration is currently seeking to put forth legislation that would virtually eliminate a large part of the restrictions that genetically modified organisms (GMO) are subjected to in the United States. The Department of Agriculture also plans to strip states of the right to regulate the GMO for themselves, thus making the engineered plants compulsory for everyone.

Bill Freese, a policy analyst for the Center for Food Science, said that the "USDA is laying the statutory groundwork to eliminate a lot of genetically modified plants from any regulation at all, even at the field test stage”. Global Justice Ecology Project co-director, Anne Petermann, adds that "We want to stop these last-ditch attempts by the Bush Administration to put through bad genetic engineering rules".

 

An important feature of the regulation is that, in the event that a small-scale contamination appears on a field, the companies responsible will not be required to clean their own mess, or even report it, for that matter. It's these types of measure that have environmental groups and concerned citizens taking direct action. Many people have already signed petitions to stop this initiative, and sent them to the authorities. The latest deadline for people to send their opinions is Monday.

 

Also, a section of the text to be adopted reads that "all state and local laws or regulations that are inconsistent... (with APHIS rules) will be preempted". Activists and biotech critics say that this is not constitutional, as states must keep their options open, in that they should decide for themselves whether they want to regulate these bio-engineered plants or not.

 

Those who criticize GMO say that these plants can damage the environment and contaminate other crops as well. Organic farmers fear they will lose clients, as their plants become corrupted by genetically-modified ones. Critics are especially against Monsanto, as the company has been blamed for several incidents over the recent years.