Center for Food Safety says that the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) is appealing the federal court decision made two weeks ago affirming the constitutionality of Vermont’s GMO labeling law. Act 120 was signed into law in May of 2014.
The state has declared that Act 120’s GMO disclosure requirement is “reasonable related to the State’s substantial interests, under Zauderer, Act 120s GE disclosure requirement is constitutional.” The ruling also denied plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, granted the state of Vermont’s Motion to Dismiss on several grounds, and ruled that plaintiffs were likely to prevail on Act 120’s prohibition on labeling GE food as “natural”. The law is scheduled to go into effect in July 2016.
George Kimbrell, senior attorney at Center for Food Safety, said in a statement, “we will continue to stand with the People of Vermont and defend Act 120. Industrial food interests will stop at nothing to keep their ingredients secret and deny Americans genetically engineered food labeling. They have spent untold millions pushing federal bills to outright block States’ ability to label. Americans are demanding the truth in labeling that citizens in 64 countries already have.”
Public opinion polls show that Americans overwhelmingly support labeling of their food, whether those labels disclose GMO ingredients or country of origin of the products. And industry has fought these bills around the country for years.
