Washington Insider - Tuesday

By DTN's Washington Insider

Here's a quick monitor of Washington farm and trade policy issues from DTN's well-placed observer.

North Dakota Moves to Resolve Grain Shipping Problem

The Minneapolis Star Tribune last week carried an especially interesting article on a novel way that one Upper Great Plains state –– North Dakota –– is proposing to help farmers who are being thwarted in their attempts to ship grains, oilseeds and legumes out of the state.

The state Agriculture Department signed an agreement with Washington state's Port of Vancouver that stipulates that the port will arrange to back-haul North Dakota's farm products after having delivered industrial and energy supplies to the state's booming energy industry. Previously, it seems, once trains delivered their shipments in North Dakota, they went on eastward empty, often to as far away as Chicago, before returning.

Bottlenecks affecting rail transportation in the Upper Midwest have been chronic since last winter, and although railroad companies have worked diligently to work down behind-schedule delivery of cars, they are catching up only slowly. With the 2014 grain and oilseed harvest now nearly upon us, it is heartening to see that North Dakota, at least, has come up with what appears to be an innovative and workable solution.

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McConnell Pledges to Increase Attacks on EPA if Republicans Gain the Senate

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says he plans to make it a top priority to derail Environmental Protection Agency regulatory efforts through the appropriations process if Republicans retake the Senate this fall.

McConnell, who is likely to become Senate majority leader if Republicans take the chamber and he wins his own re-election effort in November, says he would use the appropriations process to specifically fight back against the agency's proposed carbon pollution standards for new and existing power plants.

However, it remains unclear whether McConnell could round up the 60 votes needed to overcome a potential filibuster of legislation with the anti-EPA amendments attached in a Republican-controlled Senate. Another unknown is whether President Obama would veto appropriations bills that carried with them policy riders being outlined by McConnell.

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Washington Insider: More Questions about GMO Labels

In an interesting footnote to the biotech label wars, Fortune magazine recently ran an opinion by Jon Entine who directs the Genetic Literacy project at George Mason University in Virginia.

Entine tries valiantly to characterize positions on labels on foods with ingredients from biotech crops moves along the liberal-conservative spectrum and argues that changes are afoot. Liberals have long worried that biotech crops are not safe, he says but now are running into opposition from leading independent science organizations and the top liberal news publications.

He says the liberal food-elitists claim that 93% of respondents tell pollsters that they support "consumers' right to know."

In that case, he asks, why do leading independent science organizations and news publications oppose labeling? The federal government, he says, has resisted calls to label GM foods on the grounds that there is no substantial difference between them and conventional or organic food –– since there is no detectable difference between, say, sugar made from GM or organic sugar beets.

Still, he knows that intense pressure for labeling is coming from legislatures in liberal states such as New York, California, Oregon and Massachusetts where anti-biotech lobbying is "relentless." And, while Vermont requires labels and Oregon and perhaps 25 other states are considering them, the "most enlightened" liberal thinkers and the progressive publications" are joining with the science establishment to oppose such rules.

Then, the gloves come off. The pro-labeling arguments, Entine says, boil down to two deceptive talking points: Biotech crops may be unsafe and are untested and GMOs are part of a corporate plot to monopolize the food system.

Neither is supported by the evidence, he argues. Labeling would only serve to confuse consumers, the Boston Globe editorialized in July in opposition to a statewide measure. "The mere fact of a label would contribute to the stigmatization of food that is actually perfectly healthy," the paper says. "Besides, there's already an easy solution for the GMO-wary buyer: Labels that tout foods that are not genetically modified."

The most strident opposition to labeling is on science grounds, Entine says. As the Washington Post wrote in June, "There is no mainstream scientific evidence showing that foods containing GMOs are any more or less harmful for people to consume than anything else in the supermarket, despite decades of development and use." The New York Times adds, "there is no reliable evidence that genetically modified foods now on the market pose any risk to consumers."

Biotech crops also are also more sustainable in many cases because they require less "inputs." Some biotech crops, like Bt sugar beets, are engineered to use natural bacteria to repel pests, all but eliminating the use of toxic insecticides — and result in higher yields. About-to-be-introduced vitamin enhanced or toxicity reduced GM foods such as cassava, rice and potatoes will offer consumers clear nutritional benefits, Entine says.

Entine further notes that Scientific American, long regarded as one of the most independent science sources in the world, in its editorial "Labels for GMO Foods Are a Bad Idea," made the case that labeling would spread scientifically inaccurate information that could harm human health and slow the development of agricultural biotechnology which could play a key role in increasing the global food supply as population pressures escalate in coming decades.

Entine's logic is interesting. He suggests that opposition to biotech crops comes at least in part from vested interests in the large and growing organic food lobby, who know that the driver of their consumer sales is the unsupported belief that organic foods are safer and more nutritious. They have made it quite clear that consumer choice is not the top of their consumer rights wish list, Entine says.

Then, he takes on the polls that shows that more than 9 in 10 consumers want labeling. "It's less than meets the eye," he thinks. When American consumers are asked a less loaded question — whether there is any additional information that they would like on their labels that's not there now only 4% said they support labeling.

In that regard, Entine calls the "right to know" argument a subterfuge to scare people about the safety of the conventional food system and to divert attention from the sustainability benefits of biotech crops. Opponents want to kill crop biotechnology, he thinks. "With labeling, GMO's will be zero," says Vandana Shiva, the Indian activist best known for promoting the false belief that biotech crops have resulted in mass genocide in her home country.

So, while Entine's Liberal-Conservative array of support for labels doesn't seem to hold up –– he is really talking about "food elitists" vs "progressive thinkers" –– with most conservatives lined up on the side of technology from the beginning. And, given his link with conservative George Mason University, it may pain Entine to conclude that the "progressives" have the far better case in this debate, a fight that seems far from over and one in which modern agriculture has a large stake in the outcome, Washington Insider believes.

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