Receiving both praise and criticism, the Senate Agricultural Committee reached a bipartisan agreement last week, establishing a national labeling requirement for foods containing genetically modified ingredients. Last year, in an attempt to preempt state-level efforts to create a mandatory labeling law, the House passed the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015, making GMO labels voluntary. The measure had been stalled in the Senate since last year. Since then, Committee Chairman Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) and member Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) have attempted to work out a compromise.
The new agreement would create a national labeling standard for packaged foods, prohibiting states or other entities from mandating labels for foods that contain GMOs. Under the law, companies would be required to disclose GMO use through a text label, a symbol or a link to a website via technology such as a QR code.