Wednesday, June 6, 2012
House biotech proposal
US House biotech proposal would bypass courts-critic
Reuters
June 05, 2012
WASHINGTON - A provision in a U.S. House bill would allow farmers to grow genetically modified crops while court battles are under way to decide if the plants are safe, said a biotech skeptic on Tuesday, calling the idea an unprecedented muzzle on federal judges.
The one-paragraph provision, buried in a funding bill for the Agriculture Department, obliges USDA to approve cultivation of a biotech crop while USDA completes “any required analyses or consultations” to decide if the crop is safe to plant.
“We can’t find a single legislative precedent to this,” said Andrew Kimbrell, of the Center for Food Safety, which frequently sues the government over its approval of biotech crops.
Kimbrell said the provision would prevent judges from issuing injunctions against cultivation while courts decide if a crop poses a risk.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Failure over salmon
Conservation bodies alarm at US Senate failure over genetically engineered salmon
fishupdate.com
May 28, 2012
In a move that has alarmed a number of conservation bodies, the US senate failed at the end of last week to approve an amendment that could have stopped genetically engineered salmon from being available for human consumption in the United States.
In response to the proposed amendment Matt Tinning, Executive Director of the Marine Fish Conservation Network, said: “Today, forty six Senators stood with our nation’s fishermen and seafood lovers and opposed the precipitous approval of Frankenfish.