Tag: Agriculture

In response to the staggering amount of food wasted in the U.S. every year, Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., joined colleagues Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Cory Booker, D-N.J., to introduce comprehensive legislation to reduce food waste in stores and restaurants, at schools and institutions, on

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) speaks for the bees. Merkley on Thursday released a draft of a bill he’s sponsoring that would protect honeybees and other creatures that transfer pollen between flowers. The Pollinator Recovery Act of 2016 seeks to protect birds, bats, Monarch butterflies, and most of all honeybees

Jeff Merkley is trying to accomplish what the failed Oregon GMO labeling measure set out to do. The Democratic senator introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate that would require companies to label whether food contains genetically-engineered ingredients. Oregon voters were almost evenly split in 2014 on support for Measure

It’s been called “perhaps the most contentious issue in the food industry”: Should food products be labeled to indicate they contain genetically modified ingredients? Leading Republicans in the Senate tried to answer that question on Wednesday with a clear “no,” but failed. The Senate rejected a bill that would have prevented any

In Sen. Pat Roberts’ failed bid to convince the U.S. Senate to advance a bill banning mandatory labeling of genetically modified foods on Wednesday, the Kansas Republican ran down a long list of reasons he said mandatory labeling of such foods would prove calamitous for consumers, farmers and the food industry. Calling

Following an emotional debate, the Senate blocked a bill that would prevent states from requiring labeling of genetically modified food Wednesday. The Biotechnology Labeling Solutions Act (S2609), authored by Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., which would create a national voluntary labeling standard for genetically engineered foods, did not pass. Roberts had hoped