[L]anguage attached to the annual budget bill will push the start date of a provision of Vermont’s soon-to-be-enacted GMO labeling law back by one year.
The law, set to go into effect on July 1, allows citizens to sue companies for not complying with GMO labeling requirements. Late in the legislative session, lawmakers decided to delay the effective date for the civil right of action provision to July 1, 2017.
The Senate Appropriations Committee added the language to the omnibus budget bill shortly before passing the bill out of committee in April. The House and Senate gave final approval to the budget bill late last week.
Store owners were concerned that they could face legal action for products without GMO labels that were distributed before the law kicks in. Jim Harrison of the Vermont Retail and Grocers Association said that the group had sought to change the law to allow for the sale of older inventory.
The Vermont Attorney General’s Office has said that until the beginning of 2017, manufacturers will not be liable for failing to label products on store shelves if those products were distributed before the law takes effect on July 1, 2016.
Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell, D-Windsor, said the measure will protect Vermont retailers from lawsuits.
Some food manufacturers are not labeling products yet, he said, and local grocers should not face civil court action as a result. Legal costs could be a significant burden on small businesses, he said.
The proposed language was drawn up in consultation with representatives of the Attorney General’s Office, Vermont grocers, and proponents of the law.
Ultimately, Campbell believes the provision is in line with the long-term preservation of the GMO-labeling law. Lawsuits against grocers could embolden opponents of GMO labeling, and could fuel a push to repeal the law in the future, he said.
“My concern is that if the retailers are all of a sudden faced with … endless numbers of suits from private cause of action, then it’s clear that that message is going to be brought back to the Statehouse next year,” Campbell said.
The Vermont Retail and Grocers Association issued a statement praising the change. Harrison said the amendment will “make the implementation a little smoother this summer and beyond.”
But the addition of the language prompted an outpouring of comments from people across the country who are opposed to any effort to change the GMO labeling law.
On the afternoon the Senate Appropriations Committee OKed the language, Sergeant-at-Arms Janet Miller estimated that her office, which takes calls for lawmakers at the Statehouse, took more than 1,000 messages down from callers from roughly 30 states.
Many of the calls stemmed from a notice the Vermont Public Interest Research Group put out to members about the potential change to the law.
The significant public feedback “really shows one that the eyes of the nation are on Vermont as we implement this labeling law,” Falko Schilling of VPIRG said Friday.
Schilling said that VPIRG was “surprised” to see the push to change the private right of action start date emerge late in the session, and noted there were some concerns that there had not been a committee process.
However, he said, ultimately the new language in the budget bill does not significantly alter the GMO labeling law, which is still on track to take effect July 1.
“In the end we reached a conclusion that doesn’t undermine our labeling law,” Schilling said.
