Conservatives
Laugh As Liberals Attack President Over Non-Existent ‘Monsanto Protection Act’
. . . Pay attention here, please.. . ~J
2013/03/28
by Nathaniel Downes
Source: Addicting Info
Thanks to M.
by Nathaniel Downes
Source: Addicting Info
Thanks to M.
If you’ve been on the internet any time since
Tuesday, it is likely that you have seen something about what is being called
the ‘Monsanto Protection Act.’ It always looks as if it is that the President
has signed a bill giving complete immunity to the Missouri based corporation.
But even a casual glance into this, and the whole argument falls apart.
What is being referred to is an amendment to the
“Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013″ signed into law on Tuesday. This
act was implemented to avoid a government shutdown on Wednesday, by authorizing
the president to pay the nations bills through October, when the new fiscal
year begins. The particular provision being pointed to in this act is Section
735, within the agricultural portion of the bill. This section reads as
follows:
SEC. 735. In the event that a
determination of non-regulated status made pursuant to section 411 of the Plant
Protection Act is or has been invalidated or vacated, the Secretary of
Agriculture shall, notwithstanding any other provision of law, upon request by
a farmer, grower, farm operator, or producer, immediately grant temporary
permit(s) or temporary deregulation in part, subject to necessary and
appropriate conditions consistent with section 411(a) or 412(c) of the Plant
Protection Act, which interim conditions shall authorize the movement,
introduction, continued cultivation, commercialization and other specifically
enumerated activities and requirements, including measures designed to mitigate
or minimize potential adverse environmental effects, if any, relevant to the
Secretary’s evaluation of the petition for non-regulated status, while ensuring
that growers or other users are able to move, plant, cultivate, introduce into
commerce and carry out other authorized activities in a timely manner:
Provided, That all such conditions shall be applicable only for the interim
period necessary for the Secretary to complete any required analyses or
consultations related to the petition for non-regulated status: Provided
further, That nothing in this section shall be construed as limiting the
Secretary’s authority under section 411, 412 and 414 of the Plant Protection
Act.
A bit wordy and complex, as laws tend to be.
However, this is not a
new measure. This particular section is already law, passed as part of
the Agriculture Appropriations Bill, and was carried forward
when that bill was merged in with numerous other ones to make this current
bill. What this particular measure does is allow the Secretary of Agriculture
to grant a temporary deregulation status for a crop in the event that the crop
is under litigation against the USDA’s approval of deregulation status, for the
time period that the case is working through the courts. This means that
attempts to damage a competitor, by filing suit against their crop, will not
happen. Anybody can file ohibit the planting
of crops during the litigation process. This rule is just the codification of
the courts ruling, enabling the regulators to have a say in the process.
Without it, there would be no process, and companies which do happ for a case to work its way through the courts. This
measure simply ensures that will not happen.
This measure also
relieves a lot from the USDA’s legal department. Months, and millions of
dollars, can be spent fighting injunctions in the courts before the case ever
goes before the judge. By this measure, that money can be saved, and the legal
proceedings sped up accordingly. Instead of needing up to a year just to
address an attempted injunction, the case can proceed much quicker, bypassing
this step in the process. This also means that farmers, from the smallest
family farms to the largest corporate giant, do not have to live in fear that
their crop will be targeted by a competitor.
Researching the origin of the measure finds us
going to 2010, when the Supreme Court ruled in Monsanto
vs Geertson Seed Farms that lower courts cannot prohibit the planting
of crops during the litigation process. This rule is just the codification of
the courts ruling, enabling the regulators to have a say in the process.
Without it, there would be no process, and companies which do happen to produce
a dangerous crop would have a free hand in planting. By codifying this, now the
Secretary of Agriculture has final say, and while can grant such a waiver, now
can, thanks to the Plant Protection Act which this derives its authority under,
also refuse to grant such a waiver. In other words, now there is a protection put
in place, while before there was not.
But where did these
attacks against the provision come from? You find the origins among the darker
corners of the internet, with the shady astroturf groups more commonly
associated with organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council
and the Heritage Foundation. Conservative organizations fuel the idea, and let
left-wing pundits go into the fight to attack… the bill meant to prevent the
government from shutting down. but why Monsanto, why use that label when the
bill could as easily apply to ConAgra, US Sugar, or one of hundreds of other
agricultural businesses?
It’s because Monsanto is one of the largest corporate supporters of climate change science, and
is actively working to help ring the alarm.
The concerns over these crops comes from fear.
People instinctively understand sex, and how that produces children. They do
not instinctively understand gene splicing, even though that is how sex
produces children in the first place. Most people do not have time to go out
and understand it, so they label such modified products as “frankenfoods” and build
fear upon lack of information, or worse purposeful misinformation fed by other
industries who seek to hurt some related cause, such as climate change science.
The fact is, some genetically modified crops have been shown to have substantial benefits, by making
them more resistant to disease, adding essential nutrients, and even fight climate change. Genetic
modification through direct gene splicing has been done since 1970, and is
widely understood after decades of research and application.
Even snopes was quick to discredit
the claims about the bill, finding it a mixture of fact and fiction, with
the main claims of it granting immunity from prosecution as false.
Not only that, but this
bill passed both houses of Congress with a filibuster proof majority. Even if
it was as bad as some people are claiming the President couldn’t have vetoed it
if he wanted to.The bill as signed did not provide immunity to Monsanto or any other company, it only brought US Code into compliance with the Supreme Courts ruling, while also speeding up the litigation process over unregulated food crops.
Nathaniel Downes is the son of a former state representative of New Hampshire, now living in Seattle Washington.
Feel free to follow Nathaniel Downes on Facebook.
https://jhaines6.wordpress.com/2013/03/30/conservatives-laugh-as-liberals-attack-president-over-non-existent-monsanto-protection-act-pay-attention-here-please-j/
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