UPDATE: On Friday, September 20, the House passed its version of the Continuing Resolution (H.J. RES.59), with the Farmers Assurance Provision, better known as the Monsanto Protection Act, intact. We can’t stop it in the House. But we need to let every U.S. Senator know that we are opposed to a Continuing Resolution that includes the Monsanto Protection Act.
Congress could vote this week to extend the Monsanto Protection Act for another three months. Unless we stop them!
Please scroll down to write your Senator today. Ask them to vote NO on the Farmers Assurance Provision, also known as the Monsanto Protection Act. After you send the letter, please call your Senator.
The Monsanto Protection Act is a rider that prevents the federal courts from enforcing injunctions on genetically modified seeds even if those seeds have been deemed unsafe. Earlier this year, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) slipped the Monsanto Protection Act into the Continuing Resolution, a bill to fund the U.S. government through September 30.
Now, Congress is about to vote on a new Continuing Resolution (H.J.RES.59) in order to fund the government for another three months. And despite public outrage and hundreds of thousands of signatures on petitions, House Appropriations Committee Chair Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) has slipped the Monsanto Protection Act into the new bill.
The Monsanto Protection Act is nothing but a gift to the biotech industry. It’s an affront to farmers and consumers. It gives the biotech industry a free pass to grow crops that have not been adequately safety tested. It also threatens farmers who potentially could be shut off from markets abroad when their non-GMO crops are contaminated.
After a huge public uproar in opposition to the Monsanto Protection Act, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), tried to repeal it though an amendment to the Farm Bill. Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.)
blocked the vote on Merkley’s amendment. But Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), the Agriculture Committee Chair with the final say on agriculture issues in the Democrat-controlled Senate, offered a compromise in the form of a promise that she would work to ensure that the Monsanto Protection Act
wouldn’t be renewed without a vote.
We hope Sen. Stabenow will keep her promise. But we need to remind her, and all of our members of the Senate, that the Monsanto Protectio Act needs to go.
Please write your Senator and urge them to vote NO on the Continuing Resolution unless the Monsanto Protection Act is removed!
