After a bill to require labeling for genetically modified foods failed to make it out of the Connecticut legislature’s Environment Committee this past February, a bi-partisan legislative task force met last month to consider their next move.
Representative Philip Miller, a Democrat from Deep River and member of the Environment Committee, notes that while ongoing controversy over whether eating genetically modified foods poses a risk to health remains unresolved, the goal of the bi-partisan task force in the next legislative session is to come up with a new bill able to withstand legal scrutiny.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has determined that the food need not be labeled, leaving states to address the issue individually.
While several states are considering bills to require labeling of foods using genetically modified crops, none have successfully passed into legislation, including in California, when this past November, voters narrowly rejected a ballot initiative known as Proposition 37.
If legislation requiring the labeling of foods produced by genetic engineering passes during the upcoming legislative session, Connecticut will be the first state in the nation to do so.