Monsanto Teams Up with Congress to Shred the Constitution

I THOUGHT it was unconstitutional to force a citizen to give up their right to sue!  However, the current right-leaning Supreme Court would probably uphold this UNconstitutional provision.  After all, they believe corporations are people, and they allowed donations from different COUNTRIES to American politicians. They're certainly in the tank with the republicans and their shenanigans.  And for the record, I'm a liberal and Senator Mikulski is a Democrat.  I believe she should be voted out of office.

Monsanto Teams Up with Congress to Shred the Constitution

By Michele Simon | March 26, 2013

 Opinion

Our founding fathers, white maleness aside, did get a few things right. One of them was the concept of “separation of powers,” which ensures a system of checks and balances among the three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. But a dangerous provision snuck into the budget bill passed last week in Congress upends that system.

Without any hearings on the matter, the Senate included language that would require the U.S. Department of Agriculture to essentially ignore any court ruling that would otherwise halt the planting of new genetically engineered crops. Here is how Capital Press explains it:

The rider pertains to transgenic crops that have been deregulated by the USDA but then had that approval overturned by a judge — a scenario that has occurred with genetically engineered alfalfa and sugar beets.

In such a situation, the agency “shall” immediately issue permits or a partial deregulation order that would temporarily allow farmers to continue growing and selling the crop until USDA is done re-evaluating its environmental effects, according to the rider.

Why is this such a big deal? The court system is often our last hope, with Congress, the White House, and regulatory agencies deep inside industry’s pocket. Several legal challenges have resulted in court decisions overturning USDA’s approval of new GMO crops, for example, sugar beets.

So the biotech industry, unable to make its case to a judge, figured why not just rewrite the Constitution instead, with the help of a Democratic Senate led by Senator Barbara Mikulski, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Despite Montana Senator Jon Tester’s best attempts to stop the so-called biotech rider, the measure was pushed through. (Industry had tried to get a similar measure passed more than once last year.) Tester minced no words in an article in yesterday’s POLITICO about this and other industry power grabs such as weakening small farmer protections:

These provisions are giveaways, pure and simple, and will be a boon worth millions of dollars to a handful of the biggest corporations in this country. They deserve no place in this bill. We simply have got to do better on both policy and process.

If President Obama signs the budget deal with this provision, it could have long-lasting and serious consequences. This list of pending petitions to USDA to approve genetically engineered crops includes new versions of corn, soybean, canola, and cotton. Once these crops get planted, it will be too late to do much about it. That’s why groups such as the Center for Food Safety file lawsuits when USDA turns a blind eye to the potentially harmful environmental consequences of these unique crops.

Here is how Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety described the situation:

In this hidden backroom deal, Senator Mikulski turned her back on consumer, environmental, and farmer protection in favor of corporate welfare for biotech companies such as Monsanto. This abuse of power is not the kind of leadership the public has come to expect from Senator Mikulski or the Democrat Majority in the Senate.

The balance of this can be found at:  http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2013/03/monsanto-teams-up-with-congress-to-shred-the-constitution/, and I strongly suggest you click on the link and read the REST of this.