If Judge White’s order in November of 2010 had been carried out and that year’s crop of sugar beets had been destroyed, it would have introduced a new element of risk for agricultural companies choosing to grow GM seeds. Monsanto wanted to make sure the sugar beet litigation would never happen with future crops, and it knew exactly how to do that—by changing the laws.
On March 29, 2013, President Obama signed H.R. 993, a large appropriations bill, into law. It contained a rider known by anti-GMO activists as “The Monsanto Protection Act,” which was inserted into the bill by Congress.
According to Tomaselli, this rider codified what the USDA did in the sugar beets case, forcing “the USDA to issue permits if a judge vacates a deregulation decision ... [creating] a situation where we would not be able to challenge these permits under the National Environmental Policy Act or the Endangered Species Act or any other environmental law that these permits might be violating.”
The good news is that this bill will expire in September of 2013, giving conerned citizens another chance to fight back when biotech lobbyists attempt to get Congress to reintroduce it. Green America’s campaign, GMO Inside, is already laying the groundwork for the battle to come.