On July 29, 2016, President Obama signed Senate Bill 764 into law, which amends the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 to establish the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard. Under this law, the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) will develop and implement a federal biotech labeling standard. The new law immediately preempts Vermont’s Act 120 GMO-labeling requirement, which went into effect on July 1, 2016. Under the new law, food manufacturers will eventually be required to display some form of disclosure on products that are deemed “bioengineered,” (a term Congress preferred over “genetically engineered” or “GMO”).
Many of the detailed workings of the new law will be determined by AMS. Congress gave the agency substantial leeway to develop regulations to implement the new law as it sees fit; however, Congress provided enough direction to provide an understanding of how the law will work when it is implemented. Here are a few of the major takeaways: