Veto override just the start of fight over Kauai’s GMOs

There was hugging and cheering in Lihue this weekend, as the Kauai County Council pushed forward a new Kauai law that will increase regulation of pesticides and genetically modified crops.

The Saturday vote to override the veto by Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. will not be the end of the saga.

First there will be the lawsuits that Carvalho predicted.

Star-Advertiser reporter Rosemarie Bernardo reported Sunday that already, the biotech firm Syngenta has retained Honolulu attorney Paul Alston and he immediately promised a lawsuit.

As laid-back and rural as Kauai is, the folks there take their politics seriously. So it is expected that the nuances of the Council vote are going to be scrutinized. As Councilman Mel Rapozo said: "We recessed with six members and reconvened with a seven-member Council."

The transformation happened because the Council appointed Mason Chock to fill a Council vacancy at the same time that the Council was searching for votes for the override.

The last-minute affair was not lost on attorney Alston, who called it "deeply troubling and suspect."

Others, such as Earthjustice attorney Paul Achitoff, said he saw no problems and praised the Council’s "courage to do it."

The Kauai law is just part of what is becoming a divergent journey toward food safety.

While the county was battling both the worries of pesticide contamination and the fear of genetic modification, Gov. Neil Abercrombie was attempting to appease all sides by pushing forward a voluntary compliance effort, which has drawn a mixed reaction.

The Abercrombie plan calls for voluntary disclosure of pesticide use and is dubbed the "Kauai Agricultural Good Neighbor Program."

Supporters of the Council’s regulation law mocked the Abercrombie plan.

"They think we’re fools. It’s ridiculous. To think they’re going to come up here on the last day and save us with a volunteer compliance. It does nothing," said Councilman Gary Hooser, who had introduced the new law.

The question then arises: What about the rest of us? Shouldn’t Oahu, Maui and the Big Island also have good neighbors?

State Rep. Jessica Wooley is chairwoman of the House Agriculture Committee and says the problem is the inability to overcome the extreme lobbying at the Legislature.

"The public is demanding action," she said in an interview, adding that consumers and the industry would benefit from a uniform law.

"But the Legislature is full of lobbyists representing powerful companies," Wooley said. She fears that the tough regulation will not come from the lawmakers.

"I am always hopeful but it is very difficult," said Wooley.

Lobbyists are always going to be players at the Legislature, but that is not the only reason for hardship in moving food safety legislation.

Much of difficulty is that the two fears, pesticides and GMOs, are not the same. There is obvious concern about bug killer drifting over a classroom, but there is much alarm and little documentation that GMO food is dangerous.

Putting the two issues together makes it easy to discount both, and offers up an easy argument claiming that the issue needs more study, is too contentious and the problem is overstated.

Instead, if there was solid leadership on each issue with different bills for the entire state instead of a "good neighbor policy" for Kauai, there would be more options for success in 2014.

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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.