Senate reconsiders, will hear GMO bill

State senators, buckling to public pressure, agreed Tuesday to hold a hearing on a bill that would require the labeling of genetically modified produce imported to Hawaii.

Senators had said they would not hear the bill, which passed the state House earlier this month, but reversed themselves after demands from environmental and anti-GMO activists.

State Attorney General David Louie has told senators that the bill would likely be found unconstitutional because the federal government, and not the states, has authority over food labeling. The bill, Louie advised, could also infringe on First Amendment rights and interstate commerce. House lawmakers who drafted the legislation also failed to provide a purpose clause explaining why GMO labeling furthers a state interest, Louie said.

House sponsors have acknowledged that House Bill 174 is flawed but say the legislation can be improved before session ends in May.

"First, I’d like to make it clear that this is a food labeling and not an anti-GMO bill, nor is it a pro-bioengineering bill," said Sen. Clarence Nishi­hara (D, Wai­pahu-Pearl City), chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, who will lead a joint hearing Thursday morning with the Senate Consumer Protection and Commerce Committee and the Senate Health Committee.

"We initially took the position of not hearing the bill based on the attorney general’s opinion the bill likely will be found unconstitutional for many reasons. However, the attorney general will be able to explain his opinion when it’s his time," Nishi­hara said.

He said the Senate had heard the public’s "passionate response."

Senators agreed to waive the 72-hour public-notice requirement to schedule the hearing for Thursday.

The bill was at risk of failing this session if it did not get a Senate hearing by an internal procedural deadline this week. In private moves over the past few days, Senate leaders planned to remove the Senate Health Committee as a referral on the bill because of concerns that Sen. Josh Green (D, Naalehu-Kailua-Kona), the committee’s chairman and a supporter of GMO labeling, would use a hearing to appeal to anti-GMO activists.

Green strenuously fought the move, however, and after a lengthy private caucus among senators Tuesday, the Senate Health Committee stayed on the referral. Nishi­hara will take the lead at the hearing, however, not Green. If the bill clears the three committees Thursday, it would go to the Senate Ways and Means Committee instead of the Senate Judiciary and Labor Committee, which originally had jurisdiction. Sen. Clayton Hee (D, Heeia-Laie-Wai­alua), chairman of the Judiciary committee, had waived jurisdiction Monday to help keep the bill alive.

Senate leaders justified the referral to Ways and Means because of the potential fiscal implications of new labeling requirements that may increase the workload at the state Department of Health.

"The people are concerned with the health impact of GMOs, and I support their call for labeling," said Green, an emergency room doctor. "I also believe the Senate Committee on Health should have remained the lead on this bill."

Nishihara said he believed the consensus among senators after the private caucus Tuesday was to hold a hearing on the bill. "My view is that I’m part of a body that still operates democratically in what we decide to hear," he explained.

While behind-the-scenes political theater is common at the Legislature, the Senate’s public reversal on the GMO labeling bill is unusual.

Vocal, organized environmental and anti-GMO activists have pressured lawmakers to approve the bill, staging protests statewide and casting the debate as a choice between protecting biotechnology corporations such as Monsanto or giving the public the right to know what is in their food.

Paul Achitoff, an attorney for Earthjustice, said the GMO-labeling bill deserves to be heard by the Senate at a minimum. He said senators should not have tried to hide behind the attorney general’s assessment, which he has challenged.

"I thought that was cowardly," he said.