What's this "GMO Protection Act" thing?

This is not quite so much "hard science" as the intersection of plant science, law, and policy.  It can still be dressed in street clothes, though, so bear with me here.

Sugar beet harvest
(Creative Commons, courtesy of Katy Walters)

Right now (April 2013) there's a lot of buzz about a piece of law¹ added into the Agricultural Appropriations Bill that just passed.  Various news outlets have been drawing conclusions about who masterminded it, who benefits, and what it does to consumers.  I'll leave it to journalists to explain when and how it got there (hopefully with some actual journalistic integrity); I'm here to explain what the heck it is, based only on a reading of the law itself plus a little recent history.  It does have implications for who decides what makes it to your plate, and how -- but those impacts are nowhere near as major as some of the headlines make it sound.

I'm not a lawyer, of course, but I can read pretty twisty stuff -- the scientific papers I had to decipher in grad school were pretty good training material.  It's the same principle, really.  I'll include the text after my own summary and analysis, in case you want to try your hand.

Summary: The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has decided that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) should be legally classified as "plant pests"², because the modification is done by a bacteria which normally causes disease in plants, and the plant and bacteria are inseparable from that point (or something to that effect). To be grown commercially, a GMO has to be studied and determined not to be a pest. None of this applies to plants produced by traditional breeding programs, just those which have been modified by inserting genes in laboratory conditions.

So, this law says: if someone declares that a particular GMO deserves to have its "not a pest" status taken away, the Agriculture Secretary has to investigate, and also has to grant requests for temporary exceptions to farmers who request them, regardless of what any other law says about it.  Those temporary exceptions include shipping, planting, growing, selling, and so on.  The Secretary can impose measures to lessen environmental effects, assuming the growers can carry on their business in a timely manner.  Those exceptions stand until the Secretary makes a decision whether the GMO really is a problem.  That decision "shall be based on sound science".  That's what just got passed.¹

Note: This applies to the Agriculture Department's plant pest regulations, not public health regulations.  Section 411 of the Plant Protection Act handles plants which constitute a risk to other plants, not to human or animal health. So this little end-run around court orders doesn't apply if that order is based on a perceived risk to people, rather than the environment or other crops.  The Plant Protection Act does not distinguish between crop plants and surrounding plants, so threats to things growing outside a field presumably qualify.


Example: Someone says that the environmental assessment for genetically-modified Crop X failed to investigate damage to a native wildflower.  It goes under review (again) by the Agriculture Department, which approved it the first time.  In the meantime, a commercial farmer can petition to sow Crop X on schedule, so that if it's decided that the plant is okay in the end, he won't have lost one or more growing seasons waiting to find out.  Additionally, if the person with the complaint convinces a judge that it's so much of a risk to the environment that all the fields of Crop X have to be ripped out, the exception granted by the Agriculture Secretary overrides that court order, until the Secretary makes his/her decision.

From an environmental protectionist standpoint, this is bad.  You can come forward and make your case against Crop X, and even if you get a court order to stop growers from planting it, and to pull up all fields of Crop X currently planted, the Agriculture Secretary can (must) grant an exception to anyone who wants one.  The Agriculture Secretary can require that growers take steps to make sure the pollen/seeds/whatever from the GMO doesn't come in contact with known wildflower habitats, but the growers can otherwise go ahead as usual.  Meanwhile, you're watching flower populations anxiously and waiting for the Agriculture Department to come around. If the endangered plant is an open-pollinated variety of the same crop plant, it would have organic and heritage farmers up in arms as well.

From a grower's point of view, it's a relief.  In 2010, this scenario came up², and a judge ordered all of the GMO sugar beets ripped out of the ground, because the approval of five years back was challenged. The growers involved would have lost quite a bit of money, and it was all reversed some months later, when the sugar beets were once again granted non-pest status by the Agriculture Department. If a question is raised about a crop you're about to sow, you might hold off on sowing it; if that goes on long enough, you could lose your income for a season, maybe more. If it happens with something you have in the ground, like alfalfa, you could have to till under a crop which was supposed to produce for several years. Most growers are not flexible enough to switch types of crop easily, and there aren't many varieties available for conventional farming in some crops, like sugar beets or soybean.

So is it something to be concerned about? As always, that depends on your priorities. It does limit the court's ability to determine whether growers can produce a given GMO in the face of challenges to its environmental safety or impacts on other crops. Those limits were in response to previous cases where those growers lost significant income because of challenges which were later reversed.  Knowing that background, you are free to make an educated decision.


And now: jargon ho, look out below (the cut)!