Organic Bytes Update

I subscribe to this great newsletter from the Organic Consumers Association. I was turned onto it by a friend in food and farm studies in Ithaca, NY. They do great work in helping to keep consumers aware of food issues, and this is one we should all be concerned about:
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ALERT: Congress Passes Provision Removing Local Rights to Regulate Food and Farms

Since 1988 the biotech industry and industrial food corporations have unsuccessfully tried to take away local and states' rights to ban or regulate genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and other controversial foods and crops. For example, OCA and other public interest groups successfully generated a mass outcry in 2006 that blocked the passage of the National Uniformity for Food Act. This highly unpopular bill would have nullified 200 food safety and food labeling laws across the U.S.

Failing to suppress grassroots control over food safety laws and labels in the last session of Congress, industry has now called on their friends in the House Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry to slip a similar poison pill into an obscure section of the voluminous 2007-2012 Farm Bill. The provision would give the White House appointed Secretary of Agriculture the power to eliminate local or state food and farming laws, such as those in four California counties banning genetically engineered crops, and set an an ominous precedent undermining states' rights.
Tell Congress to repeal this provision before it becomes law:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_5424.cfm