No Agreement on Biotech Food
An elaborate, secretive effort in Washington over the past two years to negotiate a truce between the
agricultural biotechnology industry and its critics has ended in failure, with the parties unable to agree on a plan to strengthen biotech regulations in this country. The story says that the talks foundered in recent weeks amid a dispute over whether to seek legislation from Congress that would have given the Food and Drug Administration strong power to judge the safety of foods containing biotech ingredients. The Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, a foundation-funded group in Washington that sponsored the attempt at compromise, is scheduled to issue a final report that describes the effort, but not the core dispute that killed it.
About 20 people and organizations took part in the initiative, ranging from Monsanto, which controls most of the world market for agricultural biotech products, to Washington consumer and public interest groups that have long complained of what they consider to be poor federal regulation of the industry. The failure to agree means, in the near term, that the groups won't be able to go to Capitol Hill or to regulatory agencies to present a united front in favor of tighter rules, as they had hoped to do. That will leave intact a status quo widely perceived as favoring the biotech industry. Longer term, the collapse of talks raises serious new issues for the American food industry, which has lately grown nervous about agricultural biotechnology. Food companies could respond to the breakdown by lobbying Congress for tighter regulations without Monsanto's consent, essentially trying to out-politic the biotech industry. And, absent a regulatory scheme that suits them, the food companies will have to decide whether to try to kill particular biotech crops, such as genetically altered wheat, that they fear could cost them sales in foreign markets resistant to the idea of genetic engineering. They might do that by refusing to buy biotech crops, something a few food companies have already done on a small scale.
The Pew Initiative spent some $2 million on the effort to reach compromise, sponsoring 60 meetings and conference calls of agricultural biotech "stakeholders," and commissioning reports, polls, and studies. It is by far the most elaborate attempt anyone has made at a master compromise on the issues around the genetic manipulation of plants and animals. Several participants in the discussions said they were deeply disappointed at the failure to reach a deal, but they also emphasized that they had accomplished some important goals nonetheless. Warring parties built new relationships with one another that may yet lead to compromise agreements on piecemeal issues, they said. And the group has agreed to reconvene in a year or 18 months to see if positions have shifted enough that a compromise might be possible then.
The Pew effort is a window into a central but little-known aspect of how Washington works. It is common for the factions in a dispute, often with prodding from Capitol Hill, to meet privately to see if they can reach a consensus. When they do, legislation will often sail through Congress as if by magic, with lawmakers relieved of the burden of having to mediate the conflict. When the parties can't agree, Congress is often paralyzed. Participants in the Pew discussion would not say publicly what issues foiled their attempt at compromise. But speaking on condition of anonymity, several people knowledgeable about the talks said the core issue was whether to go to Capitol Hill to get legislation to prohibit the introduction of new biotech foods without detailed FDA certification that they are safe. Additionally, actions such as these would not support the World Trade Organization case over biotech foods. (Washington Post, 5/30/03 via Agnet).
