Conservatives Laugh As Liberals Attack President Over Non-Existent ‘Monsanto Protection Act’

It does say "the Secretary of Agriculture shall, notwithstanding any other provision of law,", but then goes on to qualify this, so it's hard to know exactly how this would play out.

I find it interesting that ALEC seems to be fueling the drive to demonize Monsanto,"because Monsanto is one of the largest corporate supporters of climate change science, and is actively working to help ring the alarm." (But I do think the Round-Up resistant crops are a negative.) I do have qualms that disease-resistance genes could lead to resistance by disease-causing organisms to natural defenses.

I have wondered how much of the drive to keep the focus on the BP oil spill is to distract people from the actions of other oil companies which are funding the global warming denialists, and to punish BP for supporting the scientific evidence for climate change.

It is distressingly easy to manipulate many people, liberals or conservatives, against their own interests. Eg., post a Facebook claim that a copyright protection law is a pro-censorship law, and you can get songwriters signing petitions against it.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/03/28/conservatives-laugh-as-liberals-attack-president-over-non-existent-monsanto-protection-act/

2013/03/28
By Nathaniel Downes

If you’ve been on the internet any time since Tuesday, it is likely that you have seen something about what is being called the ‘Monsanto Protection Act.’ It always looks as if it is that the President has signed a bill giving complete immunity to the Missouri based corporation. But even a casual glance into this, and the whole argument falls apart.

What is being referred to is an amendment to the “Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013″ signed into law on Tuesday. This act was implemented to avoid a government shutdown on Wednesday, by authorizing the president to pay the nations bills through October, when the new fiscal year begins. The particular provision being pointed to in this act is Section 735, within the agricultural portion of the bill. This section reads as follows:

SEC. 735. In the event that a determination of non-regulated status made pursuant to section 411 of the Plant Protection Act is or has been invalidated or vacated, the Secretary of Agriculture shall, notwithstanding any other provision of law, upon request by a farmer, grower, farm operator, or producer, immediately grant temporary permit(s) or temporary deregulation in part, subject to necessary and appropriate conditions consistent with section 411(a) or 412(c) of the Plant Protection Act, ..... Provided further, That nothing in this section shall be construed as limiting the Secretary’s authority under section 411, 412 and 414 of the Plant Protection Act.

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A bit wordy and complex, as laws tend to be. However, this is not a new measure. This particular section is already law, passed as part of the Agriculture Appropriations Bill, and was carried forward when that bill was merged in with numerous other ones to make this current bill. What this particular measure does is allow the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a temporary deregulation status for a crop in the event that the crop is under litigation against the USDA’s approval of deregulation status, for the time period that the case is working through the courts. This means that attempts to damage a competitor, by filing suit against their crop, will not happen. Anybody can file a lawsuit in the United States. It would be incredibly easy for a competing firm to file a lawsuit against such a status for a crop grown by their competition, to effectively freeze that competition out of the market for the years needed for a case to work its way through the courts. This measure simply ensures that will not happen.

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This measure also relieves a lot from the USDA’s legal department. Months, and millions of dollars, can be spent fighting injunctions in the courts before the case ever goes before the judge. By this measure, that money can be saved, and the legal proceedings sped up accordingly.

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Researching the origin of the measure finds us going to 2010, when the Supreme Court ruled in Monsanto vs Geertson Seed Farms that lower courts cannot prohibit the planting of crops during the litigation process. This rule is just the codification of the courts ruling, enabling the regulators to have a say in the process. Without it, there would be no process, and companies which do happen to produce a dangerous crop would have a free hand in planting. By codifying this, now the Secretary of Agriculture has final say, and while can grant such a waiver, now can, thanks to the Plant Protection Act which this derives its authority under, also refuse to grant such a waiver. In other words, now there is a protection put in place, while before there was not.

But where did these attacks against the provision come from? You find the origins among the darker corners of the internet, with the shady astroturf groups more commonly associated with organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council and the Heritage Foundation. Conservative organizations fuel the idea, and let left-wing pundits go into the fight to attack… the bill meant to prevent the government from shutting down. but why Monsanto, why use that label when the bill could as easily apply to ConAgra, US Sugar, or one of hundreds of other agricultural businesses?

It’s because Monsanto is one of the largest corporate supporters of climate change science, and is actively working to help ring the alarm.

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Even snopes was quick to discredit the claims about the bill, finding it a mixture of fact and fiction, with the main claims of it granting immunity from prosecution as false.

Not only that, but this bill passed both houses of Congress with a filibuster proof majority. Even if it was as bad as some people are claiming the President couldn’t have vetoed it if he wanted to.

The bill as signed did not provide immunity to Monsanto or any other company, it only brought US Code into compliance with the Supreme Courts ruling, while also speeding up the litigation process over unregulated food crops.