GMO – Page 2 – Enviro Updates

Juniper Rose, TIMES-STANDARD ONLINE
EUREKA. A California law that will go into effect on Jan. 1 will transfer the authority to regulate seed and plant laws from counties to the state and has the potential to affect the ability of individual counties to ban GMOs.
The details on how the law would affect local ordinances that seek to regulate GMOs haven’t been evaluated yet, said Steve Lyle, the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s public affairs director.
Signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown in August, California Seed Law — Assembly Bill 2470 — amends state Food and Agricultural Code sections relating to seeds.
The bill authorizes the California Department of Food and Agriculture secretary to adopt a list of plants and crops that the secretary finds are or may be grown in the state, according to the legislative counsel’s digest of the bill.
“The bill would also prohibit a city, county, or district, including a charter city or county, from adopting or enforcing an ordinance on or after January 1, 2015, that regulates plants, crops, or seeds without the consent of the secretary,” according to the digest.
Preexisting ordinances that restrict GMO crops — such as one in Arcata and Measure P, if it is passed by Humboldt County voters on Tuesday — would be grandfathered in and not affected by the law, Lyle said.
Counties looking to pass a GMO ban in the future could potentially be affected, he said.
“We would evaluate that on a case-by-case basis,” he said.
Measure P spokesman Bill Schaser said the California Seed Law makes it even more crucial for Humboldt County to pass the ballot initiative at this time.
via New Calif. law moves crop authority from county to state – Times-Standard Online.

Derek Moore, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Gov. Jerry Brown signed a North Coast lawmaker’s bill banning the commercial production of genetically altered salmon.
AB 504, authored by Assemblyman Wes Chesbro, D-Arcata, extends the prohibition of spawning or cultivating so-called “transgenic salmonids” in the Pacific Ocean to all waters of the state. The hatchery production and stocking of such fish also is prohibited.
The legislation protects the state’s native steelhead trout and salmon populations, Chesbro said. He noted that federal food and drug regulators are reviewing an application by a company, AquaBounty Technologies, that seeks to raise genetically altered salmon in the United States.
“If these ‘frankenfish’ were to escape into our waters, they could destroy our native salmonid populations through interbreeding, competition for food and the introduction of parasites and disease,” Chesbro stated in a news release. “The only way to ensure this never happens is to ban commercial hatchery production, cultivation or stocking of transgenic salmonids in California.”
The legislation prohibits research or experimentation for the commercial production of genetically-altered salmonids.
The bill was sponsored by the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations.
via Gov. Brown signs bill banning commercial production of | The Press Democrat.

Environmental Center of Sonoma County

Tag: GMO

New California law moves crop authority from county to state

Gov. Brown signs bill banning commercial production of genetically modified salmon