podesta-emails
Re: Urgent need to talk and for you to act with the WH
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John, I just hung up the phone with Debbie Stabenow who agrees completely
with my analysis. You may want to speak to her as well, but I think it
would serve our candidate for you and me to have a conversation about this
asap for there are several complex factors that will be more easily
explained by phone. Can we talk first thing (I am on the west coast)
tomorrow morning?
If not, and for now, I will try to summarize here:
* The reasons that Debbie needs to keep trying to advance a
compromise to Roberts are (a) his bill contains some real conflicts with
the Organic Food Production Act and current National Organic Program that
would cause serious disruption, and (b) farm state Democrats like
Donnelly, Bennet, Warner Klobuchar, Heitkamp and of course Coons and
Carper and others are under enormous pressure from conventional Ag
interests to come up with some kind of acceptable solution that pre-empts
Vermont's and other states' laws from taking effect and if Debbie
withdraws from the compromise negotiations, she fears that other Dems who
are less savvy about some of the issues here will end up negotiating a
worse agreement than she would be able to get. Therefore, she has no
choice but to keep pushing for something that is less damaging than
Roberts but which will still fall short of a real path to mandatory
labeling. Gary's Truth-o-meter note: the main reason these Democrat and
Republican Senators are so eager to pre-empt Vermont is that they have
been persuaded that the food industry cannot be subject to a "patchwork
quilt" of 50 different state labeling laws. This is a scare tactic that
has no basis in fact because the state labeling advocates have now ensured
that every one of the states likely to pass labeling this year (MA, RI, NY
and others) are using identical bills as VT's. So there is zero chance of
a patchwork quilt but that of course does not stop the opposing lobbyists
from repeating this ad nauseum.
* The reasons that Tom is so passionate about getting a compromise
worked out is that he has become convinced that allowing VT's law to take
effect must be avoided because the AG commodity community has spooked him
that mandatory labeling will cause an avalanche of consumers seeking to
find non-gmo alternatives and we will have resultant supply shortages and
price inflation. He points to USDA reports that sugar cane supplies are
not keeping up and calls this the tip of the iceberg. Gary's
Truth-o-meter note: the main reason that sugar cane may not be keeping up
with demand is because companies are moving away from high fructose corn
syrup and this has nothing to do with GMO's. Moreover, actual experience
in countries like Brazil is that labeling does not stimulate any sort of
radical changes in consumer behavior, ie there will be no run to find
non-gmo supplies and a comprehensive 5-year study of consumers released
last year shows definitively that consumers do not see disclosures as
warning symbols and labels will not change most consumers' behavior.
Conclusion: Unfortunately, I cannot persuade Tom on this point, despite
the ample evidence to the contrary so there is no doubt that he will
recommend that the President sign even a bad bill if it gets to his desk.
And equally unfortunately, Debbie is caught between a rock and a hard
place when it comes to saving the organic standards and also holding her
caucus together, so I do understand why she needs to keep trying to lead
the effort to find a compromise solution, even while she agrees that the
passage of such a bill could unfortunately give Bernie a major PR,
fundraising and political opportunity.
Proposed Solution: If I am right about all of this, then there are really
only two ways for us to avoid delivering Bernie a giant opportunity to
call for a national rally of 100,000 angry citizens in DC and dominate the
media with this example of all that is wrong and impotent with the
Obama/Clinton approach. And both solutions are needed. These are:
A) Immediately upon the introduction of the Roberts bill tomorrow
night or sometime shortly after that, Hillary should pre-empt Bernie by
coming out very strongly against the bill and in favor of mandatory GMO
labeling because consumers, and particularly mothers absolutely have the
right to know. I know this will pit her in opposition to Tom, but her
failure to do this, or to allow Bernie to do it first, will only feed his
narrative and demonstrate that she is a hostage to big food and chemical
companies (Ask her yourself, but you will see that Debbie agrees with me
on this), and
B) President Obama should break with his Ag Secretary and
communicate asap to the Senate that he will veto any bill that does not
contain a mandatory on-package labeling provision. This would have the
effect of giving farm state Democrats the courage to not cave in to
Roberts or the compromise and would also serve to prevent Bernie from
claiming the high ground and trying to paint HRC into a corner.
Again, I am happy to talk in the am if you want. I urge you to take this
very seriously because I am certain I am right about Bernie and his
followers, and we simply must avoid handing him this plum.
Gary Hirshberg
Chairman, Stonyfield Farm
Chairman, Just Label It
From: John Podesta <[email protected]>
To: Gary HIRSHBERG <[email protected]>
Cc: Jake Sullivan <[email protected]>
Date: 03/13/2016 02:34 PM
Subject: Re: Urgent need to talk and for you to act with the WH
Has Vilsack signed off on this?
On Sunday, March 13, 2016, Gary HIRSHBERG <[email protected]>
wrote:
John, the Roberts bill will be introduced on Monday night and it is now
highly likely that a very bad "compromise" version will pass the senate
this week and be approved by the House and on its way to the White House
within a very short period. I can promise you that if President Obama
signs this terrible legislation that blatantly validates Bernie's entire
campaign message about Wall Street running our government, this will give
Bernie a huge boost and 10,000 -20,000 outraged citizens ( who WILL turn
up because they will be so angry at the President for preemption vt) will
be marching on the Mall with Bernie as their keynote speaker. In short, I
feel certain that Obama (who famously promised on camera to implement
mandatory GMO labeling) signing this bill will result in adding at least
another month or more of money and attention to the Sanders campaign.
To avoid this, this bill can still be stopped if the WH and Clinton
campaign come down now on the 12-14 farm state dems who Roberts will need
to pass this compromise.
I am on a plane until 6:30 pm EST but can talk after that. I am also
passing the same message to David Simas.
It will be terrible to hand Sanders this advantage at such a fragile time
when we really need to save our $$$ for the Trump fight. We should discuss
with your team immediately.
Gh
Sent from my iPhone
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