Tag Archives: Senate

U.S. GMO food labeling bill passes Senate

A customer picks up produce near a sign supporting a ballot initiative in Washington state that would require labelling of foods containing genetically modified crops at the Central Co-op in Seattle, Washington October 29, 2013. REUTERS/Jason Redmond

By Chris Prentice

(Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Thursday approved legislation that would for the first time require food to carry labels listing genetically-modified ingredients, which labeling supporters say could create loopholes for some U.S. crops.

The Senate voted 63-30 for the bill that would display GMO contents with words, pictures or a bar code that can be scanned with smartphones. The U.S. Agriculture Department (USDA) would decide which ingredients would be considered genetically modified.

The measure now goes to the House of Representatives, where it is expected to pass.

Drawing praise from farmers, the bill sponsored by Republican Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas and Democrat Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan is the latest attempt to introduce a national standard that would override state laws, including Vermont’s that some say is more stringent, and comes amid growing calls from consumers for greater transparency.

“This bipartisan bill ensures that consumers and families throughout the United States will have access, for the first time ever, to information about their food through a mandatory, nationwide label for food products with GMOs,” Stabenow said in a statement.

A nationwide standard is favored by the food industry, which says state-by-state differences could inflate costs for labeling and distribution. But mandatory GMO labeling of any kind would still be seen as a loss for Big Food, which has spent millions lobbying against it.

Farmers lobbied against the Vermont law, worrying that labeling stigmatizes GMO crops and could hurt demand for food containing those ingredients, but have applauded this law.

Critics like Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, say the bill’s vague language and allowance for electronic labels for scanning could limit its scope and create confusion.

“When parents go to the store and purchase food, they have the right to know what is in the food their kids are going to be eating,” Sanders said on the floor of the Senate ahead of the vote.

He said at a news conference this week that major food manufacturers have already begun labeling products with GMO ingredients to meet the new law in his home state.

Another opponent of the bill, Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, said it would institute weak federal requirements making it virtually impossible for consumers to access information about GMOs.

LOOPHOLES

Food ingredients like beet sugar and soybean oil, which can be derived from genetically-engineered crops but contain next to no genetic material by the time they are processed, may not fall under the law’s definition of a bioengineered food, critics say.

GMO corn may also be excluded thanks to ambiguous language, some said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) raised concerns about the involvement of the USDA in a list of worries sent in a June 27 memo to the Senate Agriculture Committee.

In a letter to Stabenow last week, the USDA’s general counsel tried to quell those worries, saying it would include commercially-grown GMO corn, soybeans, sugar and canola crops.

The vast majority of corn, soybeans and sugar crops in the United States are produced from genetically-engineered seeds. The domestic sugar market has been strained by rising demand for non-GMO ingredients like cane sugar.

The United States is the world’s largest market for foods made with genetically altered ingredients. Many popular processed foods are made with soybeans, corn and other biotech crops whose genetic traits have been manipulated, often to make them resistant to insects and pesticides.

“It’s fair to say that it’s not the ideal bill, but it is certainly the bill that can pass, which is the most important right now,” said American Soybean Association’s (ASA) director of policy communications Patrick Delaney.

The association was part of the Coalition for Safe and Affordable Food, which lobbied for what labeling supporters termed the Deny Americans the Right to Know, or DARK Act, that would have made labeling voluntary. It was blocked by the Senate in March.

(Reporting by Chris Prentice in New York; Additional reporting by Karl Plume in Chicago, Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles and Kouichi Shirayanagi and Eric Beech in Washington; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Ed Davies)

U.S. Republicans push back on Democratic gun control efforts

Handguns are seen for sale in a display case at Metro Shooting Supplies in Bridgeton, Missouri,

By David Morgan and Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. congressional Republicans on Tuesday resisted Democratic demands for a vote on gun-control measures and warned that some could face punishment for an unusual sit-in last month that tied up the House of Representatives for 25 hours.

With Democrats already rejecting a Republican gun bill and warning of further protests, the Republican-controlled House appeared to be heading for renewed discord over gun restrictions following the June 12 mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

House Speaker Paul Ryan met for about 30 minutes on Tuesday with two Democrats who led the sit-in: Representatives John Lewis of Georgia and John Larson of Connecticut. The Democrats said they would ask Ryan for a vote on two Democratic-backed measures but left the meeting without speaking to reporters.

“The path ahead … will be discussed and determined by the majority in the coming days,” Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said later in a statement.

The measures sought by Democrats would expand background checks for gun purchases and allow the government to block gun sales to suspected extremists without first getting a judge’s approval.

Hours before the meeting, Ryan suggested a vote on the Democratic legislation was unlikely, telling a Milwaukee radio station: “The last thing we are going to do is surrender the floor over to these kinds of tactics when we know it’s going to compromise the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.”

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said separately that he and Ryan would meet this week with the chamber’s top enforcement official to talk about reports that some Democrats at the June 22-23 sit-in engaged in “intimidation” while carrying out their protest.

Ryan has announced that the House will vote this week on a measure intended to keep guns out of the hands of people the government suspects of involvement in violent extremism. But Democrats say the legislation is inadequate because authorities would have only three days to convince a judge that a gun sale should be blocked.

“Ninety-one people die each day from gun violence in this country and the best Speaker Ryan can muster is a meaningless bill,” said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi aide Drew Hammill.

Six people who said they lost family and loved ones to gun violence were arrested in the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, after a protest demanding Congress reject the Ryan measure and vote on the Democratic measures.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by James Dalgleish and Peter Cooney)

Senate votes down proposal to expand FBI surveillance powers

FBI at the Pulse

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Wednesday voted down a Republican-backed proposal to expand the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s secretive surveillance powers after the mass shooting at an Orlando gay nightclub last week.

The measure followed the Senate’s rejection on Monday of four measures that would have restricted gun sales.

During Wednesday’s vote, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell switched his vote to ‘no,’ giving himself the opportunity to bring the measure up for consideration again as soon as later this week.

The legislation would broaden the type of telephone and internet records the FBI could request from companies such as the Google unit of Alphabet Inc and Verizon Communications Inc without a warrant. Opponents, including some major technology companies, have said it would threaten civil liberties and do little to improve national security.

The legislation before the Senate on Wednesday, filed as an amendment to a criminal justice funding bill, would widen the FBI’s authority to use so-called National Security Letters, which do not require a warrant and whose very existence is usually a secret.

Such letters can compel a company to hand over a user’s phone billing records. Under the Senate’s change, the FBI would be able to demand electronic communications transaction records such as time stamps of emails and the emails’ senders and recipients, in addition to some information about websites a person visits and social media log-in data.

It would not enable the FBI to use national security letters to obtain the actual content of electronic communications.

The legislation would also make permanent a provision of the USA Patriot Act that lets the intelligence community conduct surveillance on “lone wolf” suspects who do not have confirmed ties to a foreign terrorist group. That provision, which the Justice Department said last year had never been used, expires in December 2019.

The bill had been expected to narrowly pass but it fell two votes short of the required 60.

The future of the Senate proposal in the House of Representatives was also uncertain, given its alliance between libertarian-leaning Republicans and tech-friendly Democrats that has blocked past efforts to expand surveillance.

Privacy groups and civil liberties advocates accused Republicans this week of exploiting the Orlando shooting to build support for unrelated legislation.

Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, criticized Senate Republicans for “pushing fake, knee-jerk solutions that will do nothing to prevent mass shootings or terrorist attacks.”

Though Republicans invoked the Orlando shooting in support of the bill, FBI Director James Comey has said Omar Mateen’s transactional records were fully reviewed by authorities who investigated him twice for possible extremist ties.

Comey said there was “no indication” Mateen belonged to any extremist group and that it was unlikely authorities could have done anything differently to prevent the attack.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Bernard Orr)

Senate likely to pass FBI spying bill after Orlando shooting

Man paying respect to the dead at Pulse memorial

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Wednesday is likely to pass a Republican-backed proposal to expand the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s secretive surveillance powers after the mass shooting at an Orlando gay nightclub last week.

The spying bill is the Republican response to the massacre after a push for gun-control measures sponsored by both major U.S. parties failed earlier this week.

The legislation would broaden the type of telephone and internet records the FBI could request from companies like Alphabet Inc and Verizon without a warrant. The proposal met opposition from critics who said it threatened civil liberties and did little to improve national security.

The bill, which the Obama administration has sought for years, “will allow the FBI to collect the dots so they can connect the dots, and that’s been the biggest problem that they’ve had in identifying these homegrown, radicalized terrorists,’” Senator John Cornyn, the chamber’s No. 2 Republican, said Tuesday.

The vote also represents a bi-partisan drift away from policy positions that favored digital privacy, which had taken hold in the three years since former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed the breadth of government surveillance programs.

The post-Snowden moves included the most substantial reforms to the U.S. intelligence community since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and a refusal to heed the FBI’s call for laws that would undermine encryption.

It is unclear if the House would pass the Senate proposal, given its alliance between libertarian-leaning Republicans and tech-friendly Democrats that has blocked past efforts to expand surveillance.

The legislation before the Senate Wednesday, filed as an amendment to a criminal justice funding bill, would widen the FBI’s authority to use so-called National Security Letters, which do not require a warrant and whose very existence is usually a secret.

Such letters can currently compel a company to hand over a user’s phone billing records. Under the Senate’s change they could demand electronic communications transaction records such as time stamps of emails and the emails’ senders and recipients, in addition to some information about websites a person visits.

The legislation would also make permanent a provision of the USA Patriot Act that allows the intelligence community to conduct surveillance on “lone wolf” suspects who do not have confirmed ties to a foreign terrorist group. That provision, which the Justice Department said last year had never been used, is currently set to expire in December 2019.

‘KNEE-JERK SOLUTIONS’

Privacy groups and civil liberties advocates accused Republicans this week of exploiting the Orlando shooting to build support for unrelated legislation.

Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, criticized Senate Republicans for “pushing fake, knee-jerk solutions that will do nothing to prevent mass shootings or terrorist attacks.”

Though Republicans invoked the Orlando shooting in support of the bill, FBI Director James Comey has said Mateen’s transactional records were fully reviewed by authorities who investigated him twice for possible extremist ties.

Comey said there was “no indication” Mateen belonged to any extremist group and that it was unlikely authorities could have done anything differently to prevent the attack.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Andrew Hay)

Senators working to craft new gun control compromise

A gun rights supporter openly carries two pistols strapped to his leg during a rally in support of the Michigan Open Carry gun law in Romulus

By Susan Cornwell and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A group of Republican senators on Friday were trying to craft compromise gun control legislation that could attract both Republicans and Democrats and have a hope of passing the U.S. Senate, unlike several measures that are expected to be voted on next week for which prospects appear dim.

Congress is under pressure to act after the massacre last Sunday of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. But the gun control issue is deeply divisive and there have been no restrictions passed since 1994, when Congress imposed a ban on semi-automatic assault weapons. That expired after 10 years.

The new effort, led by Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, would aim to close a loophole in U.S. law that allows people on terrorism watch lists to buy weapons and explosives.

Both the gunman in the Orlando attack and the married couple who carried out a mass shooting that killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, last December were thought to have been inspired by militant Islamist groups abroad.

Collins’ proposal likely would be offered in the divided, Republican-controlled Senate sometime next week – assuming that four other gun-control proposals set for votes on Monday fail, as expected.

Collins’ office declined to provide a detailed account of legislation she is working on with Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire.

But Collins discussed the project with journalists outside the Senate on Thursday, noting that barring people on terrorism watch lists from weapons purchases carried with it the risk of affecting people who have been swept onto the lists without good cause.

“What we’re trying to do is not deny constitutional rights to a large group of individuals” who find themselves on watch lists despite the fact that there might not be credible evidence of potential criminal intentions, Collins said.

At least one Senate Democrat, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, has been involved in the talks, according to a spokeswoman.

A Senate Republican aide who asked not to be identified, said the bill “will aim to have teeth on preventing terrorists from getting guns and contain protections for due process” for those who should not be denied their rights to buy weapons.

It will not be known whether a Collins bill would attract wide bipartisan support until the measure is unveiled.

On Monday evening, senators are scheduled to vote on two Republican and two Democratic amendments dealing with expanded background checks for gun buyers and denying sales to those on watch lists.

Democrats have criticized the Republican measures as being ineffective and Republicans have accused Democrats of crafting bills that would trample constitutional rights to bear arms.

The competing watch-list proposals were defeated in the Senate last December, following the shooting in San Bernardino.

“Rather than doing Ground Hog Day, I think its time for a new approach and a more targeted one,” Collins said in an apparent reference to a 1993 film in which the main character is doomed to relive the same unpleasant day over and over again.

Lawmakers are looking at whether to ban guns to prospective buyers who are on a broad terrorist watch list that is run by the FBI, but not on one of the subset lists such as the “no-fly” list, she said, adding that there could still be an “alert” to law enforcement officials that the purchase was being made.

U.S. authorities maintain several watch lists – the FBI maintains three and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence runs one database. People are placed on such a list according to the threat level they are believed to pose.

The Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen, had been on a government watch list at one point when he was being investigated by federal authorities in 2013 and 2014, but was not on it at the time of his weapons purchase. The couple who carried out the San Bernardino shooting were not on watch lists.

(Reporting by Susan Cornwell and Richard Cowan; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Push to expand FBI surveillance authority threatens email privacy bill

A lock icon, signifying an encrypted Internet

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An effort in the U.S. Senate to expand the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s authority to use a secretive surveillance order has delayed a vote on a popular email privacy bill, casting further doubt on whether the legislation will become law this year.

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday postponed consideration of a measure that would require government authorities to obtain a search warrant before asking technology companies, such as Microsoft and Alphabet Inc’s Google , to hand over old emails. A version of the Senate bill unanimously passed the House last month.

Currently, federal agencies do not need a warrant to access emails or other digital communications more than 180 days old due to a provision in a 1986 law that considers them abandoned by the owner.

But Republican party senators offered amendments Thursday that privacy advocates argued contravened the purpose of the underlying bill and would likely sink its chances of becoming law.

Those amendments include one by Senator John Cornyn, the second ranking Republican in the Senate, that would broaden the FBI’s authority to deploy an administrative subpoena known as a National Security Letter to include electronic communications transaction records such as the times tamps of emails and their senders and recipients.

Senators Patrick Leahy and Mike Lee, the Democratic and Republican authors of the email privacy bill, agreed to postpone the vote to give time to lawmakers to review the amendments and other provisions of the bill that have prompted disagreement.

NSLs do not require a warrant and are almost always accompanied by a gag order preventing the service provider from sharing the request with a targeted user.

The letters have existed since the 1970s, though the scope and frequency of their use expanded greatly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

In 2015 requests for customer records via NSLs increased nearly 50 percent to 48,642 requests, up from 33,024 in 2014, according to a U.S. government transparency report.

The Obama administration has for years lobbied for a change to how NSLs can be used, after a 2008 legal memo from the Justice Department said the law limits them largely to phone billing records. FBI Director James Comey has said the change needed essentially corrects a typo.

The Senate Intelligence Committee this week passed a bill to fund the U.S. intelligence community that contains a similar provision that would allow NSLs to be used to gather email records.

Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, voted against the proposal and said it “takes a hatchet to important protections for Americans’ liberty.”

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Alan Crosby)

Many Senate Democrats frustrated with slow U.S. Syrian refugee admissions

Syrian refugee children play as they wait with their families to register their information at the U.S. processing centre for Syrian refugees, during a media tour held by the U.S. Embassy in Jordan,

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – More than half the Democrats in the Senate, including many of President Barack Obama’s strongest supporters, signed a letter to him on Wednesday urging him to move more quickly to admit Syrian refugees into the United States.

Despite Obama’s pledge to admit 10,000 of the people fleeing Syria’s civil war in the year ending this September, only 1,736 have been allowed into the country so far. In contrast, more than 6,000 have been admitted from Myanmar and more than 5,000 have been admitted from Iraq.

“We urge your Administration to devote the necessary resources to expeditiously and safely resettle refugees from Syria,” the 27 senators wrote in the letter, which was seen by Reuters.

“We are deeply concerned about the slow pace of admissions for Syrian refugees in the first seven months of the fiscal year,” the letter said.

The lead signers on the letter included Senator Richard Durbin, the number two Democrat in the Senate, and Senator Amy Klobuchar. The letter was signed by 25 other members of the Democratic caucus, including presidential candidate Bernie Sanders

It requested an update on specific measures the administration plans to take to fulfill its commitment to resettle the remaining 8,264 Syrians within five months.

Obama said in late April that he expected the United States to meet his goal of admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees before Sept. 30, the end of the federal fiscal year.

But Obama’s promise sparked a firestorm of criticism in the United States, mostly from Republicans who say that violent militants could enter the country by posing as refugees. More than 30 governors, most of them Republicans, have tried to block refugees from coming to their states.

The United States has offered refuge to far fewer of the millions fleeing war in Syria and Iraq than many of its closest allies. Germany has taken in hundreds of thousands. Canada admitted 26,859 Syrian refugees between Nov. 4, 2015, and May 1, 2016.

“Other nations, including ours, can and should do much more,” the senators said in the letter.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Senate passes bill allowing Sept. 11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia

An American flag flies near the base of the destroyed World Trade Center in New York, in this file photo from September 11, 2001, taken after the collapse of the towers.

By Patricia Zengerle

(Reuters) – The U.S. Senate passed legislation on Tuesday that would allow survivors and relatives of those killed in the Sept. 11 attacks to file lawsuits seeking damages against the government of Saudi Arabia.

The legislation, known as the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA, passed in the Senate by unanimous voice vote.

If it passes the House of Representatives and is signed into law by U.S. President Barack Obama, JASTA would allow lawsuits to proceed in federal court in New York as lawyers try to prove that the Saudis were involved in the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The Saudis deny any involvement.

Senate committee questions Facebook over news selection

Facebook Entrance Sign

By Amy Tennery

(Reuters) – A U.S. Senate committee launched an inquiry on Tuesday into how social media website Facebook selects its news stories after a report that company employees blocked news about conservative issues from its “trending” list.

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation asked Facebook Chairman and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg in a letter to answer questions about the company’s news curation practices and its trending topics section.

The investigation comes after Gizmodo reported on Monday that a former Facebook employee claimed workers “routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers,” while “artificially” adding other stories to the trending list.

U.S. Senator John Thune, the chairman of the committee, told reporters Tuesday his primary concern was that Facebook may be engaging in deceptive behavior if employees meddled with what trending news was displayed.

“If you have a stated policy, which your followers or your audience knows to be the case, that you use an objective algorithm for trending topics — you better follow that policy,” Thune said. “It’s a matter of transparency and honesty and there shouldn’t be any attempt to mislead the American public.”

The letter to Facebook includes requests for information on the organizational structure for the “Trending Topics feature.”

Adam Jentleson, deputy chief of staff to Democratic Senator Harry Reid, balked at the request in a statement provided to Reuters.

“The Republican Senate refuses to hold hearings on [Supreme Court nominee] Judge [Merrick] Garland, refuses to fund the President’s request for Zika aid and takes the most days off of any Senate since 1956, but thinks Facebook hearings are a matter of urgent national interest,” Jentleson said.

A Facebook <FB.O> spokesman said the company has received the Senate letter and is reviewing it. They also denied the Gizmodo report Tuesday in a statement provided to Reuters.

“After an initial review, no evidence was found that the anonymous allegations are true,” a spokesman said.

Tom Stocky, the vice president of search at Facebook, responded to the allegations Monday night in a lengthy post published to the social media site saying there are “strict guidelines” for trending topic reviewers who “are required to accept topics that reflect real world events.”

He added that those guidelines are under “constant review” and that his team would “continue to look for improvements.”

Katie Drummond, the editor-in-chief of Gizmodo, called her publication’s story “accurate” in a statement released to Reuters Tuesday.

Gizmodo’s report alarmed several social media users, with some conservatives in particular criticizing Facebook for alleged bias.

“‘If a Conservative Speaks – and Facebook Censors Him – Does He Make a Sound?'” Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) wrote on Twitter <TWTR.N> Tuesday, with a link to a National Review story that detailed the allegations against Facebook.

(Reporting By Amy Tennery; additional reporting by Dustin Volz in Washington; Editing by Alan Crosby)

Saudi Minister confirms warning on proposed U.S. law on 911

The Tribute in Light installation is illuminated over lower Manhattan as seen from Brooklyn Bridge

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia has warned the United States that a proposed U.S. law that could hold the kingdom responsible for any role in the Sept 11, 2001, attacks would erode global investor confidence in America, its foreign minister said on Monday.

The minister, Adel al-Jubeir, speaking to reporters in Geneva after talks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, which mainly focused on Syria, denied that Saudi Arabia had “threatened” to withdraw investment from its close ally.

The New York Times reported last month that the Riyadh government had threatened to sell up to $750 billion worth of American assets should the U.S. Congress pass a bill that would take away immunity from foreign governments in cases arising from a “terrorist attack that kills an American on American soil”.

“We say a law like this would cause an erosion of investor confidence. But then to kind of say, ‘My God the Saudis are threatening us’ – ridiculous,” Jubeir said.

“We don’t use monetary policy and we don’t use energy policy and we don’t use economic policy for political purposes. When we invest, we invest as investors. When we sell oil, we sell oil as traders.”

Jubeir, pressed on whether the Saudia Arabia had suggested the law could affect its investment policies, said: “I say you can warn. What has happened is that people are saying we threatened. We said that a law like this is going to cause investor confidence to shrink. And so not just for Saudi Arabia, but for everybody.”

The New York Times, citing administration officials and congressional aides, said that the Obama administration had lobbied Congress to block passage of the bill, which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year.

“In fact what they are doing is stripping the principle of sovereign immunities which would turn the world for international law into the law of the jungle,” Jubeir said.

“That’s why the administration is opposed to it, and that’s why every country in the world is opposed to it.

“And then people say ‘Saudi Arabia is threatening the U.S. by pulling our investments’. Nonsense.”

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Richard Balmforth)