“In the event that a determination of nonregulated status made pursuant to section 411 of 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 412c of the Plant Protection Act, which interim conditions shall authorize the movement, introduction, continued cultivation, commercialization and other specifically enumerated activities and requirements, including measures designed to mitigate or minimize potential adverse environmental effects, if any, relevant to the secretary’s evaluation of the petition for nonregulated status, while ensuring that growers or other users are able to move, plant, cultivate, introduce into commerce and carry out other authorized activities in a timely manner . . .”
Not so easy to understand.
Apparently Roy Blunt, a Republican Senator from Missouri, added the above (part of the Farmer Assurance Provision rider) to HR 933: The Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013 which President Obama signed into law in late March.
After activists had a chance to review and parse the rider, it quickly became known by another name: “The Monsanto Protection Act”! This is not too surprising, given that Blunt just happens to be Monsanto’s chief recipient of political funds.
Critics say that the verbiage puts Monsanto and other biotech companies above the federal courts, such that not even the US government can now stop the sale, planting, harvest or distribution of any Genetically Modified seed.
According to a petition circulating on the internet: “This provision is simply an industry ploy to continue to sell genetically engineered seeds even when a court of law has found they were approved by the US department of agriculture illegally. It is unnecessary and an unprecedented attack on US judicial review. Congress should not be meddling with the judicial review process based solely on the special interest of a handful of companies.”