Oregon Pre-emption Repeal Fails

On April 14, the Oregon Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources Committee failed to advance a bill (SB 1037) which would have allowed local governments and counties to create their own regulations or bans on genetically engineered (GE) crops. In other words, the bill would have repealed Oregon’s local pre-emption law that was enacted several years ago.

The Committee found that local labeling requirements would be overly burdensome for seed companies, and difficult to enforce due to the complexity of the seed industry.

An identical bill in the House, HB 2469, will not advance either.