The AP article provides no detail other than this: Monsanto spent $2.18 million in the second quarter and $2.56 million in the first quarter. The issues: antitrust and patent law.
Monsanto is a global player in the genetically modified foods arena. Just last week, a Monsanto variety banned in Europe was found growing in an Irish-government test plot.
According to a press release … routine tests by DAFF discovered that the Pioneer Hi-Bred maize is contaminated by Monsanto’s patented GM “event” NK603. The genetic modification forces the crop to survive heavy spraying with glyphosate, part of the cocktail of toxic chemicals contained in Monsanto’s controversial Roundup herbicide. Cultivation of this GM maize is illegal the EU, although importation is allowed for animal feed and human food.
Genetically modified canola has been found in the wild alongside the road in North Dakota, despite claims by Monsanto and Bayer that they don’t “compete well” in the wild.
And contrary to President Obama’s early promises to close the revolving door, his FDA deputy commissioner for foods is Monsanto’s former chief lobbyist. For example:
In November 2007, Obama boasted at a campaign event that lobbyists “won’t find a job in my White House.” He later softened that rhetoric to say that lobbyists “won’t dominate” the White House.
During the campaign, on the Obama-Biden change.gov website, the ethics agenda page quoted candidate Obama as saying: “I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists—and won. They have not funded my campaign, they will not run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president.”
Reality check: Monsanto would not be spending millions to lobby the federal government if it thought it was pouring the money down a black hole.
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com