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Us wto against eu genetically modified food { May 12 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46685-2003May12.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46685-2003May12.html
Sources: U.S. to Bring Case Against EU
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
The Associated Press
Monday, May 12, 2003; 7:10 PM
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has decided to bring a trade case against the European Union over Europe's ban on imports of genetically modified food, congressional officials say.
These sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman plan to brief key members of the House and Senate Tuesday to explain the administration's case.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and other Republican and Democratic lawmakers from the House and the Senate were expected to attend the briefing.
"We have been told to expect good news on behalf of American agriculture," said Pete Jeffries, a spokesman for Hastert.
Hastert has been leading an effort to get a WTO case filed for a number of years, arguing that American farmers were losing millions of dollars in lost export sales.
European authorities imposed a moratorium on imports of genetically modified foods in 1998, responding to fears of European consumers about possible health risks.
In March, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Max Baucus, the ranking Democrat on the Finance panel, took Zoellick to task for the administration's delay in filing a WTO case.
Hayden Milberg, a lobbyist for the National Corn Growers Association, said farm groups had enjoyed strong support in Congress in their efforts to lobby the administration to bring a WTO case.
"Corn growers are very pleased that the case will move forward," he said.
Gregory Conko, director of food safety for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said the biggest significance in a successful U.S. case would be in helping make sure that developing nations have access to genetically modified crops that have been proven effective in boosting crop yields.
He said numerous developing countries had resisted adopting high-yielding biotech crops for fear of losing important European markets.
The EU ban "poses a genuine threat to the health and well-being of people throughout the developing world," Conko said.
The administration had delayed filing a WTO case in February, when President Bush was trying to assemble as much support as possible for a war against Iraq.
Grassley said the EU's four-year ban on generally modified food was costing U.S. farmers $300 million annually in lost sales and hurting U.S. companies that had devoted significant resources to develop genetically modified crops.
These crops are used extensively in the United State to allow farmers to grow more disease resistant products such as corn and soybeans.
Zoellick himself had called the EU ban "immoral" back in January, saying that European countries had started to pressure other countries not to accept genetically modified foods, including African nations suffering with famines.
The administration contends that there is no scientific evidence that the crops pose any health risks.
Farm products that have been genetically modified to make them more resistant to insects or disease have been grown commercially in the United States for years. The amount of U.S. soybean production that has been genetically modified reached 68 percent in 2001; about 30 percent of the U.S. corn crop is genetically modified.
A U.S. case against the EU on genetically modified foods would add to a growing list of trade frictions between the United States and Europe.
The WTO ruled U.S. tax benefits for corporations that have been ruled illegal; European officials said last week that if Congress does not make progress in getting rid of the law, it would impose penalty tariffs on up to $4 billion in U.S. exports to Europe.
© 2003 The Associated Press
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