Bill > S1158

This bill, concerning liability for genetically engineered food, declares that genetic engineering, which artificially transfers genes between species in ways not possible naturally, is fundamentally different from traditional breeding and could lead to a food supply composed almost entirely of genetically engineered products, raising new and unstudied safety issues like decreased antibiotic effectiveness and harm to untargeted species, with unpredictable long-term effects. The bill proposes to place the burden of ensuring safety on the biotechnology companies that create these products and defines "genetically engineered" as organisms altered at the molecular or cellular level through non-natural means, and "genetically engineered food" as items for human consumption containing or produced using such organisms. Crucially, it establishes "strict liability," meaning absolute responsibility for damages, for any person who genetically engineers organisms for food, holding them liable for harm to human health, the environment, or for "crop contamination" (the transfer of genetic material to non-genetically engineered crops), unless the harm resulted from another person violating agreed-upon safety precautions.