And the Senator who anonymously inserted the 'Monsanto Protection Act' into the spending bill is...

[drokhole]

Roy Blunt (R-Mo.)

And it looks like he had some help from his buddies at the old benevolent bio-tech giant:

Sen. Roy Blunt: Monsanto's Man in Washington
by Tom Philpott

A recent Senate bill came with a nice bonus for the GMO industry: a rider, wholly unrelated to the underlying bill, that compels the USDA to ignore federal court decisions that block the agency’s approvals of new GM crops. Such a provision is (very) important to Monsanto and its few peers in the GMO seed industry.

Which senator pushed the rider into the bill? No one stepped forward to claim credit. But since then, Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) has revealed to Politico that he’s the responsible party. Blunt even told reporter David Rogers that he “worked with” Monsanto to craft the rider. The admission shines a light on Blunt’s ties to Monsanto, whose office is located in the senator’s home state. According to OpenSecrets, Monsanto first started contributing to Blunt back in 2008, when it handed him $10,000. At that point, Blunt was serving in the House of Representatives. In 2010, when Blunt successfully ran for the Senate, Monsanto upped its contribution to $44,250. And in 2012, the GMO seed/pesticide giant enriched Blunt's campaign war chest by $64,250.

(snip)

Blunt’s connections to lobbyists extend to his family. His wife, Abigail Blunt, serves as head of US government affairs for the processed food giant Kraft. In 2012, the Hill placed Abigail Blunt on annual its list of "top lobbyists." That same year, Kraft joined Monsanto in shoveling cash into the effort to defeat California's Proposition 37, which would have required the labeling of GMO ingredients in food. Monsanto led donors in the effort with more than $8 million; Kraft chipped in nearly $2 million.

(snip)

And Blunt's son Andy Matt, now the US auto industry's top lobbyist, served as governor of Missouri in the mid-aughts. During his tenure there, Gov. Blunt earned the praise of the state's powerful biotech industry, which is anchored by St. Louis-based Monsanto. He was honored with an "Award for Leadership Excellence" by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), an industry group led by Monsanto and its peers.

(more at the link)

It's also worth mentioning that Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mon.) tried to have this rider (along with another one friendly to large meatpacking corporations) struck from the bill, but the committee's chair Barbara Mikulski, a fellow Democrat, would not even bring his amendment to vote. Of course, if some on here are to be believed, we've all been duped and any 'outrage' over this shady act and the process by which it passed plays into a Republican ploy to split up the Democratic party.

[Berlum]

1. Republicans Against the American People. As ususal.

Why do Republicans hate Americans?

[magellan]

2. If every corporate shill in DC suddenly vanished

...how many politicians would be left? I bet we could count them on one hand.

[onenote]

3. Tester's amendment was one of over 90 (out of around 100) proposed amendments that didn't get a vote

The decision wasn't Mikulski's. It was a decision made as part of a time management agreement between Reid and McConnell -- a common practice used to prevent a bill from being delayed by endless amendments and debates over amendments. Typically, an amount of time and a number of amendments is agreed upon. The two sides then put forward the amendments that they want voted upon. The party in the minority typically has a bunch of amendments that they know wont get passed, so they pick the ones that they want to bring up for political purposes. The majority has the ability to pass amendments, so they focus on bringing up the amendments that they are confident can be passed. If Tester's amendment (which had six co-sponsors) didn't get a vote, it likely reflects the fact that Tester and his co-sponsors were unable to persuade Reid that out of the 50 or so Democratic amendments submitted for consideration, it was one that was so certain to pass that it should be brought up for a vote.

It is also noteworthy that when the legislation came to vote, the other six co-sponsors of the Tester amendment went ahead and voted for passage even though the Monsanto provision was in the bill.

I point this out not because I think the Monsanto provision is a good thing. To the contrary, I think its a very lousy thing. But there is a lot of confusion surrounding the process by which this provision actuallyended up in the law and in order to be more effective in the future, we need to better understand that process.

[Scuba]

4. ...

[Delphinus]

7. That's rather cheap.

I would have thought he could sell his soul for a lot more than a measly half-million dollars.

[HiPointDem]

5. kr.

[littlewolf]

6. I have felt that if Monsanto felt they needed protection

from lawsuits then they know they are doing something wrong!

[Rex]

8. Those idiot bloggers and their conspiracy theories

are more embarrassing then the CS they proclaim to be against. Just a bunch of crybabies imo. Someone call them a wambulance their 5 seconds of fame is up.