DAVID VERSUS GOLIATH - Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America - page 152

While a proponent of new technologies, Gore argued that the government needed to become involved in
regulation before damage was done to the environment, rather than waiting until after it occurred. He ad-
vocated for legislation that would establish new regulations for the industry and protect the public interest.
Michael Hansen, who represented CU at the Biotech Working Group and was an early opponent of genetic
engineering, says that Gore really knew the issue and was sincere in his concern.
The emerging regulatory framework enshrined the idea that biotech products are the same as those pro-
duced conventionally, with no unique or special properties or risks. Because no new legislation was passed
to regulate the industry, three agencies would primarily be in charge: the FDA, the EPA, and the USDA.
They could apply existing statutes to biotechnology products—a radical idea when compared to the much
more protective regulatory framework of the European Union, Japan, Australia, and a host of other coun-
tries.
Monsanto was nervous about the growing opposition and the push for regulation. Four executives from
the company visited with Vice President George Bush toward the end of 1986. According to a 2001 invest-
igative piece in the New York Times :
[T]he White House complied, working behind the scenes to help Monsanto—long a political power with deep
connections in Washington—get the regulations that it wanted. It was an outcome that would be repeated, again
and again. . . . What Monsanto wished for from Washington, Monsanto—and, by extension, the biotechnology
industry—got. . . . And, when the company abruptly decided that it needed to throw off the regulations and
speed its foods to market, the White House quickly ushered through an unusually generous policy of self-poli-
cing. 14
One of Monsanto's hallmarks is the ability to influence regulatory policies even as the faces of the exec-
utive branch change. After George H.W. Bush became president, the push for lenient regulation of biotech-
nology gained momentum. In February 1991, the White House Council on Competitiveness, part of Bush's
regulatory relief program and headed by Vice President Dan Quayle, issued recommendations opposing
efforts in Congress to more strictly regulate biotechnology. It also recommended extending patent protec-
tions for genetically engineered cells and advocated for a shift in federal financing of biotechnology to-
ward applications in agriculture and energy. Quayle announced the new policy in the Old Executive Office
Building, saying, “We will ensure that biotech products will receive the same oversight as other products,
instead of being hampered by unnecessary regulations.”
In July 1991 the revolving door turned again when the Bush administration brought Michael Taylor, the
King & Spalding strategist, back to the FDA to the specially created position of deputy commissioner for
policy.
With Taylor back at the FDA shepherding the process, in March 1992 the Bush administration took the
recommendation from the Council on Competitiveness and streamlined the process for approving biotech
products. The FDA issued the Biotechnology Policy, which clarified the “agency's interpretation” of feder-
al law regarding genetically engineered food. It was official: foods derived by bioengineering did not differ
from other foods.
MIT's journal The Tech gushed about the lenient new policy, saying that it was likely to stimulate the
growth of the industry to genetically alter plant and agricultural products and as a result “companies might
license more MIT patents.” Bush proclaimed, “This $4 billion industry should grow to $50 billion by the
end of the decade.” 15
But Monsanto still had not gotten everything that it needed to reap the economic benefits the company
craved from biotechnology. It had been working for several years on the artificial growth hormone, re-
combinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), that increases milk production. In 1981, despite an ongoing
controversy, the company submitted preliminary materials for FDA approval. Three years later, in an effort