In order for a bill to become law it must be passed by Congress and signed into law by the President. Congress is made up of two bodies - one is called the Senate and the other is called the House of Representatives.

There are two Senators from each State for a total of 100 Senators. There are 435 members of the House of Representatives. Each State has a varying number of House Representatives depending on population. In other words, States with large populations have more Representatives than States with low population. (Note: House Representatives are sometimes referred to as Congressman and Congresswomen. Both Representatives and Senators are members of Congress, but the term Congressman refers to members of the House.)

Legislation (also called a "bill") may be first introduced into either the House or Senate, but identical bills must be passed in both bodies. It is quite common for similar, but not identical, legislation to be separately introduced into the House and Senate. One introduced, the legislation is assigned to a committee to review. If the bill does not make it out of committee, it is unlikely to get passed. So a committee chairman who opposes a bill can be quite an obstacle to overcome. However, if the bill is popular, the committee chairman are usually pressured to move the legislation to the entire body. Some legislation must go through several committees.

It takes a simple majority in both bodies to pass. If legislation passes the House, but not the Senate (or visa versa) the bill dies. If the legislation passes both bodies, but the two bills are worded somewhat differently, then the legislation goes to a "conference committee" made up of several Representatives and several Senators. They work out a single bill that both bodies must each approve.

Once the exact same legislation passes both the Senate and House, it goes to the President for approval. If the President likes the legislation he signs it into law. If he opposes the legislation, he vetoes it. Congress can choose to try and override a Presidential veto, but they need a 2/3rds majority to do so - a rather difficult task.

Once the President signs the bill into law, it is sent to the government agencies responsible for enacting the law. In the case of passing labeling legislation for genetically engineered foods, there are three agencies that may be involved. These are the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These agencies will write what is known as the "Proposed Rules" which are printed in the Federal Register. Consumers and related industries are invited to send comments in regarding Proposed Rules for a period of usually several months. These comments may express either satisfaction or dissatisfaction over the Proposed Rules.

An example of Proposed Rules some of us are aware of were the Proposed Rules that were released several years ago regarding the National Organic Standards Act. The USDA proposed to include genetically engineered and irradiated foods under the definition of organic. Consumers sent in over 280,000 comments objecting to the Proposed Rules and as a result the USDA has said they will no longer consider including genetically engineered or irradiated foods in the definition of organic.

After the Proposed Rules comments are reviewed, the "Final Rules" are published in the Federal Register. This becomes the law. Some Final Rules may take effect right away. But most Final Rules have a period of time before they take effect so that the industries involved have time to comply. This time frame could be anywhere from a few months to several years. For example, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) was passed into law in 1994. Parts of DSHEA have been in effect for years and some parts did not go into effect until March 23, 1999.

In the case of labeling genetically engineered foods, we hope to pass the legislation in the next year or two. The Campaign feels this can be accomplished with enough grassroots consumer action. It may take a couple years after passage before the law takes effect. But as soon as the genetic engineering labeling law passes Congress and is signed by the President, some companies can be expected to begin taking immediate steps to begin labeling. Other companies will probably drag the process out until right before the law finally goes into effect.

There are a couple other significant points worth mentioning:

One is that when a bill gets introduced into the House and Senate, it needs one or more members of Congress to "sponsor" the bill. Other members of Congress can later sign on to the legislation as "co-sponsors." If you get over 218 Representatives to co-sponsor a bill in the House and 50 Senators in the Senate, there is a strong likelihood the legislation will be passed. However, those powerful committee chairman can "sit" on the bill and keep it from moving to the floor of the House or Senate for a vote. It can be forced out of committee, but this is an unusual act that does not happen often.

The other point has to do with the strategy of flooding the Congress with letters encouraging them to support legislation to label genetically engineered foods. Since letters are generally responded to, if Senators and Representatives start receiving huge numbers of letters from an organized campaign, they will often sign on to the legislation as a co-sponsor. They sometimes do this simply to turn off the flood of letters coming into their offices. They know that as soon as they "go public" with their support of the legislation, the amount of incoming letters will be greatly reduced and they can avoid the inconvenience of responding to hundreds and even thousands of letters.

You have probably heard the saying that "the squeaky wheel gets the grease." If we want to get legislation to label genetically engineered foods passed into law, we need to become "squeaky wheels" and flood our Congress and President Bush with letters, e-mail, and telephone calls.

The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods can be won if we get thousands of consumers communicating with their elected officials.