Fwd: The Campaign Activities Update

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Thu, 27 Mar 2003 05:35:52 -0800

News Update from The Campaign

The Campaign Activities Update

 

News Update From The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods

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Dear News Update Subscribers,

 

This News Update will provide information about the some of the current

projects and activities of The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered

Foods.

 

CANADIAN WEB SITE

 

The Campaign is developing a Canadian version of our web site to help

the effort to get labeling legislation for genetically engineered foods

passed in Canada. This web site project is being sponsored by the

Canadian Health Food Association (CHFA). We expect to have it up by

April 24 in time for the CHFA Conference and Trade Show held in

Vancouver, British Columbia.

 

NEW ACTION ALERT & COMMUNICATIONS SOFTWARE

 

For several years, The Campaign has been using a service provided by

Capitol Advantage that allows visitors to our web site the ability to

send e-mails to members of Congress and the media. We have also used

this service for our ACTION ALERTS. The service from Capitol Advantage

has been costing us $4,000 a year and it has been limited to members of

the U.S. Congress.

 

In conjunction with our new Canadian web site, we are having a custom

software program written that will allow us to expand our outreach and

action efforts. Naturally the new program will provide visitors with the

ability to e-mail and print out letters to members of the U.S. Congress.

But it will also allow us to program into our database the members of

the legislatures from all 50 states and members of the Canadian

Parliament.

 

We hope to have the new system in place for contacting members of the

U.S. Congress by the middle of April and members of the Canadian

Parliament soon thereafter. Building the database for all legislature

members for each U.S. state will take considerably longer. But

eventually we hope to have it active for all 50 U.S. states, all

Canadian provinces, members of the media in the U.S. and Canada, grocery

store chains, food companies and other important contacts.

 

Although the Capitol Advantage system has been good, owning our own

custom software will allow us far more opportunity to maximize our

outreach efforts on many levels.

 

ALL POLITICS ARE LOCAL POLITICS DRIVE

 

A few months back The Campaign launched our ALL POLITICS ARE LOCAL

POLITICS drive. The Resolution designed for city and county councils has

been available for several months on our web site at:

http://www.thecampaign.org/cities.php

 

We are still working on a labeling bill that can be used for state

legislatures and a labeling initiative that will be able to be used in

states that allow ballot initiatives. We have had some delays on this

project, but hope to have the bill and initiative ready in the next 60

to 90 days.

 

We have been very impressed with the work on the city and state level of

many grassroots activists over the past few months. In particular, there

has been wonderful grassroots legislative activities taking place in Maine,

New Hampshire, Vermont and New Mexico.

 

We encourage activists from these four states and others to post

information about your attempts and successes regarding labeling of

genetically engineered foods on our online forums. There are forums set

up for all 50 states, so please let others know about your activities

through our forums:

http://www.thecampaign.org/forums.php

 

SAVE ORGANIC WHEAT! COALITION

 

Our programmers are still working on the development of the web site

registration system for the SAVE ORGANIC WHEAT! coalition. This is a

very detailed project. All organizations, companies and farmers will

be able to have their complete contact information listed along with a

25 word description. There will be no charge for these listings.

 

Consumers listings will consist of name, city and state. We had hoped to

have the SAVE ORGANIC WHEAT! coalition web site ready to begin accepting

registrations by the end of March. However, it now looks like the end of

April is a more realistic projection on when the SAVE ORGANIC WHEAT! web

site will be ready to begin accepting online registration of organizations,

companies, farmers and consumers who wish to join the coalition. Thanks

for your patience! You can take a sneak preview of the web site at:

http://www.saveorganicwheat.org

 

DONATIONS NEEDED

 

It is costing us nearly $10,000 to have the software programs custom

written for the SAVE ORGANIC WHEAT! coalition web site and for the new

ACTION ALERT & COMMUNICATIONS system. These are actually bargain prices

since the programmers support what we are doing. However, we do need to

raise more money to pay the bills. So if you are in a position to make a

small or large donation to The Campaign, your donation is welcome and

greatly appreciated. Here is a link to a web page were you can make a

donation on our secured server:

http://www.thecampaign.org/donate.php

 

ACTION ALERTS COMING SOON!

 

On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives Agriculture Committee

held a hearing on the European Union's moratorium on genetically

engineered foods. Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, recommended that

" the U.S. Government should immediately take a case to the WTO (World

Trade Organization) regarding the current EU moratorium. "

 

The Campaign will be issuing an ACTION ALERT on Friday morning targeting

House Speaker Hassart and Agriculture Committee Chairman Representative

Bob Goodlatte. The ACTION ALERT will point out misinformation that was

presented in House Speaker Hassart's testimony before the House

Agriculture Committee and recommend that the U.S. not take a case to the

WTO.

 

Further, we will be issuing an ACTION ALERT next week to the United

States Department of Agriculture (USDA) over their inadequate Proposed

Rules on how to regulate genetically engineered crops that contain

pharmaceutical drugs and industrial chemicals.

 

Thanks again for your support of The Campaign!

http://www.thecampaign.org/donate.php

 

Craig Winters

Executive Director

The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods

 

The Campaign

PO Box 55699

Seattle, WA 98155

Tel: 425-771-4049

Fax: 603-825-5841

E-mail: label

Web Site: http://www.thecampaign.org

 

Mission Statement: " To create a national grassroots consumer campaign

for the purpose of lobbying Congress and the President to pass

legislation that will require the labeling of genetically engineered

foods in the United States. "

 

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