Re: Urgent need to talk and for you to act with the WH

From:GHIRSHBERG@Stonyfield.com To: john.podesta@gmail.com CC: jsullivan@hillaryclinton.com Date: 2016-03-14 00:24 Subject: Re: Urgent need to talk and for you to act with the WH

John, I just hung up the phone with Debbie Stabenow who agrees completely with my analysis. You may want to speak to her as well, but I think it would serve our candidate for you and me to have a conversation about this asap for there are several complex factors that will be more easily explained by phone. Can we talk first thing (I am on the west coast) tomorrow morning? If not, and for now, I will try to summarize here: * The reasons that Debbie needs to keep trying to advance a compromise to Roberts are (a) his bill contains some real conflicts with the Organic Food Production Act and current National Organic Program that would cause serious disruption, and (b) farm state Democrats like Donnelly, Bennet, Warner Klobuchar, Heitkamp and of course Coons and Carper and others are under enormous pressure from conventional Ag interests to come up with some kind of acceptable solution that pre-empts Vermont's and other states' laws from taking effect and if Debbie withdraws from the compromise negotiations, she fears that other Dems who are less savvy about some of the issues here will end up negotiating a worse agreement than she would be able to get. Therefore, she has no choice but to keep pushing for something that is less damaging than Roberts but which will still fall short of a real path to mandatory labeling. Gary's Truth-o-meter note: the main reason these Democrat and Republican Senators are so eager to pre-empt Vermont is that they have been persuaded that the food industry cannot be subject to a "patchwork quilt" of 50 different state labeling laws. This is a scare tactic that has no basis in fact because the state labeling advocates have now ensured that every one of the states likely to pass labeling this year (MA, RI, NY and others) are using identical bills as VT's. So there is zero chance of a patchwork quilt but that of course does not stop the opposing lobbyists from repeating this ad nauseum. * The reasons that Tom is so passionate about getting a compromise worked out is that he has become convinced that allowing VT's law to take effect must be avoided because the AG commodity community has spooked him that mandatory labeling will cause an avalanche of consumers seeking to find non-gmo alternatives and we will have resultant supply shortages and price inflation. He points to USDA reports that sugar cane supplies are not keeping up and calls this the tip of the iceberg. Gary's Truth-o-meter note: the main reason that sugar cane may not be keeping up with demand is because companies are moving away from high fructose corn syrup and this has nothing to do with GMO's. Moreover, actual experience in countries like Brazil is that labeling does not stimulate any sort of radical changes in consumer behavior, ie there will be no run to find non-gmo supplies and a comprehensive 5-year study of consumers released last year shows definitively that consumers do not see disclosures as warning symbols and labels will not change most consumers' behavior. Conclusion: Unfortunately, I cannot persuade Tom on this point, despite the ample evidence to the contrary so there is no doubt that he will recommend that the President sign even a bad bill if it gets to his desk. And equally unfortunately, Debbie is caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to saving the organic standards and also holding her caucus together, so I do understand why she needs to keep trying to lead the effort to find a compromise solution, even while she agrees that the passage of such a bill could unfortunately give Bernie a major PR, fundraising and political opportunity. Proposed Solution: If I am right about all of this, then there are really only two ways for us to avoid delivering Bernie a giant opportunity to call for a national rally of 100,000 angry citizens in DC and dominate the media with this example of all that is wrong and impotent with the Obama/Clinton approach. And both solutions are needed. These are: A) Immediately upon the introduction of the Roberts bill tomorrow night or sometime shortly after that, Hillary should pre-empt Bernie by coming out very strongly against the bill and in favor of mandatory GMO labeling because consumers, and particularly mothers absolutely have the right to know. I know this will pit her in opposition to Tom, but her failure to do this, or to allow Bernie to do it first, will only feed his narrative and demonstrate that she is a hostage to big food and chemical companies (Ask her yourself, but you will see that Debbie agrees with me on this), and B) President Obama should break with his Ag Secretary and communicate asap to the Senate that he will veto any bill that does not contain a mandatory on-package labeling provision. This would have the effect of giving farm state Democrats the courage to not cave in to Roberts or the compromise and would also serve to prevent Bernie from claiming the high ground and trying to paint HRC into a corner. Again, I am happy to talk in the am if you want. I urge you to take this very seriously because I am certain I am right about Bernie and his followers, and we simply must avoid handing him this plum. Gary Hirshberg Chairman, Stonyfield Farm Chairman, Just Label It Has Vilsack signed off on this? On Sunday, March 13, 2016, Gary HIRSHBERG <GHIRSHBERG@stonyfield.com> wrote: John, the Roberts bill will be introduced on Monday night and it is now highly likely that a very bad "compromise" version will pass the senate this week and be approved by the House and on its way to the White House within a very short period. I can promise you that if President Obama signs this terrible legislation that blatantly validates Bernie's entire campaign message about Wall Street running our government, this will give Bernie a huge boost and 10,000 -20,000 outraged citizens ( who WILL turn up because they will be so angry at the President for preemption vt) will be marching on the Mall with Bernie as their keynote speaker. In short, I feel certain that Obama (who famously promised on camera to implement mandatory GMO labeling) signing this bill will result in adding at least another month or more of money and attention to the Sanders campaign. To avoid this, this bill can still be stopped if the WH and Clinton campaign come down now on the 12-14 farm state dems who Roberts will need to pass this compromise. I am on a plane until 6:30 pm EST but can talk after that. I am also passing the same message to David Simas. It will be terrible to hand Sanders this advantage at such a fragile time when we really need to save our $$$ for the Trump fight. We should discuss with your team immediately. Gh Sent from my iPhone