Hetch Hetchy Reservoir occupies Hetch Hetchy Valley behind O'Shaughnessy Dam. (Photo: Andrew Alden)

Voters in San Francisco say they are not ready to consider draining the city’s Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park, for environmental restoration. The idea was rejected last night by more than a three-to-one margin.

Authors of Measure F stressed that a “yes” vote was to order a study of the future of Hetch Hetchy, not a vote to drain it. But San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee opposed it right away.

“I called it stupid,” the Mayor recalled. “I still think it is.”

Senator Dianne Feinstein and business groups also joined the opposition. But supporters say their goal was just to open the debate.

“I do think the voters are open to our message,” said Mike Marshall, director of Restore Hetch Hetchy, the group that put the measure on the ballot. “We’re very excited by the results and that sounds awkward given that we’ve lost but in fact it’s really, really true.” Measure F was defeated 77-23 percent.

In a morning-after statement, the “Yes” campaign called the outcome “a beginning, not an end.” Marshall says they’re looking at other ways to build support for draining the reservoir and restoring the valley, which naturalists and historians say once rivaled Yosemite Valley in its grandeur.

Through the studio glass: Michael Krasny hosts KQED's daily call-in show "Forum."

Here at KQED, we take elections pretty seriously. It’s a time when our mission of educating the public comes to a head — the messages coming from the campaigns are unrelenting and taken as a whole can present a confusing picture. So helping you cast an informed vote is our aim.

That was the philosophy behind our state proposition guide. Some people, however, prefer listening to reading. For those folks we present a complete archive of Forum’s 2012 state proposition shows. Some are an hour long, some are half an hour, but all present views from both sides and include community input we received via calls, emails, Facebook and Twitter. So sit back, turn up your speakers, and take a listen…

Prop. 30: Gov. Brown’s Tax Increase for Education, Public Safety

Prop. 31: Revises the State Budget Process

Prop. 32: Campaign Finance Reform or an Attack on Unions?

Prop. 33: Changes to Auto Insurance

Prop. 34: The Death Penalty in California

Prop. 35: Ban on Human Trafficking and Sex Slavery

Prop. 36: Should Three Strikes Be Changed?

Prop. 37: The Fight Over GMO Labeling

Prop. 38: Molly Munger’s Tax Initiative for Education

Prop 39: How We Tax Multi-State Businesses

Please note: Forum did not produce a show on Proposition 40. You can find more information on that here.

GMO soybeans. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

At issue are a single quotation mark – either a typo or a fabrication, depending on whom you ask – and the questionable use of a federal logo.

The mailer that No On 37 sent out highlights five anti-Prop 37 quotes, including one each from the California Farm Bureau Federation and the U.S. Latino Chamber of Commerce. Alongside each quote is the group’s logo.

But one of the quoted organizations, the Food and Drug Administration, cannot, by law, endorse state ballot items. And according to FDA policy, its logo “is for the official use of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and not for the use of the private sector on its materials… Misuse of the FDA logo may violate federal law and subject those responsible to criminal penalties.” In Thursday’s email blast, the Yes On 37 campaign called the mailer another “dirty trick” by the No side. “The No on 37 campaign falsely attributed a direct quote to FDA in the campaign mailer,” wrote Stacy Malkan on the group’s blog.

But where, exactly, is the direct quote? Readers, dust off your grammar books. Here’s the sentence in question from the No on 37 mailer:

“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says a labeling policy like Prop 37 would be “inherently misleading.”

You’ll note the opening quotation mark, but not one that closes the sentence. And you’ll also note that the inside quotation marks surrounding the words “inherently misleading” should be single, not double, because it’s a quote-within-a-quote. So what we have here is a grammatical double no-no, at the very least, and an error that’s “clearly fraudulent” at the very most. The latter characterization is the one that was sent in a letter to the Department of Justice by the Yes campaign.

“It’s a typo.” That’s No-on-37 spokeswoman Kathy Fairbanks speaking in a phone interview on Thursday.

Fairbanks said the error appeared on only one of four regional versions of the mailer. This particular version, she said, reached “tens of thousands” of California households. By email, Fairbanks forwarded another version without the opening quotation mark.

“If the Yes On 37 folks want to move forward with a criminal investigation on an errant typo, then that shows their campaign is devolving into chaos,” said Fairbanks.

But to Tom Fendley, with the Yes campaign, there’s nothing innocent about the error. Fendley says the mailer, including the use of the FDA logo, was designed to suggest that the FDA has taken a position against Prop 37.

“It’s just the latest in a series, as part of their $36-million disinformation campaign,” said Fendley.

As for the FDA logo, Fairbanks maintains there’s nothing untoward or illegal about her campaign’s use of it. “That is not what our attorney told me,” she said. Federal statute, if not the FDA site, she said, permits such use as long as the logo has not been “forged, counterfeited, or mutilated.”

FDA spokeswoman Sandy Walsh said she’d ask the agency’s lawyers to look into it. Stay tuned.

Most of the corn in the U.S. is grown from genetically engineered seeds. (fishhawk: Flickr)

One California proposition that is getting nationwide attention is Proposition 37. It requires labeling on raw or processed food that’s made from certain genetically engineered materials. It also prohibits calling any foods “natural” on the packaging — if those foods are made with genetically modified organisms (GMO). Supporters say consumers have a right to this information. Opponents say the measure is misleading and full of loopholes.

The California Report’s Scott Shafer talked with science reporter Amy Standen on Thursday about Prop. 37. Here’s an edited transcript of their discussion:

SCOTT SHAFER: Let’s begin with a background question. How are genetically modified foods used right now; how prevalent are they?

AMY STANDEN: Very prevalent. In fact, pretty much everything you’ll find in the middle of the supermarket — everything from sodas to crackers to cereals to cookies — almost all of those foods contain genetically modified ingredients. That’s because most of the corn, soy and a lot of the rice grown in the U.S. is grown from genetically modified seeds.

SHAFER: And what does that mean? How are they engineered and why?

STANDEN: Most of them have been genetically engineered to make them more resistant to pathogens of one sort or another — or to make them work well with certain kinds of herbicides that are already on the market.

SHAFER: So if Prop. 37 passes, would these labels be required on a lot of what we buy?

STANDEN: A lot of things, and that’s the main argument that you hear from the “No on 37″ camp — which is that unless manufacturers start buying from farmers who aren’t using these seeds, they are going to have start labeling pretty much everything that’s out there.

SHAFER: And so what’s the main argument on behalf of Prop. 37? Is it a right-to-know issue?

STANDEN: Yes, that’s the line you hear over and over again. The “Yes on 37″ side says GMO labeling is mandatory in Europe. It has been since 2003, and a lot of people in that camp are not convinced that genetically modified food is safe to eat or that there’s been enough research on it. They also say that the FDA doesn’t regulate this technology enough.

SHAFER: There have been a lot of ads on both sides on television. Here’s one “Yes on 37″ ad:

Clearly in that advertisement, for “Yes on 37,” there’s a sort of fear of the unknown. Is there a basis for that?

STANDEN: It is very hard to say as a blanket statement whether or not these products are safe or not. Of course it’s worth noting that we Americans have been eating massive amounts of these products for decades. The scientific studies that we’ve seen done on these products tend to be on mice, they’re very short term, they’re very small, there’s been very little there that’s been conclusive. It’s hard to extrapolate human health implications from a mouse study

SHAFER: So one of the “Yes on 37″ ads links genetically modified foods to tumors. Is that one of those studies you’re talking about?

STANDEN: That’s one of those studies, and actually that highlights a big problem with this argument in general, which is, it’s very hard to find science that didn’t come from a side of this camp with a vested interest in a certain outcome. In that case, it was a well-known advocate or activist against genetically modified products. I mean, the point that people should keep in mind here is that genetic engineering isn’t an ingredient. It’s not like saturated fat or MSG. It’s a technology.

SHAFER: Well, if you look at the campaign financing for this ballot measure, opponents of Prop. 37 have vastly outraised proponents like nine-to-one, and some very well-known food companies like Kraft and Heinz have given big bucks, along with biotech and chemical companies like Dow, Monsanto and DuPont. So what’s at stake for them?

STANDEN: Their fear is that this is going to create a bias in the marketplace, and that they’ll be scrambling for new suppliers, and it’ll disrupt the market.

SHAFER: Of course what happens here in California could go east.

STANDEN: California is such a big market, but it’s just not worth it for manufacturers to produce two lines of products. So, very likely if you see the labeling here and Prop. 37 passes, this will become a national standard.

SHAFER: There have been several ads for No on 37, such as this one:

SHAFER: One other part of this that opponents are complaining about is that it would allow consumers to sue companies that don’t fully comply with these regulations, which of course would be a boon for lawyers.

STANDEN: Yes, and that’s a common complaint because under Proposition 37, plaintiffs don’t have to prove damages, and that makes a lot of sense if you think about it. I mean, really how would you prove that you have been damaged by a box of unlabeled GMO Triscuits, right? On the other hand, the opponents of this proposition really fear that we would see these lawsuits clogging up the courts, and you would see small grocery store owners spending a lot of time and money defending themselves.

Listen to Scott Shafer’s interview with Amy Standen

Here’s the audio, below. You can read the text version here.

KQED Public Radio’s Forum program ran a debate last week on Proposition 37, which requires the labeling of foods containing genetically modified ingredients. It was a spirited discussion, and we thought one exchange, in particular, deserved a bit more digging.

GMO soybeans. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

It began with Bob Goldberg, UCLA professor and author of one of the ballot arguments opposed to Prop. 37, calling it a “Trojan horse.”

“Prop. 37 is not a simple labeling proposition. It’s a Trojan Horse, and the reason it’s a Trojan Horse is it has a threshold requirement that the grocery stores are not going to be able to have anything that has more than .5 percent genetically engineered ingredients or derivatives from genetically engineered crops. That threshold goes to zero percent in a few years.”

After looking over Prop 37 in the KQED Proposition Guide, we weren’t so sure that was accurate and decided to investigate.

Let’s break the issue down into two parts.

1) Would Prop. 37 keep foods with GM ingredients out of stores?

Over the weekend, the Sacramento Bee’s “Ad Watch” dinged the No-on-37 camp for saying that Prop 37 “would ban thousands of common food products in California unless they are specially relabeled to meet complex new requirements and restrictions that would only exist in our state.”

The Bee says, “but those foods could still be sold – without the labels – if the manufacturers go organic or use ingredients that are not genetically engineered.”

Yes on 37, naturally, agrees. “Prop 37 is a label, not a ban,” says Stacy Malkan. Grocery stores can sell anything they want with genetically engineered ingredients, it would just have to be labeled.”

So, in short: Prop 37 doesn’t ban products with GE ingredients; it requires labels on them.

2) What about this “.5 % threshold?”  How would it affect processed food makers like General Mills, who buy raw ingredients from farmers across the country?

The section of the proposition relating to the threshold is actually a temporary exemption to the labeling requirement. It reads:

The requirements of Section 110809 [the labeling requirement] shall not apply to any of the following…

Until July 1, 2019, any processed food that would be subject to Section 110809 solely because it includes one or more genetically engineered ingredients, provided that: (1) no single such ingredient accounts for more than one-half of one percent of the total weight of such processed food…

So the claim that  “grocery stores are not going to be able to have anything that has more than .5 percent genetically engineered ingredients or derivatives from genetically engineered crops” is not something that is stipulated in the text of the initiative.

“The Prop includes a percentage (.5%) until 2019 to give companies time to find alternatives (if they so choose) for GE micro-ingredients that don’t have easy substitutes. But after 2019, they have to label if they are intentionally using GE ingredients,” says Malkan.

We’ve left Bob Goldberg, the Prop 37 opponent, phone and email messages inviting him to respond, and we’ll update this post if and when we hear back from him.

(Update 2:35 p.m.) Kathy Fairbanks, spokesperson for No on Prop 37, says that Bob Goldberg “misspoke” in saying that under the initiative “grocery stores are not going to be able to have anything that has more than .5 percent genetically engineered ingredients or derivatives from genetically engineered crops.”

She amended the statement by saying, “It’s a ban unless the products are repackaged, relabeled, or remade with non-GE ingredients.” (Emphasis ours).

(Update Oct 8) Bob Goldberg has gotten back to us and replies with the following:

You are correct, Prop 37 requires a label. It’s not a ban. However, it’s “guilt by association.” The label implies that foods containing an ingredient derived from a genetically engineered crop MIGHT be a cause for concern. In fact, foods derived from genetically engineered crops are the most thoroughly tested in the 10,000 years of agriculture, and have been been shown to be completely safe for human and animal consumption.

A Bonzanza of “Shakedown Suits?”

Both Stacy Malkan and Rebecca Specter, from the Center for Food Safety, also note there is no testing requirement under Prop. 37. In other words, manufacturers won’t be required to test their ingredients to make sure that they’re completely GMO-free. Instead, Malkan describes something like an honor system between suppliers and manufacturers.

“If the food manufacturer [has] a sworn statement from their supplier saying the crops are not genetically engineered and are not mixed with genetically engineered crops, then they don’t have to label.

But what about the notion of intentionality? What if the suppliers are wrong? If some tiny trace of GM product makes it into an unlabeled processed food, who’s liable?

This gets to one of the rallying points for the No On 37 camp: That the proposition amounts to a bonanza for lawyers. They envision a cottage industry of lab-coated bounty-hunters who submit every box of crackers to testing in search of unlabeled GMOs.

“Perhaps the main problem with Prop. 37 is that it invites citizen lawsuits as a primary means of enforcing the labeling law,” reads a San Francisco Chronicle editorial.

Strictly speaking, says Malkan, that Chron statement is correct. “Citizen lawsuits are the enforcement mechanism for Prop 37, in order to reduce costs and [the] burden to the state.”

But, she says, it’s hard to imagine an epidemic of “shakedown suits” because there’s no money to be made from them.

“The only result of a court case would be an order to label, and possibly a reimbursement of cost (such as the $3.50 or whatever somebody paid for the product in question).”

(Update Oct 8)

$3.50 or $3.50 x 1,000? The “No” camp responds

A closer look at the text of the Proposition 37 ballot measure suggests monetary penalties for food retailers could climb much higher.

Any citizen who believes that a grocer is “intentionally” avoiding labeling can file suit against the grocer for the “retail price of each package or product alleged to be in violation.”

So, says Kathy Fairbanks, with No On Prop. 37. “[Someone] can make that allegation and then they can sue for damages… So for whatever the price of a box of cereal is, times 5,000-10,000… That’s a lot of money.”

Facing potential damages like that, Fairbanks says, most grocers won’t ever make their case in front of a judge, as “It becomes immediately cheaper to settle out of court.”

For his part, Bob Goldberg points to a plethora of newspaper editorials, like those from the San Francisco Chronicle, the LA Times, and the San Jose Mercury News, which call Proposition 37’s enforcement provisions problematic.

Meanwhile, in other Prop 37 news, the LA Times reported Thursday that the No on 37 campaign temporarily yanked a TV ad this week because it identified an on-screen academic as affiliated with Stanford University, against university policy…

Lawyers for the Proposition 37 campaign complained to Stanford’s general counsel, noting that the Stanford ID on the screen appeared to violate the university’s policy against use of the Stanford name by consultants.

What’s more, Miller is not a Stanford professor but, rather, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank housed on the Stanford campus, the letter said.

Stanford agreed. The university, spokeswoman Lisa Lapin said, “doesn’t take any positions on candidates or ballot measures, and we do not allow political filming on campus.” The filmmakers also are removing “the campus from the background of the video,” she said.

The ad was taken down and is being edited to identify Miller as a “fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University,” said No on 37 spokeswoman Kathy Fairbanks. It is expected to go back on the air Thursday. Full article

GMO soybeans. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

On election day, voters will decide on the so-called “Right to Know” Proposition 37. The measure would require labeling of genetically altered raw or processed foods known as genetically modified organisms or GMOs. Prop. 37 would make California the first state in the country to require labels on a host of food products found in grocery stores.

KQED’S Forum last week hosted a debate about Proposition 37 that has drawn a lot of interest online. So we’ve transcribed the first half of the show, which included a debate between two scientists, one for and one against the measure. Listen to the show here, or read the transcript after the audio player.

Edited transcript:

Host Michael Krasny: Stacy Malkan is a spokesperson for Yes on 37. She is co-founder of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and author of “Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry.” Greg Palla is the executive vice president and general manager of the San Joaquin Valley Quality Cotton Growers Association. He’s  member of a farming family that’s been in operation now for a century, in business here in California. Generally, we make a practice of beginning with the “pro” side. Why do we need this, Stacy Malkan?

Yes on 37′s Stacy Malkin: What we are seeing here in California is a true people’s movement for our right to know what’s in the food we are eating and feeding our families. We had almost a million people sign petitions in the state to get Proposition 37 on the ballot — thousands of volunteers across the state, many of them moms and grandmothers, people who are not typically out on the streets petitioning for political issues, but saying, “We have a right to know what’s in our food. We are eating this food. We get to decide.” And that’s why we have the largest health, consumer, environmental and labor groups on our side saying, “Yes on 37.” This is truly about the people of California versus the largest pesticide and junk food companies in the world that don’t want us to know about the genetic engineering of our food system.

Michael Krasny: Yet, all those foods that are on the grocery shelves — perhaps 80 percent in California and across the country — are genetically modified or have genetic modification. The FDA has approved of many of most of them.

Stacy Malkin: The FDA hasn’t required any safety studies. The FDA policy was written by a former Monsanto lawyer. It’s out of step with world scientific opinion, the World Health Organization, United Nations, the American Medical Association. They are saying we should have mandatory health studies of genetically engineered foods, and that hasn’t happened.

We do see concerns in the science — a recent study just out last week showing very concerning health affects in animals that were fed a lifetime diet of genetically engineered–

Michael Krasny: This is the French study?

Stacy Malkin: Yes. The Séralini study.

Michael Krasny: It’s been pretty much refuted though, in terms of the means that you use—

Stacy Malkin: It’s controversial. There are questions about that study, but there are some very important things about it. First of all, the researchers reported finding very serious health effects in a peer-reviewed study in a well-respected journal.

The second and most shocking thing is that this the first long-term health study — animal study — on genetically engineered foods that have been in the American diet for more than 15 years. So where’s the science?

And Monsanto is out there saying there’s hundreds of studies showing safety, but here’s what’s not being reported about the Séralini study, what reporters are missing, and that is that industry science are running around saying, questioning the design–the study design of the Séralini study–but Monsanto uses the same exact study design. Similar size studies, same type of rats. So which is it? Can the science tell us about the health effects or not? There’s a giant question mark over the safety of genetically engineered foods. And all we’re saying here in California is let’s give the people who are eating and buying the food the right to know and to choose for ourselves.

Michael Krasny: Labeling, from your perspective, is the only way to track the effects of genetically modified products. Greg Palla? Is that the way you see it?

Prop 37 Opponent Greg Palla: No, that’s not the way I see it at all. I think this particular measure is more than just about labeling. It’s about an establishment of an entire system of regulatory excess and bureaucracy, which really doesn’t have any effect directly on the content of the food that we buy. Consumers already realize that biotech crops have been around for almost two decades now, in a safe fashion. No known ill-health effects have been reported. The food supply is safe. The system by which we can deliver those crops to the marketplace is much more sound for the environment than what we used to have, what we replaced it with.

Farmers are concerned that this measure, if passed, will send signals to consumers that would require food processors to go through some hoops that, ultimately, mean farmers would have to go backwards in their environmental–

Michael Krasny: It’s going to be a lot more expensive for farmers and presumably for consumers.

Greg Palla: Unquestionably. Yes.

Michael Krasny: A lot of criticism has come down on the unbalances. Restaurants don’t have to abide by genetically modified labeling — or take-out food, or dairy milk as opposed to soy milk. In other words, there are a lot of exemptions in the proposition.

Greg Palla: Yes. That’s correct. About two-thirds of the foods are exempted. Not exactly sure what the purpose of that would be. But as a farmer, when we’re introducing a crop, we don’t know what the ultimate destination of the crop will be. We don’t know if it’s going to end up in a restaurant or sold in a snack food. And I don’t think farmers are opposed to having consumers learn all about the benefits of biotech crops and their importance in our food system, but we’re very fearful of having to go backwards and lose all the environmental benefits that have been accrued as a result of including genetically engineered crops in our farming systems.

Michael Krasny: I know that farmers — not withstanding the organic farmers — are strongly opposed to labeling. But there’s genetically modified labeling all over the world. What harm can labeling do?

Greg Palla: First of all, this measure affects only California and not the other 49 states. So within the U.S. we would have an entirely different set of rules that would govern food in California. There would be complexity, and that is an issue. A consumer travels across the country, they wouldn’t have the same system. This may spur other states to establish their own labeling systems, which could be altogether different from California’s labeling laws. So all that confusion — that’s something that’s not positive for the consumer. I’d rather see consumers learn more about biotech or genetically engineered systems and recognize the benefits to health and to the environment.

Michael Krasny: Two scientists join us now. They are:

Belinda Martineau. She is a scientist at U.C. Davis who helped commercialize the world’s first genetically engineered food — the Calgene tomato, known as the Flavr Savr — and a supporter of Prop. 37.

… and Bob Goldberg, professor in the Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at UCLA and author of one of the ballot arguments opposed to Prop. 37. (Full disclosure that Professor Goldberg is a childhood friend of mine.)

Michael Krasny: Dr. Martineau, you were quoted recently as saying, “If the labeling referendum passes, the food industry will undoubtedly fight the law in courts.” But you also say this is a good way for the industry to turn public opinion around, to be honest, to be transparent. How so?

UC Davis Scientist, Prop 37 Supporter Belinda Martineau: I was involved in bringing the first genetically engineered food to market with Calgene. It was an extremely transparent process. We even talked about the unintended effects we observed in our genetically engineered plants. It was all made public.

The tomato was labeled at the marketplace. There were stickers. I still have one here at home that says “grown from genetically modified seeds.” There were also point-of-purchase brochures shaped like a tomato that had a 1-800 number so consumers could call and get more information.

So my perspective is that industry got off on a great foot. We were educating the public. We were completely transparent about it, and we were well-received by the public. Here in Davis, the tomatoes flew off the shelves. They had to ration tomatoes. You could only buy two Flavr Savr tomatoes per person, per day.

Since that time, I think the industry made a mistake by not being more transparent. Now the public is more wary of the technology, and the lack of transparency has contributed to that wariness on the public’s part.

Michael Krasny: Bob Goldberg, why not do this for the sake of public trust and transparency?

UCLA Scientist, Prop 37 Opponent Bob Goldberg: I was on the science board of Calgene when the Flavr Savrs were put out and I don’t have any disagreement with anything Belinda is saying. I think transparency and consumers’ right to know is absolutely a positive thing.

However — and there is a big “however” — Prop. 37 is not a simple labeling proposition. It’s a Trojan Horse, and the reason it’s a Trojan Horse is it has a threshold requirement that the grocery stores are not going to be able to have anything that has more than .5 percent genetically engineered ingredients or derivatives from genetically engineered crops. That threshold goes to zero percent in a few years.

So it’s not simply about labeling. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with labeling foods, informing consumers and putting on a label that says, “this might be derived from genetically engineered plants.” I think Belinda is absolutely correct about all of that, but this is a little bit different. This is a proposition — and I’ll be frank about this – that is being pursued by individuals that are ideologically opposed to a wonderful technology that has the ability to transform agriculture as we know it.

Michael Krasny: There are some who say that this technology is poorly managed, what about that argument?

Bob Goldberg: The National Academy of Sciences came out a few years ago with a report with the safety of genetically engineered crops. The report was important because it said genetic engineering is just a technique. And modern genetic engineering — which was invented in the San Francisco area 40 years ago — is really no different from conventional breeding. It’s just more precise and safer.

So, the report said to not focus on the technique, whether it’s conventional or modern genetic engineering — because all crops were genetically engineered in one form or another. The report said we should focus on the outcome and look on a case-by-case basis of whether the foods that are made either conventionally or by genetic engineering are safe by doing proper testing.

By that point of view, there’s not one conventional food on the market that’s ever been tested in any way. On the other hand, the genetically engineered crops that are out there and the foods that are derived from them have been tested for over 15 years and hundreds of studies, and none of them has shown any health effects.

Michael Krasny: Belinda Martineau, do you have any counter arguments?

Belinda Martineau: I agree that these products should be looked at on a case-by-case basis. But that’s not happening in this country right now. The FDA does not require regulation of nearly all these products. And if you haven’t used a plant pest to produce your genetically engineered product, you don’t have to go to the USDA either. If your plant doesn’t contain an insecticide, you don’t have to go to the EPA either. So, the regulatory system is not looking at these products on a case-by-case basis and that’s what needs to be done.

Bob Goldberg: The regulatory system isn’t looking at conventional crops either. So it’s ironic that a genetically engineered crop could go through 15 years of testing, but a conventional crop — that might produce a peanut with a lot more allergens than a normal peanut contains – has absolutely zero regulation. So that was the basis of the National Academy of Science’s report — that we ought to treat these things as techniques and treat each crop on a case-by-case basis and look at the safety of those crops. Genetically engineered crops are the safest that have ever been produced in the history of agriculture. There’s not one conventional crop that’s ever been tested, except by use in people eating the foods and just from an empirical point of view have been shown to be safe.

Michael Krasny: Belinda Martineau, do you agree with that?

Belinda Martineau: No, I don’t. Not all of these products have been looked at for 15 years on a case-by-case basis. And the processes that are used to insert genes into plants right now are highly mutagenic processes. They’re not as safe as traditionally bred crops.

Bob Goldberg: I totally disagree with Belinda, she knows better. She’s used this technique, trying to pass this off as being mutagenic. The fact is that we’re in a genomics revolution. We are discovering genes that have the potential for transforming agriculture in ways that will be very positive. Over the next 50 years, we’re going to have to double the food supply of the world. We’re going to have to produce more food than has ever been produced in the history of mankind, and we need every tool in the toolbox. Modern genetic engineering is very precise and very accurate. The genes that we’re putting in these crops are not mutagens. We know where they’re going; we know what locations in the genomes they’re going into. They’re being tested very precisely, and there’s very little we don’t know about them.

Michael Krasny: Weren’t we domesticating wheat about 10,000 years ago?

Bob Goldberg: It was actually a combination of different wheat species, bringing the DNA from different species together. In fact, all plants have gone through these hybridization processes in order to make the wonderful food that we have today. We spend less than 10 percent of our disposable income on food. The reason for that is over the last 100 years, we’ve been able to increase the yield on crops by about 300-fold, creating a bountiful, inexpensive food supply. But in other parts of the world, that’s not the case. They might spend 50 to 70 percent of their incomes on food. And we need to use every technology — particularly in the developing world in order to bring their agriculture up to the state which we have in our country.

Belinda Martineau: I’m not saying “don’t use the technology.” It’s a very powerful technology, and we may make great progress in agriculture using this technique. But we have to look at it on a case-by-case basis, and that is not happening right now.

We do not know where the gene is going to land in the genome of a plant right now, Bob. You know better than that. We have to look after the plant has been transformed and then see where the gene has landed. We don’t know when we start the process. And it can land in a gene and it can mutate that gene.

Michael Krasny: We started with the pro, we end with the con. Bob Goldberg, what’s your final comment?

Bob Goldberg: It’s a wonderful technology. It’s very safe. Look at the proposition itself and you will see that it is anti-science and anti-agriculture.

Update:

We fact-checked some of the arguments above in a detailed follow-up post.

Learn More:

Are GMO Labels a Scarlet Letter?

And here’s the KQED Guide to California Propositions‘ entry on Prop 37…

Stephen Brashear/Flickr

KQED’s Forum host Michael Krasny held a provocative conversation Tuesday with UC Berkeley economics Professor Enrico Moretti about Moretti’s new book “The New Geography of Jobs.” The Italian-born economist describes the growing chasm between prosperous cities in the United States that are centers of education, innovation and technology – and struggling cities that were once powerhouses of manufacturing but are now losing ground.

In theory, the shift from an industrial economy to one driven by innovation was supposed to make geography matter less. In fact, Moretti says, we are witnessing a “great divergence” where the resource gap between places like San Francisco, Boston and Raleigh on the one hand, and Detroit, Cleveland and St. Louis on the other.

Moretti offers a case in point through the story of a young Silicon Valley engineer, David Breedlove:

The year is 1969 and Breedlove, just like many other professionals at the time, is thinking that urban areas were not good places to raise a family. He has a house, he has a good job in Silicon Valley, but he wants something quieter. At the time Visalia is not that all that different from a place like Menlo Park. Sure, wages are slightly higher in Menlo Park and there are slightly more professionals. But at the time, both cities have a mix of residents, both cities have decent schools and both cities have a variety of social classes.

If you look at the two cities today, 40 years after Breedlove made his choice, it’s almost like looking at two different continents. On the one hand, Menlo Park has become one of the most vital and prosperous innovation hubs of the world –Menlo Park including the communities around it, the entire Silicon Valley area. Visalia hasn’t grown in 40 years. It hasn’t added any college graduates to its population. Its wages are falling, schools are very problematic. Crime, that used to be higher in Menlo Park, is now twice as high in Visalia. Pollution is much worse there.

It exemplifies what has been going on with many American communities. They were very alike in the ‘60s and the ‘70s and they’ve been growing apart and now they’re almost different continents.

The key predictor of a community’s economic success today, Moretti says, is the education level of its workers — in particular the number of college graduates in the workforce.

“It didn’t use to be like that,” he adds. “Sixty or seventy years ago, infrastructure and physical capital were the key predictors of a community’s success. Workers in Detroit were well paid because they had access to great infrastructure and great physical machines.”

But in the information age, Moretti says: “new ideas and successful innovation are rarely born in isolation” and clustering educated, innovative people has a multiplier effect.

That’s bad news for a place like Flint.

So what are we to do to secure American prosperity? One solution, Moretti believes, is that the United States must put more resources into education and support for research and development:

It’s clear that there are two engines that are supporting U.S.prosperity right now. It’s human capital – meaning people and education – and innovation. And it’s clear that we’re not investing enough in either one. We all know about the problems of not investing in education. The U.S.used to be a leader in high school graduation and college graduation and for the past 30 years it has been surpassed by a number of countries.

The second under-investment we’re doing is in innovation.America does have some of the greatest innovation hubs of the globe. But at the same time we are grossly under-investing in R & D and that is costing us right now in jobs and it’s going to cost us jobs even more in the future. In the same way that there’s a market failure in the creation of human capital, there’s a market failure in the creation of innovation.

When a company, for example when Apple invents a new product like the iPad, it generates private profit in the form of its sales but it also generates an external benefit for all the other companies in the same industry that can see the new product, can learn from it and will copy the new product. Apple doesn’t get compensated for that part of innovation. That’s why the federal government provides R & D tax credits for innovation because there is a private benefit from investing in innovation but there is also a public benefit. The problem is this tax credits are not large enough and they are not permanent.

We really need to put more resources in investing in human capital and more resources in subsidizing innovation, because they both are activities that generate vast benefits for us as a society. It’s not a fairness argument; this is just a purely pragmatic self-interest argument.

 Another idea for revitalizing America’s Rust Belt (and beyond) in the post-industrial age, comes from journalist and historian Cathy Tumber, who’s new book, Small, Gritty and Green: The Promise of America’s Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low-Carbon World, argues that there’s hope for smaller American industrial cities to be revitalized through a green economy. Of course more investment in education and innovation may still be key.

Mitt Romney took reporters on "magical mystery tour" of Solyndra. Photo: Peter Jon Shuler/KQED

The Romney camp loaded select reporters on to a bus early Thursday and took them on a mystery field trip. (read: a press conference at an undisclosed location that by many reporters’ accounts was simply “weird”). The secret location ended up being Solyndra, the now infamous and bankrupt solar company that received  $528 million in federal loans. Here’s a compilation of social media chatter on the outing, much of it from the journalists actually on the bus.