(Washington, D.C.) –Thomas A. Schatz, President of Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), today issued the following statement regarding the inauguration of the House Biotech Caucus:

“CAGW applauds the inauguration of the House Biotech Caucus, its leadership, and the 65 House members that have already joined the caucus.

“On behalf of the more than one million members and supporters of CAGW, our Center for International Food and Agriculture Policy has recently launched an initiative to educate the public, policymakers, and the media about the benefits of agriculture biotechnology.  We look forward to working with members of the House Biotech Caucus to dispel the myths and misperceptions surrounding genetically modified crops.

“Biotechnology holds great promise for American farmers and for the environment.  It can help fight world hunger and malnutrition.  Despite its benefits, however, biotechnology is threatened on many fronts.  In particular, there is a misinformation and scare campaign being waged by organizations like the so-called Genetically Engineered Food Alert, which targets companies that allegedly use foods with genetically engineered ingredients.  This "opposition" group will not even reveal the so-called science behind its conclusions.

“CAGW encourages supermarkets, food distributors and food manufacturers not to heed the unscientific claims of anti-biotechnology activists who would restrict the development of this important technology that can benefit consumers around the world.  Our hope is that the House Biotech Caucus will help counteract unscientific and spurious claims, and help insure that the regulatory requirements for bioengineered foods remain product, rather than process, based.

“With a growing world population, only biotechnology will increase agriculture crop yields enough to prevent the need to put more land ¾ like rainforests ¾ into production.  Biotechnology could help provide consumers with an affordable and stable food supply through higher crop yield and improved nutritional content.  Biotechnology will also lead to crops that are resistant to pest and disease, eliminating the need for pesticides and fungicides, which benefits the environment.  The anti-biotechnology movement must not be allowed to deny these benefits to people in the United States and around the world.”

CAGW is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.