 I am so honored to be here with the bravest legislators in America, bravest citizens of the bravest state, launch a very simple bill that will bring fairness to the people of the great state of Vermont. We in this state today will sign the first bill in America, joining 60 other countries where Vermonters will have the right to know what's in their food. Vermont, as you know, has a long history of getting it right the first time. We got it right when we said we're the first nation of the 50 states that abolished slavery. We got it right when we said we're the first state of the 50 states where you can marry the person that you love because we thought it was the right thing to do, not because judges were telling us we must. And today, we are the first state in America that says simply, Vermonters have spoken loud and clear, they want to know what's in their food. We are pro-choice, we are pro-information, Vermont gets it right with this bill. Now there are some who have said that there are forces in this country in the food business who don't want Vermonters to have this right, and that they may use that other branch of government to try and deny us of that right. But we're proud today, in addition to signing this bill, to launch the Vermont Food Fight Fund. And we are asking people all across America, and all across the great state of Vermont, to go to foodfightfundvermont.org and make a donation so that we can win the Vermont Food Fight Fund fight, not only for Vermont, but for America. Now you don't have to be rich to donate to the Vermont Food Fight Fund, $1, $10, $100 if we get every American who cares to have the choice to know what's in their food to donate to the Vermont Food Fight Fund at foodfightfundvermont.org, we will win the Food Fight Fund for America. There are so many people across this state that have made this moment possible. I mentioned the legislature, we're going to hear from a number of the leaders of the legislature, the people who have been fighting for this bill for a long time. But you know what really made this possible today? Is the voices of ordinary Vermonters, of all age groups, who had the courage, had the wisdom, had the willingness to talk to their legislature, to talk to their neighbor, to knock on doors and talk to Vermonters and say we can get this right and we can be the first to get it right. I want to introduce now one Vermonter who got on board early. She decided with her sister and her mom and her dad and her friends that they were going to start writing letters to Vermont legislators, going to start making phone calls, enlisting their friends to make a difference so that they knew that their generation of Vermonters would be a part of this transformation of fairness in what we eat, having good, clean food in Vermont that makes us healthy and allows us to thrive. So I have with me today, Bridget Armbrust, Bridget and her sister Molly. Come on, raise your hands. This is Bridget. This is Molly. We've got to give a shout out to their producers, Kelly and Kurt who are here. Come on, where'd they go? Right down here. But I'm going to turn the mic over to 11-year-old Bridget Armbrust. Bridget is from West or Hartford, Vermont, the land of John Campbell and others. Give it up to Bridget who had the courage to come aboard. We started a lettering campaign called Kids Care. I started it because I was interested in this and I thought that other kids might be too. And so that's pretty much why I started it. But right now I want to share a story with you. It's a bit of a story that I recently heard. So there was a monk called Bird's Nest because he was always sitting over this tree. He was considered to be a very wise monk. And so the governor of that part of the land traveled a very long way to see this monk and asked for some wisdom. And when he got there, he asked, tell me all the great teachings of the Buddha. And the monk said, always do good things, never do bad things. And the governor thought this was a very unsatisfactory answer he was going to come all this way for. So he said, I know that since I was three. And the monk said the three-year-old knows it, but the 80-year-old still finds it very hard to do. And I think that's very true. And the governor for doing good things. They've done the right thing in passing this bill, even though it's not always easy. So that's pretty much it. So thank you. And I want to turn it over to two folks that got involved in this battle to bring this bill to signature today. Lisa Macquarie and Carl Russell. Lisa and Carl were involved in conversations with advocates about this bill years ago. And they actually met at a kitchen table discussing how we could get GMOs labeled in Vermont and America at an Advocates meeting. At that meeting, it's alleged that it was a GMO free meal. They fell in love. They got married and they're still fighting the fight. So let's turn it over to Lisa and Carl. Come on. Hello everybody, what a great reason to come together in everything that he said is true. We fell in love, probably, it's always true. We're so proud of the state of Vermont for being the first to pass this legislation through without any trigger clauses. But I have to say, Carl and I have been doing this fight right for the past 14 years and then some. But there are so many people here to thank that have really had boots to the ground. And it's been a long process, but we've got a long ways to go. Did you know that even though we're able to have our food labeled that we still don't know what's in our milk or our meat products? And that in the state of Vermont, over 80,000 acres of GMO corn was planted in our cornfields and that's continuing. We need to continue moving our awareness and our legislation to make sure that we know what's going into our soils and what's being fed to our animals. And what we're eating when we're going into the livestock product side of things. So we've done a great job. I'm so excited and let's keep going. Let's not stop. We're inviting us to be a part of this. As the current chair of board of directors for rural Vermont, I really want to say how proud we are. Their organization was part of an incredibly effective collaborative process with several other important organizations in the state. And our staff work tirelessly on this and we want to acknowledge them here today. Thank you very much. I'm really happy about the labeling law because it now gives people the opportunity to not only know what goes into their food, but it also gives them a choice to support the kind of agriculture that they want to see in the state of Vermont. And as a state, as a community, we still have that challenge in front of us all to decide what kind of agriculture it is that we want to support here. Do we want to support a corporate controlled, low profit type of food system that doesn't protect our environment and is supported by GMOs for economy of scale? Or do we want to have an opportunity to increase profitability so our farmers can have sustainable practices that restore human community and environmental health? So as Vermont, rural Vermont moves into our 30th year of agricultural advocacy, we want to make sure that you all know that we're still on, we're still in this campaign and we appreciate you coming here and thank you everybody for working at this so hard. Thank you Lisa, thank you Carl. Hey listen, if you're not with us on this issue but you just want to, you know, get a date like that, go to foodfightfunvermont.org. About foodfightvermont.org, we have an extraordinary website. It was designed by Vermont DesignWorks. I know Vermont DesignWorks is here today. It's giving a shout out because they put it together. Here's the next speaker. I want to give a huge shout out. Let's give a shout out. Raise your hands to the VPurg canvassers who brought this door-to-door advocate who never gives up, never quits. Executive Director of VPurg, the best director of any purge in the country that's given up to Baltimore. Thanks to all of you for being here today to celebrate one of the most important consumer protection laws passed in anywhere in the nation this year. At VPurg, we're proud to be here with our coalition partners, with our legislative champs, with the governor and with all of you. Today we celebrate not just the substantive importance of giving consumers the information they need to make informed choices, but also to recognize the fact that in Vermont at least, democracy is alive and well. I wanted this to happen. You and tens of thousands of others who became active on this campaign were united around one simple idea that you have the right to know. You made your voices heard using every possible means of communication. Email, letters, public hearings, direct communications, even songs. And our legislators responded. They did their job. They did their homework. And they put a bill, a strong bill on the governor's desk for his signature today. So let's thank our legislators for doing that. Passing this law with no strings attached, Vermont has sent a message out loud and clear that no company, no matter how big, no matter how rich, no matter how powerful can deny you the right to know what is in your food. So they'll be able to fraudulently market their GMO products as all-natural in Vermont either. And that's a huge win for consumers. And it also levels the playing field among food producers. And that's important too. And best of all, we aren't waiting for anybody else to tell us it's okay to stand up and protect our citizens. So that's what's going on in Vermont today. And you know we wouldn't be here if it weren't for the excellent work of so many people. You're going to hear from a few more of them. But I just want to point out a few who have been so important for us here at VPert. First, I want to know Falco Schilling, who's our consumer advocate at VPert. Not our campaign, but he was a tremendous service to all the legislators who were working on this from one committee after another. He is a lawyer who knows how to organize. That is a rare and wonderful thing. I also want to recognize, speaking of legal folks, our legal-eagle team at the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic at Vermont Law School. As you may have heard, legal issues pop up from time to time around this issue. Doug Bruley and Laura Murphy and their team of talented law students have become nationally recognized experts on this issue. Their work was tremendously important to legislators as they worked really carefully through the various issues that were raised with this legislation, particularly the Judicial Committees and their chairs. And so I appreciate the work of Vermont Law School and the Legal Clinic there. And finally, I just want to come back to democracy. In signing this bill today, the governor puts a cap on one of the largest grassroots campaigns in recent Vermont history. This bill becomes law today because of people power. Thank you very much. And also, I just want to recognize for a second to work that the governor also noted of our VPert Canvas crew here. They did visit every single town, village, city, grant, or in the entire state of Vermont and in every one of those communities. Every one of those communities that is inhabited. We now have at least one person who has signed on as a supporter of this bill today. That's amazing. Today went to 80,000 doors. They had 50,000 conversations gathered. Over 32,000 signatures gave them all to the legislators here to tell people, to tell our legislators that people wanted their right to know. And I'm certain if you ask them that these legislators here today would say they appreciated every single one of those communities. Thousands. Thousands. Thousands. Well, this group's dedication, their energy, their passion for this issue and this campaign lifted up everyone else who was working on it. So I thank them. They also engage more people in more places than we would have been able to do through any other means. That really is democracy in action. And today, Governor, I'd like to make you an honorary member of our outreach team. And this comes with a really cool t-shirt. So I love it. Thank you very much. I don't know what I like better, the t-shirt or the fact that I'm going to get back out of my pipe, right? Listen, the next speaker, and we're going to try to keep him short now because we've got a few more to go here, but before we hear from a few legislators, there's one person that's been involved in this struggle right from the beginning. It's Will Allen from Cedar Circle Farm. He was one of the key members of the simple right to know GMO Coalition across Vermont. Will, thanks for joining us. Come on up. Thanks a lot, Governor Shulman for asking me here. I really appreciate it. And, you know, like, Jim Hightower says that there's a populist fervor going on in this country. And this is an example of it. This was a populist victory. This was a grassroots victory. But it was also a victory for the legislators. And now it's going to be a victory for the governor. And so this is very important to all of us because if we can do this in Vermont, we can use this model all over the country. And it's an important model. And I went to these several organizations, NOFA, V-Burg, and Roe, Vermont in 2012 and asked them if they would join us, because I was on the board of the Organic Consumers Association, in trying to pass a bill here that was similar to the bills that were being proposed all over the rest of the country and that was written at first by the Center for Food Safety and then revised by our law clinic. So there's a lot of heroes in this battle, but the biggest heroes in terms of carrying a lot of water were the coalition members, Roe, Vermont, NOFA, V-Burg, and law clinic. We were incredibly helped by Ben and Jerry's and New Horizon and a lot of businesses in the state. But the big issue here is that your outreach, your outreach made the difference. Your outreach completely turned the tide because some of the legislators said they got as many as 1,500 letters, emails, and phone calls. Now that is huge and that's you, so give yourself a hand. Like Carl and Lisa said, this is just the start. We plan on cleaning up our food system in Vermont and trying to clean it. Use that as an example to clean up our food system in this country. So, stay with us and legislators and senators, I hope you don't get tired of me seeing me in the state house because I'm going to be here. Thanks a lot. And we all know that without the courage of the Senate and House, we wouldn't be standing here now. So many senators came up to the plate and fought for this bill. Senator Dick Sears, chair of the judiciary committee. Senator Bobby Starr, chair of the ad committee. Senator David Shuckerman, who had this glint in his eye a long, long time before he got to the Senate. But without the leadership of the Senate and the courage of the president of the Senate who's been fighting for this for a long time, we wouldn't be where we are. Give it up to Senator President John Campbell. I've been waiting for this day for a long, long time. First of all, I found my replacement for my Senate seat here in Bridget. In fact, she kept on sending me so many letters. I was starting to get some inquiries from my chief of staff saying, who's this Bridget? She thought she was going to have to look for a new job. Anyway, seriously, I can't tell you all how much I appreciate the work, the hard work, the devotion that you all have shown to make sure that this cause and this issue was addressed in the state. One of the toughest things, I just want to talk one little aspect of this, and this had to do with the triggers. As all of you know, there are other states, they passed similar laws, but there were always triggers on them that you had to have so many other states or something else had to happen. And also, as you know, there are certain companies, large multinational companies that would love to stop us in our tracks, and we all got little threatening letters about what we, if we were going to do this or do that, that we might end up in court. A lot of times that scares people. You know what? Not us. We are going to do what is right for the people of Vermont and the people of this country, and that is to make sure that you have the right to know what is in your food, every bit of your food, and the fight does continue. We will not stop because there are other things that have to be added here. We will not be frightened away because we know behind us we have a huge army, and that's you all. So again, thank you so much for what you've done. Thank you. I get a chance to introduce not only a colleague, but a friend. A friend that actually was one of the people who introduced me to this issue many years ago. And as most of you recall, in 2006 we tried to pass a bill regarding liability and we have drift going over to other farmers, and we tried to protect the farmers where this drift landed. And unfortunately, the big companies were a little successful back then, and we weren't able to really see it through. I think I can't think of anyone who's fought harder, and not only to make sure that the message gets out to the community, but worked harder in this building, convincing colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and both the Senate and the House how important this issue. Ladies and gentlemen, David Zuckerman. I'm here with Shumlin. It's obviously a very exciting day for those of us up here, but even more so for those of you out there who, while I've been working on it in here, I've been working on it out there all over the state of Vermont. And I see so many familiar faces and names. Betsy, Denise, Ben, so many of you to thank. First and foremost though, I want to thank my wife, Rachel Nevitt, who's here who has put up with me getting home really late, or leaving really early and leaving her with way too many farm chores to do, particularly while she's been so sick with Lyme disease. So I just want to thank Rachel for putting up with me. She just told me she's got it on tape, so I'm going to trouble her. There's many people. Obviously there was great leadership in the House. Carolyn Partridge and Bill Lipper, chairs of the committees on that side, and Kate Webb who introduced the bill, and Tayo Zagger. I'm saying these names fast because there's a long day here, but in the Senate, I just really want to thank the chairman of my committee, Bobby Starr, who helped guide us through the process, taking what started as a great foundation from the House, tweeting it a little bit here and there to try to make it a little bit more legally defendable. And then really the phenomenal leadership of Dick Sears who moved it through judiciary where we really knew the big battle was to determine do we have legal standing? Do we think we have legal standing? Is it worth it for us to put this out there and put our state on the line? And Dick Sears did a great job of shepherding it through that committee and finagling the Food Fight Fund Vermont.org funds scenario. And just, you know, the last couple things I want to say is, you know, this is going to be a domino effect. There are states across the country. There are people who have already contacted me the last couple weeks saying, how do I get this introduced in my state? Or this is really bolstered our energy in this state such as Oregon, who is really the next grad right now at the referendum this fall. So hopefully we've helped give them a couple percentage points on their referendum. And it's really because my colleagues listened to the information, of course, and to all of you who reached out from all over the state. So again, thank you all so much for all of your hard work. This is one of those cases where grassroots democracy really did win the day and hopefully you can carry it on in the future. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Zorgerman. So the first chamber of the cards passed this bill by an overwhelming vote was the House, led by the extraordinarily talented speaker of the House, Shap Smith. He had a lot of help from Wyndham County's own Carolyn Pardridge, the Chair of the ACT Committee and entire ACT Committee. So many others. And Kate Webb has been on this one like a bone on a dog. A lot of House members behind me have been hard at this, but let's give it up. Dog on a bone. Let's give it up. That's why I have to prove my dyslexic credentials. Let's give it up to Speaker of the House, Shap Smith. It's an incredible, incredible day. And many people here don't know this, but I actually grew up on a farm in Wolcott, Vermont, and actually raised lettuce and tomatoes in my own little garden and sold them at a farmer's market in the 1970s. So agriculture is part of my blood. And the idea of knowing where your food came from and what it's made of is incredibly important. Because if you don't know the information, you can't make the choice. And we ought to have the right to know. And how is it that in this country we've come to a place where corporate America is trying to block consumers right to know what's in their food? Well, that should not happen. That's not going to happen. Vermont is leading the way to make sure that that will not happen. I want to thank actually Carolyn Partridge and Kate Webb. And I want to bring Carolyn Partridge up here because Carolyn, we wouldn't have been able to do it without you. So Carolyn Partridge, thank you very much. And welcome to all of you to the front porch of the people's house. Thankfully we've been graced with a beautiful day and somehow I think someone's smiling on us. This has been a long journey with many people helping along the way. I want to thank the Speaker of the House, Shap Smith, for his leadership. I want to thank the original lead sponsor of the bill, Representative Kate Webb. Thank you, Kate. I want to thank the advocates and all of the witnesses who testified and participated in this democratic process, including the Vermont Law School, which did extensive background work for us. I want to thank the Governor, the Senate President Pro Tem, for your leadership in your positions. And I especially want to thank our brilliant legislative council staff and other committees that are out there somewhere. And my thoughtful, hard-working committee members who worked on this bill in 2012 and 2013 each time improving it. But most of all, I want to thank all of you for sending your good wishes and positive energy as we work through this issue. And the 400 Vermonters who made their way to the State House on April 12, 2012 to testify in favor of the bill and lends your support. Thank you. You have all been with us on this journey and you have proven that your votes count, your voices can make a difference, and together we govern. Thank you. And before we put the pen to paper and sign this bill, wrapping up for us today and serving free ice cream and afterwards with great music, you know, we're doing this in Vermont. Come, come, come. Sit down. Grab her. Wait. Sorry. Sit down. Second to last. It's just hot. Get that one away. He's all right. You know the politicians are supposed to be too long when we start passing out. You all good? So listen, sorry. Somehow I thought that Kate Webb was going to say a word or two. She's actually the sponsor of this bill in the House. The lead sponsor. Take it away. When I was approached by the advocates to sponsor this bill, I thought slam dunk. This is just the right to know. This should be so easy. Wow. Such is the case of a citizen legislature that we are not experts in this field, but we have the opportunity to listen to experts within the state and around the country, and that is what we did. This bill took us on a journey, a journey to better understand labeling laws, federal preemption, the working of the FDA, commercial free speech on the science of engineering, and through this work, and through the incredible advocacy from the ground, we were able to bring this bill here, and I really acknowledge the Senate for having the courage. The House, we don't always acknowledge the Senate, but I'm acknowledging the Senate for getting rid of that trigger. That was brave. And anything big goes to the nation. Last but certainly not least, scooping ice cream with great music ahead. The CEO of Ben & Jerry's Yostin, Sohan, Yostin and his company are doing what more companies across America should do. By 2014, they will be indicating a label on their product that their product is non-GMO GMO free. Let's give it up to Yostin, Sohan, and Ben & Jerry's team. We have a long list of thank you's, but I think you all know who you are by now, and we're going to keep it short. I just want to say how proud I am to be an honorary Vermont, or how proud I am of Vermont today, and how great it is to be a Vermont-based company today, because this is really special. Having a grassroots movement like this, having a legislature like this, having a governor like this, that's willing to stand up and be counted when it matters, is just really unique. And that's why Ben & Jerry's will always remain in the state of Vermont and be who we are. I really want to echo the last speaker, and also we do not believe that this is the end. This is really, and we are here today to celebrate the new beginning. The beginning of going further, the beginning of taking this to the nation. We operate in every state in this country. We operate actually in 35 countries. We can deal with this. We can do this. Everybody can deal with this. Everybody can do this, and we're on our way to Oregon to bring your energy and your passion there. So I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Okay, so let's sign this bill. Hey, guys, I want to let you all know it's a little ironic, but the seat that the governor is now sitting in is the seat where the corporations testified in our Judiciary Committee, so I think it's a bit ironic. Okay, perhaps. Mark's over here. Cut a line. Good, you ready, Mark? She's ready. She's got to make sure. Okay. All right, this is going to be the trip inside. Are you ready? Here we go.