The “compromise” food-labeling bill announced Thursday by leaders of the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee is nothing less than a “rollback of democracy at the behest of the world’s largest agribusiness and biotech corporations,” said Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter. 

The legislation in question would create the first mandatory, nationwide labeling standard for food products containing genetically modified organisms that are commonly referred to as GMOs.

Unlike Vermont’s GMO-labeling law, which would require items to be clearly marked “produced with genetic engineering,” the compromise bill would allow food companies to use a text label, a symbol, or electronic “QR codes” accessed by smartphone—a system “that will send shoppers on a wild scavenger hunt to figure out what GMOs might be in their food,” wrote Jo Miles of Food & Water Watch on Friday.

It would supersede Vermont’s law and prohibit states from setting their own labeling requirements; exempt foods that have meat, poultry, and egg products as main ingredients; and include no federal penalties for violations of the labeling requirements. 

While the Senate in March rejected a similarly controversial bill known colloquially as the Deny Americans the Right to Know (DARK) Act, GMO-labeling proponents say the legislation proposed Thursday is just more of the same.