RELEASE: Letter Advises Trump Administration to Develop Improved Agricultural Biotech Regulations

Washington, DC — May 30, 2025 — In a recent letter to key officials, the Breakthrough Institute argues that the U.S. Department of Agriculture should seize the opportunity to develop improved product- and risk- based regulations for agricultural products of biotechnology.

After a decades-long process to update U.S. agricultural biotechnology regulations, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) published their revision to regulations regarding the movement of certain genetically engineered organisms at 7 CFR Part 340 in May 2020. The new regulatory framework, called the SECURE rule, was the first comprehensive revision of federal regulations for genetically engineered organisms since 1987. While the SECURE rule streamlined regulatory review processes for non-exempt plants, it perpetuated a process-based approach to regulation. The U.S. Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology, updated by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in 1992, affirmed that federal oversight should focus on the characteristics of the product, not the process by which the product is created.

In spite of this, the SECURE rule continued to rely upon arbitrary distinctions between genetically engineered and non-genetically engineered organisms to choose products for review, rather than tying regulation to the traits of the end product. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California vacated the SECURE rule in 2024. Accordingly, USDA reverted its regulatory review processes to align with the regulatory framework in place prior to the SECURE rule. However, the current state of U.S. agricultural biotechnology regulation remains overly burdensome and fails to allocate resources based on the actual risks associated with genetically engineered organisms. This in turn delays commercialization of products that make agriculture more productive, resilient, and globally competitive while using less land, fertilizer, and pesticides.

The Trump administration is at a biotechnology crossroads. Given the limitations of the SECURE rule, its recent repeal, and the administration’s dedication to deregulatory efforts, USDA should take this opportunity to move past decades of overly inhibitory biotechnology regulations.

Click here to read the full letter.

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Media Contact:

Emily Bass

Director of Federal Policy, Food and Agriculture

emily@thebreakthrough.org