Controversial catfish program moves ahead
WASHINGTON, May 30, 2014 – Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., a
longtime supporter of USDA’s controversial
catfish program, announced today that the Agriculture Department has forwarded
to the White House Office of Management and Budget a final rule to establish a
USDA catfish inspection program. Cochran said he received the news at the 79th
meeting of the Delta Council, an economic
development organization representing 18 Delta and part-Delta counties in
Mississippi.
The Mississippi senator praised the White House’s action. “As
more nations restrict the import of tainted catfish-like products, the
implementation of a more vigorous American inspection program makes sense,” he
said in a statement. “I will continue to pressure the Obama administration to
let this food safety program get underway.”
But elsewhere, others continued to argue that the program is
duplicative and wasteful. Many, including groups like the Heritage Foundation
and lawmakers including
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., say FDA should regain sole
authority over the program, which was partially moved to USDA as part of the
2008 Farm Bill.
A 2012 Government Accountability Office report concluded, “Responsibility
for inspecting catfish should not be assigned to USDA.”
Critics say the inspection program is especially costly because
it requires facilities that handle seafood, including catfish, to follow both
FDA and USDA regulations. FDA generally oversees seafood inspection; USDA’s
Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) generally takes authority for meat
poultry and egg inspection.
In a paper
released today, Heritage Foundation
research fellow Daren
Bakst called the program “the epitome of a trade protectionist scheme that
helps a very narrow special interest at the expense of virtually all other
Americans.” Opponents like Bakst say the program is meant to protect domestic
catfish producers from cheaper product imported from overseas countries like
Vietnam.
In today’s statement, however, Cochran’s office called the
FDA’s catfish inspection program “inadequate,” arguing the agency examines less
than 2 percent of the fish imported into the U.S.
#30
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