Senators set to noodle for catfish inspection program in farm bill

As the 2012 farm bill moves to the Senate floor, a scuffle has intensified over the inspection of catfish.

The battle pits the southern catfish industry and its supporters against a wider coalition of agriculture groups and fiscal conservatives.

The issue has potentially wide reaching consequences since it could affect the Obama administration attempt to craft an Asia-Pacific free trade area known as the Transpacific Partnership (TPP).

In this fight, catfish farmers actually want tougher inspection of their products while their opponents say they are trying to create an unfair system just to block imports of fish from Vietnam.

Supporters of the domestic catfish industry this week were able to beat back an attempt to end the scheduled changes they support. When the Senate Agriculture Committee marked up its farm bill, the provision was absent despite the urging of non-committee senators.

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont) had prepared a catfish amendment in committee but did not offer it.

The battle now moves to the floor where critics of the catfish changes like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) may offer an amendment to the farm bill to stop them.

On April 24, 17 senators including McCain wrote to Chairman Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) urging her to include a provision to end the USDA inspection program.

They argued that the program is a $30 million waste of money that could lead Asian countries to retaliate against U.S. exports.

Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) has been leading the fight to protect the Department of Agriculture catfish inspection program, which was called for in the last 2008 farm bill and which USDA is still trying to implement.  Cochran is working with Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), his office said.

Currently all other types of fish are inspected by the Food and Drug Administration. Moving catfish under the jurisdiction of the USDA, which now inspects meat and poultry, would tend to tighten the regulation of catfish.

Catfish Farmers of America argues that since only 2 percent of fish are actually inspected by the FDA, keeping catfish under FDA inspection is a threat to public health.

"The catfish inspection program will strengthen food safety for the American consumer,” Butch Wilson, president of the Catfish Farmers of America said in an email.

Critics say that no one is getting sick from catfish and the move is simply a way to keep Vietnamese pangasius fish, a similar species with similar taste, out of the U.S.

Catfish farmers have fought to prevent pangasius from being marketed as catfish in the U.S. but want USDA to regulate pangasius as catfish for the purposes of sanitary inspection.

“I refer to this as a fake food safety scare because the book was essentially closed on the food safety argument after the USDA’s own risk assessment,” said National Fisheries Institute (NFI) spokesman Gavin Gibbons. He said the USDA has concluded there is little elevated risk from catfish.

NFI represents the seafood industry broadly and Gibbons said it is acting because pangasius is an industry product “under attack.”

So far USDA cannot decide whether pangasius is technically catfish. If it is ruled to be catfish, then under USDA rules, importation of pangasius from Vietnam would immediately cease pending a lengthy certification process, Gibbons said.

That could lead Vietnam to slap World Trade Organization-approved trade sanctions on the U.S. just as the U.S. is trying to get Vietnam to open its market further to U.S. products through the TPP talks.

Already Vietnam is a growing customer for U.S. beef and soy. Meat, dairy and grain commodity groups are opposed to USDA catfish inspections.

Catfish farmers argue that the USDA program will not be found to be an illegal program by the WTO.

“Domestic production will be held to the same standards as imports so there is no trade issue. To say otherwise ignores the fact that USDA successfully conducts inspection programs for a number of commodities and livestock sectors,” Wilson said.

With the USDA aiming to implement its program in 2013, both sides of the issue see the 2012 farm bill is key to resolving the catfish dispute. The bill is moving to the Senate floor as early as next month but a timeline for House action has not been established even though the current farm bill expires in September.

The bipartisan letter to Stabenow was signed by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), Jim Webb (D-Va.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Scott Brown (D-Mass.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

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