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<div class="">July 26, 2013</div>
<h1>Number of Catfish Inspectors Drives a Debate on Spending</h1>
<h6 class="">By
<span>
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/n/ron_nixon/index.html" rel="author" title="More Articles by RON NIXON"><span>RON NIXON</span></a></span></h6>
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<p>
WASHINGTON — Deep-fried catfish served with a side of hush puppies and
coleslaw has been a regional specialty for years and a cash crop for
states in the Deep South. Now, catfish is at the heart of a dispute as
the House and Senate prepare to work out their differences on a new
five-year farm bill. The current bill expires on Sept. 30. </p>
<p>
At issue is a little-known provision in the 2008 bill that established
an office within the Agriculture Department to inspect catfish. But
those inspection programs also exist at the Food and Drug Administration
and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at the Commerce
Department. </p>
<p>
The Agriculture Department has traditionally inspected meat and poultry
while the F.D.A. has inspected all other foods, including seafood.
</p>
<p>
<span style="color:rgb(255,0,0)"><font size="6"><b>Since 2009 the Agriculture Department said that it has spent $20 million
to set up the catfish inspection office, <span style="color:rgb(0,0,255)"><i><u>which has a staff of four</u></i></span>. The
department said that it expects to spend about $14 million a year to
run it. The F.D.A. spends about $700,000 a year on its existing office.
</b></font></span></p><span style="color:rgb(255,0,0)"><font size="6"><b>
</b></font></span><p><span style="color:rgb(255,0,0)"><font size="6"><b>
</b></font></span>Despite the cost, the Agriculture Department has yet to inspect a single catfish. </p>
<p>
Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said the program reeks of
wasteful government spending intended to help one special interest
group, and he has vowed to “deep-fry” the catfish program. </p>
<p>
On Monday, Mr. McCain and Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New
Hampshire, sent a letter to Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of
Michigan and chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, asking her
to adopt language from the House farm bill that eliminates the
additional inspection office. An amendment sponsored by the two senators
to cut the program’s funding was not included in the Senate’s most
recent version of the farm bill. </p>
<p>
“There is no reason for taxpayers to be subsidizing a duplicative
catfish inspection program that will cost millions to set up and another
$15 million to operate annually,” Ms. Shaheen said. “Eliminating this
duplicative program is a matter of common sense.” </p>
<p>
Catfish farmers and producers in Mississippi say their support of a
catfish inspection program at the Agriculture Department is about food
safety and imported catfish. </p>
<p>
“The F.D.A. is understaffed and little inspection is done of the fish
that comes into this country,” said Dick Stevens, the president and
chief executive of the Consolidated Catfish Company in Isola, Miss.
“Fish raised in other countries have been found to have drugs in them.
We’re just saying everyone should be held to the same standard.” </p>
<p>
But that argument has little sympathy outside of the catfish industry. </p>
<p>
A May 2012 Government Accountability Office <a title="The report (PDF)." href="http://www.gao.gov/assets/600/590777.pdf">report</a>
called imported catfish a low-risk food and said an inspection program
at the Agriculture Department would “not enhance the safety of catfish
but would duplicate F.D.A.” and Commerce Department inspections at a
cost to taxpayers. The G.A.O. said a food safety law passed in 2010
would give the F.D.A. the resources it needed to adequately inspect
foreign foods, including catfish. The Obama administration has called
for eliminating the Agriculture Department’s catfish inspection program.
</p>
<p>
Most agriculture groups are also opposed to the Agriculture Department’s catfish inspection program. Groups including the <a title="Associations Web site." href="http://soygrowers.com/">American Soybean Association</a> and the <a title="Councils Web site." href="http://www.grains.org/">U.S. Grains Council</a> signed on to a letter supporting repeal of the program. </p>
<p>
Domestic catfish farmers have been hammered in recent years by a
combination of rising feed costs and competition from foreign producers,
particularly Vietnam and China. </p>
<p>
Catfish farmers and producers say the industry has shrunk by about 60
percent since its peak a decade or so ago. In the past few years, 20
percent of the catfish farming operations have closed, which producers
attribute to the influx of foreign fish. </p>
<p>
The industry has tried to fight back. In 2002, farmers and producers
lobbied successfully for a law to prohibit fish from Vietnam from being
sold and marketed as catfish, unless it was from a species that was
found only in the southern United States. </p>
<p>
But that did not stop the flow of fish imports. So, with backing from
Southern lawmakers, the industry fought for the 2008 provision in the
farm bill that would subject catfish to a more rigorous inspection
regimen than the one at the F.D.A. </p>
<p>
Gavin Gibbons, spokesman for the <a title="Institutes Web site." href="http://www.aboutseafood.com/">National Fisheries Institute</a>,
a trade group of seafood producers, including catfish farmers, called
the inspection program a backdoor trade restriction. </p>
<p>
“What you have is a special interest group trying to use a food safety
scare as a trade barrier,” Mr. Gibbons said. “It’s wholly
inappropriate.” </p>
<p>
But that has not been enough to sway Southern lawmakers like Senator Thad Cochran, Republican of Mississippi. </p>
<p>
A staunch defender of the domestic catfish industry, Mr. Cochran was
instrumental in getting the inspection provision in the 2008 farm bill.
Mississippi leads the nation in catfish production, and a research
facility at Mississippi State University dedicated to the study of
catfish is the <a title="Centers Web site." href="http://tcnwac.msstate.edu/">Thad Cochran National Warmwater Aquaculture Center</a>. </p>
<p>
Mr. Cochran is the ranking member on the Senate Agriculture Committee.
Congressional aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he
was instrumental in making sure the McCain-Shaheen amendment to
eliminate the Agriculture Department program, which passed easily in the
Senate’s version of the farm bill in 2012, was not brought up for a
vote in this year’s bill. An aide to Mr. Cochran denied that he killed
the amendment. Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, was the
ranking member of the committee last year. </p>
<p>
Mr. Cochran has admonished the Agriculture Department for not
establishing rules to get the catfish program up and running. </p>
<p>
“Senator Cochran believes that U.S.D.A. is the proper agency to do the
oversight of these inspections,” said Chris Gallegos, a spokesman for
Mr. Cochran. “We don’t believe that inspection office would be
duplicative because it’s supposed to replace the F.D.A. catfish
inspections.” </p>
<p>
A spokesman for the Agriculture Department said the agency is continuing
to draft regulations to put in effect the catfish inspection program.
</p>
<p>
Representative Vicky Hartzler, Republican of Missouri, co-author of an
amendment to kill the Agriculture Department’s catfish program that was
passed in the House farm bill, worried that programs intended to protect
the domestic catfish industry could set off a trade war with Vietnam.
</p>
<p>
“If implemented, this measure would result in retaliation against our
nation’s farmers and consumers,” said Ms. Hartzler, during a hearing on
the farm bill in May. Ms. Hartzler is a soybean farmer whose state
exports soy and pork to Vietnam. </p>
<p>
Mr. Stevens, the Mississippi catfish company president, dismisses those concerns. </p>
<p>
“It’s a smoke screen for those in the seafood industry who don’t want to
undergo the tougher inspections,” Mr. Stevens said. “They are worried
that if they have to undergo a more rigorous standard it would stop the
flow of cheap seafood. The U.S.D.A. needs to stop stalling and implement
the law.” </p>
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