Saving Seafood

Southeastern Fisheries Association Takes Firm Stand on Catfish Inspection Program

October 26, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The Southeastern Fisheries Association (SFA) has issued a statement opposing the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) new catfish inspection program.

According to the organization, the new program creates “impossible compliance situations” for fish farms and wild caught fisheries. SFA is standing with catfish fishermen and dealers who believe that the program is “unnecessary, inefficient and would needlessly harm dealers, processors and harvesters of wild-caught domestic catfish.”

“Wild-caught catfish harvesters and dealers will have extreme difficulty complying,” Bob Jones, the executive director of SFA, said in a press release. “The new regulations are onerous and unnecessary.”

SFA’s position on the new regulations is that fishermen and fish houses that sell wild-caught catfish should be exempt from the FSIS program. The organization believe that the inspection program, which will be conducted by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), will result in lost jobs.

FSIS is reportedly considering an exemption from the inspection program for wild-caught, domestic catfish.

 

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

 

‘Wasteful’ catfish inspection program costing taxpayers millions, tough to kill

May 31, 2016 — The way Congress’ chief watchdog describes it, the government’s plan to set up a new catfish inspection process is one of the clearest examples of wasteful spending in the federal budget.

Yet killing the catfish inspection program is proving to be tremendously difficult for all the usual Washington reasons: a powerful patron in Congress, a weak administration controlling the agencies and a pliant Congress happy to limp into the next election on autopilot.

The cost-cutters did win a round last week when deficit-hawk Republicans linked arms with Democrats who were eager to find places to trim the budget. Combined, they voted 55-43 to stop the duplicate catfish inspection by the Food Safety and Inspection Service and shift it back to the Food and Drug Administration, which had been handling it for years.

But victory for the cost-cutters is anything but assured. The House must still vote, and then the change must survive President Obama’s veto pen.

Read the full story from The Washington Times