[CTC] Catfish Rule Supporters Suspect USTR Is Blocking To Appease Vietnam

[Arthur Stamoulis]

Inside U.S. Trade - 08/21/2015
Catfish Rule Supporters Suspect USTR Is Blocking To Appease Vietnam
Posted: August 20, 2015
Backers of a provision in U.S. law that would increase inspections of catfish farms have grown suspicious that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has been actively blocking its implementation, after USTR officials told congressional staff that the measure could complicate efforts to complete a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) final rule to implement the provision -- contained in the 2014 farm bill -- has been pending at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) since May 2014. The rule would shift the responsibility for catfish inspections from the Food & Drug Administration to USDA's Food Safety & Inspection Service, which is obligated to conduct much more thorough and frequent inspections under law.

The measure has been opposed by Vietnam, a TPP participant, because it would subject the country to a protracted inspection process during which its catfish exporters would be barred from shipping to the U.S. Food safety advocates, however, charge that there is evidence that Vietnamese catfish farms regularly use harmful substances that are banned by U.S. authorities and that this increased oversight is therefore justified.

Tony Corbo, a senior lobbyist at the advocacy group Food & Water Watch, said in an Aug. 17 interview that congressional staffers had been told by USTR that the rule could be a problem for TPP. Based on this, and the rule's long delay, he said he suspected that the agency had asked OMB to shelve it for now.

"When OMB gets a rule, they ask any other of the agencies to weigh in, and it seems USTR has some concerns about this rule," Corbo said. "The implication seems to be is if the rule is finalized, Vietnam will scuttle the TPP negotiations or file a [World Trade Organization] compliant against the U.S. This is what USTR seems to think."

Other sources backed up Corbo's account of the USTR message to Congress. But they said it was unclear whether USTR has actually pushed OMB to hold the rule. A request for comment went unanswered by OMB, while a USTR spokesman declined to comment.

At the same time, a spokesman for the National Fisheries Institute -- an industry group representing U.S. importers, suppliers and restaurants that opposes the inspection rule -- noted that the Obama administration has never been entirely supportive of shifting the responsibility for catfish inspections to USDA.

He pointed to a April 9, 2013 press release from OMB, which said that the administration would seek to eliminate funding for the USDA catfish inspection program in its fiscal year 2014 budget request as one of the many programs the Government Accountability Office had identified as being wasteful.

Vietnam has previously made clear that it will not lift its restrictions on imports of U.S. beef if its access to the U.S. market for catfish is threatened. It has also warned that the USDA catfish inspection program could undermine progress between the U.S. and Vietnam in the TPP (Inside U.S. Trade, Nov. 8, 2013).

Supporters of the rule expressed worry that, as a result of TPP negotiations, the catfish inspection rule might not ever be published, or that it could be amended in some way that is more amenable to Vietnam, at the expense of U.S. consumer safety. They have posited that the rule's underlying statute could be changed through the legislation that implements TPP in the U.S.

Two House appropriators -- Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Robert Aderholt (R-AL) -- called on USTR Michael Froman to not weaken the U.S. catfish inspection laws in TPP and to make a public statement reflecting that in a July 21 letter. "While there are many issues that negotiators and ministers must come to an agreement on, we urge you to uphold our domestic catfish inspection laws during trade negotiations," the lawmakers wrote.

DeLauro, a staunch food safety advocate and a TPP critic, successfully championed an amendment onto the House appropriations bill for USDA and other agencies that would prevent the Obama administration from entering agreements that weaken U.S. catfish inspection laws. That legislation was favorably reported out of the committee on July 8.

USDA has blown past the deadlines set out in the 2014 farm bill for implementing the catfish inspection rule, which required the department to issue the final rule in 60 days and implement it within a year.

The law used broad definition of catfish that would capture U.S.-raised catfish as well as exports from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries. A previous version of the measure in 2008 farm bill left open which definition to adopt, and USDA in a 2011 draft rule also considered a narrower definition that would cover only domestically produced catfish and the variety most commonly imported from China.

USDA in a June 18 Federal Register notice detailing its regulatory agenda for spring 2015 said that final action on the catfish rule would occur in July.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20150821/f15fc473/attachment.htm>