[CTC] Lawmakers to USTR: Don’t give away USDA catfish inspection

[Arthur Stamoulis]

POLITICO

Lawmakers to USTR: Don’t give away USDA catfish inspection

7/21/15 12:05 PM EDT
Reps. Rosa DeLauro and Robert Aderholt are urging U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman not to give in to Vietnam’s demands that the USDA not inspect catfish-like pangasius imports.

“Our government is responsible for maintaining the safety of our nation’s food supply — including seafood,” DeLauro and Aderholt said in a letter <http://delauro.house.gov/images/pdf/LettertoFromanreCatfishInspectionandTPP.pdf>to Froman today. “We urge you to adhere to our promise to protect American consumers. Furthermore, we ask you to make a public statement of your commitment to a negotiating position that will not enter the U.S. into any trade agreement that will conflict with our domestic catfish inspection laws.”

Aderholt, an Alabama Republican, and DeLauro, a  Connecticut Democrat, are both on the House Appropriations Committee, which approved an amendment to the fiscal 2016 agriculture spending bill on July 8 that would bar the USTR from deals to exempt countries like Vietnam from having their catfish exports inspected by USDA.

The USTR is concerned about how the catfish inspection program might disrupt the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive trade deal the Obama administration has been negotiating for more than five years. Vietnam is one of the 12 countries in the TPP negotiations, and the country is adamantly opposed to stricter inspections by USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, as mandated by the 2014 farm bill.

— Bill Tomson
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