NFI continues push to repeal new catfish regulation

 The new rule has sparked significant controversy, with the catfish industry claiming that old Food and Drug Administration regulations of imported catfish were too lax and were putting American consumers at risk, while opponents claim the new law is nothing but a trade barrier disguised as a food safety measure that invites trade retaliation.

Even though the new regulation -- which makes catfish the first seafood to be put under the US Department of Agriculture, which is generally more stringent -- has passed and is slated to go into effect in March, there are still several ways the program can be repealed according to Gavin Gibbons of the NFI, and there are ongoing efforts to do so.

"This is not a dead end, it's not over...all of the things we have been fighting against still exist, as does the opposition on Capitol Hill," he said. "The coalition that opposes this program has no plans of letting up in its opposition."

Although Gibbons chose not to disclose specific steps the NFI was taking, he said there are several potential options available to overturn the new catfish rules, including international arbitration through the World Trade Organization (WTO), creating a new repeal bill or tacking the issue onto another bill that would be germane.

"Every option is still on the table, no one has shut down any potential option in terms of working to get rid of this program," he said. “It’s important to note that the coalition remains intact and remains opposed to this program, so the idea that this program is implemented and you just hit the reset button and suggest that this is going to be standard operating procedure from now on, is just inaccurate. People in Washington hate this program, they do not want to be associate with this program.”

Gibbons said that the possibility of retaliatory tariffs against American agriculture, if Vietnam did choose to go ahead with a case against the US through the WTO, has prompted support from advocates outside the seafood industry.

"You see people who have soybean interest, corn interest, beef interest who are involved in this, and not just watching this process but supporting efforts to repeal the program," he said. "This came from the farm bill, and US farmers would be ironically the ones that would pay the price via a WTO option, no one wants to see that."

According to Gibbons, senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi, the largest catfish-producing state, has played a powerful role in both passing and maintaining the program.

"Senator Cochran has an enormous amount of power and he uses it disproportionately to maintain this program because he thinks it helps his constituents back home. In opposition to that effort we have a coalition that, by Washington’s standards, is large and bipartisan.”

When the bill was being passed in 2008, Gibbons said, Cochran held the position of chair of Senate Agriculture and he was the one who put the inspection program into the farm bill. He is currently the chair of Senate Appropriation and remains involved in maintaining the program.

“There continues to be opposition in Washington but Cochran insist on protecting this program,” Gibbons said.

Catfish only the beginning

Gibbons also said there is a high possibility that this kind of regulation will not stop at catfish.

In a May 2014 letter from the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) member countries to Ambassador Michael Froman, who leads the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the members said they "have even greater concern that this program will further expand to include other seafood items that [they] export to the United States".

The letter --signed by ambassadors from Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam -- highlighted that the program has been opposed by President Barak Obama and "hundreds of Members of Congress".

The NFI has argued for years that the new regulation is "wasteful and duplicative". Since 2008, the government accountability office has also targeted the new program nine times.