[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 65 (Monday, May 20, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H2647]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      LIFT THE RUSSIAN POULTRY BAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Issa). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I am actually here tonight in cooperation 
with the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Deal), who I understand to be on 
his way over here, but wanted to talk about an issue to Georgia that 
has become a big economic issue; but it is also one of international 
trade having to do with Russia and its trade embargo against United 
States poultry.
  I wanted to make a few points about that, Mr. Speaker, that according 
to the U.S.A. Poultry and Ag Export Council no U.S. poultry exports 
shipments have moved since the ban on American poultry was lifted in 
Russia. And Russia because of the competition used a non-tariff trade 
barrier to stop American chickens from coming into Russia, and then 
that ban was lifted. However, nothing has happened since then. And 
because of Russian paperwork, at least 20,000 metric tons of U.S. 
poultry shipped prior to the ban that was imposed on March 10 now sit 
in Russian ports waiting to be unloaded. The import ban is costing the 
U.S. poultry industry more than $25 million a week.
  Although Russia has issued few import permits, it is abundantly clear 
that Russia wants to stop or substantially reduce the United States 
poultry program. Again, it is such a huge issue to our area, a big 
employer in Georgia.
  Here are some of the impediments that Russia is using to stop the 
poultry: all previously issued import permits have been rescinded by 
Russia, even though these licenses were valid for additional 
quantities.
  Russian importers are being advised that not only must they apply for 
new import permits to import poultry from the United States, they are 
also being told they must apply for new import permits for products 
currently waiting unloading at the port.
  The Russian minister of agriculture told the U.S. that permits would 
be issued more or less automatically. That is not the case. Russia 
issues an import license but it is only a portion, sometimes as little 
as 25 percent of the requested quantity. So one cannot get in there 
with this.
  Russia has issued as few of these import permits as possible. Even 
though they are not adequate standing alone, they still will not issue 
all of them. Despite the fact that on March 31, U.S. and Russia 
protocol does not call for the original USDA export certificate to be 
on board the ship that is transporting the poultry, the Russian 
minister of agriculture is demanding that the original certificate be 
on the transport ship. This is extremely costly and cumbersome. No 
other nation does these kinds of things.
  Mr. Speaker, I can go on because there are lots of other issues that 
Russia is using as basically a paper tiger to stop American imports, 
but it is something that we urge the President to bring up on his trip 
to Russia and do something about it.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman who has been a lead on this. The gentleman 
from Georgia (Mr. Deal) is from the poultry country of Georgia. He is 
the one that has been leading our experts to try to get Russia to quit 
playing games and open their borders.

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