[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 13027]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



            COUNTRY-OF-ORIGIN LABELING FOR FARM-RAISED FISH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Osborne). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Ross) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, the farm-raised catfish industry is an 
important part of the economy in my congressional district that covers 
the southern third of Arkansas. In fact, Arkansas is third in catfish 
sales in the Nation, behind only Mississippi and Alabama, with nearly 
$66 million, or 13 percent, of the total U.S. sales.
  I recently met with catfish farmers in southeast Arkansas, and I can 
tell my colleagues that catfish producers in my district are upset that 
so-called catfish are being dumped into our markets from Vietnam and 
sold as farm- raised catfish. The truth is that it is not farm raised, 
and I am not even sure it is catfish. Last year, imports of Vietnamese 
catfish totaled 7 million pounds, more than triple the 2 million pounds 
imported in 1999 and more than 12 times the 575,000 pounds imported in 
1998.
  In Vietnam, these so-called catfish, also known as basa, can be 
produced at a much lower cost, due to cheap labor and less stringent 
environmental regulations. In fact, many of these fish are grown in 
floating cages in the Mekong River, exposing the fish to pollutants and 
other conditions. They are then dumped into American markets and often 
marketed as farm-raised catfish. Many catfish producers believe that 
these imports have taken away as much as 10 percent of our markets here 
at home.
  It is really quite simple. Farmers do not mind competition, but they 
do mind when the competition is unfair and untruthful. This is why 
today my colleagues, including the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry), 
the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Shows), and the gentleman from 
Mississippi (Mr. Pickering) introduced, along with me, a bipartisan 
bill, H.R. 2439, the Ross-Berry-Pickering bill, that would amend the 
Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 to require retailers to inform 
consumers of the country of origin of the fish that they sell.
  Under the bill, all fish would be covered. Each retailer would be 
required to notify the consumer at the final point of sale of the 
country of origin of the fish. And a fish product could only be 
designated as being from the United States if it is from a farm-raised 
fish that is exclusively born, raised, and processed in the United 
States.
  When our consumers go into the store and ask for farm-raised catfish, 
they deserve to know what they are getting is actually farm raised and 
catfish. By letting consumers know where the product is coming from, 
this bill will encourage the people in Arkansas and all across America 
to buy catfish grown by our farm families, not fish grown in a polluted 
river in another country.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in protecting consumers and to 
support a level playing field for America's farm-raised fish producers 
by supporting this measure.

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