[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18579-18580]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          AQUADVANTAGE SALMON

  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I have come to the floor this afternoon 
to speak on an energy-related topic--one that I think the Presiding 
Officer and many will have interest in--and that is the issue of 
innovation within the energy sector.
  Before I speak on energy, I wish to bring up an issue that has come 
about today with the announcement coming out of the Food and Drug 
Administration that they have approved an application for what they 
have called AquAdvantage salmon.
  This is actually quite disturbing news to any of us who care about 
our wild species of salmon, our healthy wild stocks, and who are 
proponents of good amounts of fresh seafood in our diets, knowing that 
nutritionally it is a pretty extraordinary source of omega-3 fatty 
acids and good-for-you nutrients.
  We have been trying to get the FDA to make good on their commitment 
to make sure that pregnant women and nursing mothers know and 
understand the guidelines out there in terms of what is safe to consume 
when it comes to fish because, again, when we are looking for that 
good, nutritious food source, it is pretty tough to beat Mother Nature. 
Yet, that is exactly what this approval from the FDA is trying to do, 
which is, effectively, not only trying to beat Mother Nature but 
messing with Mother Nature.
  Again, as one who believes that the real thing is the best thing for 
our families, the best thing to serve at the dinner table, I find it 
very troubling. In fact, I am spitting mad today. I have calmed down a 
lot since I received this news this morning, but I can tell my 
colleagues that people back home are going to be mad about this for a 
long time.
  For about 5 years now, the FDA has been considering this application 
for this genetically engineered salmon. Again, they are giving it a 
pretty nice name, calling it the AquAdvantage, that somehow or another 
this gives an advantage to the salmon. Well, it does. What it does is 
allow this genetically engineered fish--I don't even know that I want 
to call it a fish--this genetically engineered organism to grow twice 
as fast as any other salmon in the water.
  So how does it get to grow twice as fast? Well, it doesn't happen 
naturally. It is not the way Mother Nature orders it. What they do is 
they start messing with it. This process, which has now been approved 
by the FDA, is a process that splices genetic material from a Chinook 
salmon, a king salmon, and it takes that genetic material and it 
integrates it with a pout fish and an Atlantic salmon. People might 
know about an Atlantic salmon, a farmed salmon. What is an ocean pout? 
Let me show my colleagues what an ocean pout is. An ocean pout is 
basically this eel-type of bottom fish. Those of my colleagues who know 
their salmon know about the Chinooks, the sockeyes, and the chums, and 
they know that this isn't anything close to a salmon, whether it is a 
wild Alaskan salmon or whether it is a farmed salmon. This is an eel. 
We are taking a splice from this, and we are taking a splice from an 
Atlantic salmon, and we are basically splicing this with a Chinook 
salmon. The resulting organism, this company claims,

[[Page 18580]]

is going to grow to the size of an Alaskan king salmon in a shorter 
period of time than that found in nature. Freaky.
  We call this combination ``Frankenfish'' because it is just not 
right. It is just not right. It disturbs me, quite honestly, that the 
FDA would sign off on the approval of a genetically engineered animal 
designed for human consumption. This is the first time ever.
  The FDA is saying this is going to be safe: We are going to make sure 
it is safe. We are going to make sure that it doesn't interbreed with 
the wild stocks, and thus perhaps destroy them. We are going to make 
sure that it doesn't mix with them so that it doesn't transmit disease. 
We are going to make sure that it is separated so that it doesn't eat 
up all of the wild sources available for our Alaskan salmon.
  They are going to make sure, apparently by doing this, because they 
are saying that with this approval, these AquAdvantage salmon can only 
be raised in land-based, contained hatchery tanks in two specific 
facilities in Canada and in Panama. We should all feel safer, I guess, 
because it is all going to be in Canada and Panama. There are no other 
locations under this application in the United States or elsewhere that 
are authorized to do this. Somehow or other, the FDA says they are 
going to maintain regulatory oversight over the production and the 
facilities, and they are going to conduct inspections to confirm that 
adequate physical containment measures remain in place. They will be 
working with the Canadian and Panamanian governments to be conducting 
inspections. Really? Do I feel safer about making sure that our wild 
and healthy stocks are going to be not infiltrated by the Frankenfish, 
by these genetically engineered organisms designed for human 
consumption, designed to grow twice as fast to get to the size of a 
king salmon, so that a company can derive the benefit of selling more 
of this fish.
  Well, I am saying FDA should never have approved this--never have 
approved this. The fact is that the Alaska delegation, as well as 
members of other delegations in this body and on the other side, have 
pounded their fists for quite some time against this measure through 
the FDA. They know full well how much we object to it. At 7:55 last 
night my assistant got an email from the FDA saying that commissioner 
would like to talk to me about some imminent news. By the time the 
morning came around, the imminent news was already made public. 
Alaskans were already aware that this approval from FDA had come forth. 
It was not only me; it is my understanding that the head of the 
agriculture appropriations subcommittee--I met with him yesterday--
didn't get a heads-up about it. The nominee was before us yesterday in 
the HELP Committee, and I actually put two questions to him about 
seafood. There was no heads-up that this was coming our way, just kind 
of, boom, lay it on the table.
  I have to tell my colleagues, we have made no bones about the fact 
that this is wrong not only for Alaska and our wild stocks, it is wrong 
for our salmon stocks around the country, and it is something I am 
going to continue to fight.
  I am not sure as we deal with this news today if we can get the FDA 
to reverse this. I am going to keep working on it. But at a bare 
minimum, people around this country need to know what they are serving 
their families when it comes to seafood. If this is going to be allowed 
into the markets, if it is going to be allowed on restaurant menus, 
then it needs to be labeled as such.
  The FDA has said there will be draft guidance on voluntary labeling 
indicating whether food has or has not been derived from GE Atlantic 
salmon. So, basically, if you want to put a label on that says this is 
a fake fish, a fake salmon, you can go ahead, but you don't have to. It 
is only voluntary.
  That is not good enough for this mom. That is not good enough for 
most who care about what their families are eating. So we are going to 
continue to press for mandatory labeling if the FDA is going to 
approve--wrongheadedly, in my mind--this genetically engineered fake 
fish for human consumption. They darn well better agree that labeling 
will be required because I am not going to eat it.

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