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Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Beyer) for yielding the time, and I also thank my colleague from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson) for speaking in support of this as well.
I rise today in support of H.R. 4245, a bill that will end the practice of export inspections for sea urchin, sea cucumbers, squid, and cuttlefish that are being shipped overseas as part of our Nation's fisheries and fish processing industry.
At the outset, I want to thank Chairman Bishop, subcommittee Chairman Fleming, Ranking Member Grijalva, and my good friend from California, Ranking Member Huffman, for their support and help in getting this bill through the committee and to the House floor today. I want to recognize my friend and colleague from Maine (Mr. Poliquin) who has been an original cosponsor of this bill and a tireless supporter of this effort.
To better understand this bill, I would like to tell you a little bit about the sea urchin industry in Maine, which is a critical part of our marine economy. Second only to California, the sea urchin industry in Maine brings over $5.4 million to our State every year and supports 600 jobs, which includes harvesters up and down our beautiful coast.
Companies in Maine also process urchins that are harvested here, as well as those from Canada and Chile, before being exported overseas. In Japan and other parts of Asia, urchins are a valuable delicacy, known in sushi restaurants as uni. They are also a delicacy here in the United States and are very highly regarded.
Urchins imported to Maine from other countries are inspected by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service upon entering the country. Relatively recently, the Fish and Wildlife Service has begun inspecting the products once again before leaving the country. The policy change ended a longtime exemption that urchins had received, an exemption that lobster and other shellfish continue to receive.
Over 18 months ago, I started hearing from urchin processors in Maine who reported problems with this recent change. Sometimes the urchins sat in a hot warehouse in New York--usually at the JFK Airport--for days waiting for an inspection, possibly resulting in the loss of a very valuable and highly perishable product.
Since these are such a perishable product, despite the harvesters' and processors' speedy work to get the urchins ready for shipment, once they reached the inspection point in New York, they often came to a halt.
I immediately started working with the Fish and Wildlife Service to try and find a solution. Even though we haven't always seen eye to eye with the Fish and Wildlife Service, they have been very willing to hear our concerns, work with us on particular problems, and try to make things easier on our harvesters and processors.
We had a very recent example. Last Friday afternoon, my office received a call from an urchin processor who had $50,000 worth of product soon to be sitting at the JFK Airport. The Fish and Wildlife Service had closed this Friday, meaning that the urchins would be left over a 3-day weekend. We were able to get it cleared, but it was a very close call. Stories like this make it clear that the only real solution is to get rid of this duplicative inspection, and this is what this bill would do.
After working with the Fish and Wildlife Service, talking to urchin harvesters, and visiting a processing plant in my district, I firmly believe that these extra inspections are unnecessary. There is no reason why sea urchins should be treated differently than shellfish.
These burdensome inspections create a great deal of risk for valuable exports and too much uncertainty for a job-creating industry. As communities on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts deal with challenges to commercial fishing and working waterfronts, it is critical that Congress do everything it can to support successful industries like sea urchins in Maine or squid and cuttlefish in California, Rhode Island, and other States.
I am very proud to have introduced this bipartisan legislation, and I encourage my colleagues to support this bill.
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