Providing for Congressional Disapproval of A Rule Submitted By the Secretary of Agriculture
Floor Speech
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Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, this morning we will be voting on a joint resolution of disapproval for the rule that establishes the U.S. Department of Agriculture's catfish inspection program. As I mentioned yesterday, I would remind my colleagues that the General Accounting Office, a watchdog organization we rely on for their views, particularly on fiscal issues and matters--and I think that of all the institutions of government right now, probably the GAO is arguably the most respected--GAO has warned in 10 different reports between 2009 and 2016 that ``the responsibility of inspecting catfish should not be assigned to the USDA,'' calling the program ``wasteful'' of tax dollars and ``duplicative'' of the FDA's existing inspections on all other seafood products.
That is an interesting item, I say to my colleagues. The FDA performs inspections on every seafood product that comes into the United States of America. And guess what. There is only one, and that is catfish.
Let's be very blunt about the reality. The reality of this is to stop the competition from foreign sources--specifically one of which is the country of Vietnam--from coming into this country. It isn't much more complicated than that when you see that there is only one. And by the way, that only one, according to the GAO, cost the taxpayers $19.9 million to develop and study the inspection program, and the GAO says it will cost the Federal Government an additional $14 million annually to run the program. The GAO found that the Food and Drug Administration currently spends less than $700,000 annually to inspect catfish. So, according to my calculations, over $13 million a year will be saved by doing away with this duplicative inspection program.
I noticed in the vote yesterday that a majority of my colleagues on this side of the aisle who call themselves fiscal conservatives, including the Chair, have said: Well, we want to keep this duplicative program. That is fine with me, if that is your view, but then don't come to the floor and call yourself a fiscal conservative if you are willing to spend $14 million a year that is not needed and not wanted and is clearly duplicative and especially is earmarked for a special interest--i.e., the catfish industry in Southern States. So vote however you want, but don't come back to the floor when you see a duplicative or wasteful program and say you are all for saving the taxpayers' dollars, because you are voting to spend $14 million of the taxpayers' dollars on a duplicative and unnecessary program.
Don't wonder why only 12 percent of the American people approve of what we do. The reason is because we allow programs such as this, where parochial interests override what is clearly the national interest and the taxpayers' interest. That is why the Center for Individual Freedom, the National Taxpayers Union, the Heritage Foundation, the Taxpayers for Protection Alliance, the Campaign for Liberty, the Independent Women's Forum, the National Taxpayers Union, the Taxpayers for Common Sense, and on and on, are all totally in favor of this resolution. Every watchdog organization in this town and in this country favors this resolution.
I also point out that one of the arguments my dear friend from Mississippi will raise again is that somehow, unless we have this special office, this specific office for inspecting catfish, there will be a problem with the safety of the catfish that are imported into this country. In classic farm bill politics, proponents worked up specious talking points about how Americans need a whole new government agency to inspect catfish imports. As a result, USDA has begun operating a program that will require foreign importers to adjust the catfish program over a period of 5 to 7 years while the USDA duplicates the FDA's inspection program.
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Mr. McCAIN. All I can say is that the FDA has been doing this job for years and has intercepted banned compounds in foreign imported catfish, and I would point out that the USDA has encountered problems in domestic catfish as well.
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