House Appropriators Approve FY18 Agriculture Spending Bill to Keep Catfish Inspections at FSIS
The House Appropriations Committee by voice vote on July 12 approved fiscal year 2018 agriculture spending legislation, which would maintain responsibility for catfish inspections at the Food Safety and Inspection Service. The bill would also direct the Food and Drug Administration to examine the expediency of medical product imports and instruct the Foreign Agricultural Service to form an inspection working group with Mexican and Central American partners. The working group would be dedicated to improving inspection and supply chain efficiencies, as well as transportation costs, and FAS would be required to brief the committee on those efforts within 180 days of the bill’s enactment, according to the committee report (here) on the bill.
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The report also directs the FDA to examine “trends in possible delays” of medical product shipments, noting that any lag in obtaining “critically important medical products” can increase patient risk and disrupt medical services. FDA would be required to brief House and Senate appropriators on its evaluation within 90 days of the bill’s enactment, “and, if necessary, allocate existing resources to adequately staff centralized points of entry for imported, time-sensitive medical products so that commerce and critical medical care is not unduly delayed,” the report says.
The bill's language keeping catfish import inspections at the Food Safety and Inspection Service runs contrary to the Trump administration’s request to shift them back to the FDA (see 1706280034). The committee said in its report that FSIS has prevented more than 423 tons of adulterated or ineligible catfish from entering the U.S. food supply, exceeding the number of inspections and findings when FDA had jurisdiction over the program. FSIS started inspecting catfish imports in May 2016 (see 1605040041). “Given these results, the Committee does not concur with the President’s budget request to transfer this responsibility back to FDA,” the report says.
Lawmakers rejected an amendment proposed by committee ranking member Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., to strike a provision to regulate e-cigarettes. Lowey cast the e-cigarette language as an attempt for deregulation, saying during the July 12 markup that the bill would provide an alternate review process for such products, outside of the confines of the Tobacco Review Act. She also expressed concern the bill would slow FDA’s ongoing reviews of e-cigarette flavoring content.
The committee draft of the bill text (here) retained language from the subcommittee draft that, among other things, would require the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes FDA, to within one year of enactment promulgate final regulations requiring that vapor product labeling contains an accurate statement of the product’s nicotine content and the phrases “Keep Out of Reach of Children” and “Underage Sale Prohibited.” Lowey, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, D-Fla., said the products’ appeal to children was part of their reason for supporting Lowey’s amendment. House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Sanford Bishop, D-Ga., and Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, were among the Democrats joining the broad Republican opposition to the amendment.
Committee members also adopted an amendment that contains language clarifying that no funds are to be used to finalize rulemaking for accepting Chinese chicken imports unless USDA ensures China’s poultry slaughter inspection system is equivalent to that of the U.S. FSIS issued a proposed rule in June to allow Chinese chicken imports (see 1706160035). The amendment also directs USDA to conduct a “full review” of Brazil’s food safety equivalency for all products eligible for export to the U.S. within 180 days of enactment, requiring a report to be provided to the committee and posted on USDA’s website within that time frame. The report cited “news reports about the severity of the corruption among Brazilian health and industry officials.” Beef imports from Brazil remain suspended after a June 22 announcement by Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, who said there are recurring concerns over Brazil’s food safety (see 1706230018).
The committee report “urges” the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to update grapevine import regulations, citing an “expensive, cumbersome, and time-consuming” regulatory review process and requirements for pathogen screening. The committee is calling for APHIS to “dramatically shorten” the review timeline by using new technology and to “prioritize” the approval of new grape varieties “suited for colder, harsher climates.” The office of House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and the Senate Appropriations Committee didn’t immediately comment.