To restrict the sale in America of unsafe, illegally produced shrimp, U.S. Rep. Garret Graves (R-LA) recently proposed a bipartisan bill that would provide funding to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ensure that shrimp are free of illegal chemicals, safe for human consumption, and not supplied using illegal fishing practices.
“Shrimp packed with illegal antibiotics cannot be allowed to take over our market, and it’s unacceptable to be okay with anyone consuming a lower-quality product that puts their health at risk,” Rep. Graves said on Monday.
The congressman on July 11 sponsored the Laws Ensuring Safe Shrimp (LESS) Act, H.R. 4547, with lead original cosponsor U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL) to establish a fund to promote the inspection and consumption of shrimp and products containing shrimp or shrimp parts, according to the text of the bill.
“From foreign shrimp dumping to skyrocketing energy costs and Hurricane Ida, Louisiana’s shrimpers have been hit by both man-made and natural disasters,” said Rep. Graves. “This is an avoidable hardship for one of Louisiana’s biggest economic drivers and that’s why we are pushing this legislation.”
Rep. Castor added that American shrimpers are under stress from foreign producers and environmental changes.
“The flood of foreign-raised shrimp from China and other countries has saturated the market with shrimp that is often tainted with illegal antibiotics,” she said. “With the LESS Act, Rep. Graves and I want to level the playing field to ensure foreign-raised shrimp producers play by the rules and do not overwhelm the marketplace with unhealthy products.”
The Southern Shrimp Alliance and the American Shrimp Processor’s Association endorsed the bill, which would establish in the U.S. Treasury a fund to be known as the Inspection and Consumption of Shrimp and Shrimp Products Fund.
Under H.R. 4547, the Secretary of the Treasury would transfer from the general fund to the newly established fund amounts equivalent to 70 percent of monies that are attributable to duties assessed by the United States under current law, including duties collected on imports of shrimp and products containing specific shrimp or shrimp parts for fiscal year 2024 and each subsequent fiscal year, the text says.
Fifty percent of such amounts would be used by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for the inspection, examination, sampling, and testing of shrimp that present a high risk of contamination from unapproved antibiotic residues to identify violations of law, among other provisions, while the remaining 50 percent would be used by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to encourage the domestic consumption of shrimp, according to the bill’s text.