If you were looking for an example to show just how awful the legislative process is in Washington, the ongoing saga over catfish inspection is just perfect. On its face, the 2008 law requiring the U.S. Department of Agriculture to inspect catfish facilities seems relatively benign. Who doesn’t want safer catfish? In reality, though, the law has nothing to do with food safety and everything to do with supporting the Southern catfish industry at everyone else’s expense.
Switching catfish inspection from the FDA (where it is now) to the USDA won’t make catfish any safer. This isn’t really a controversial point, either. The USDA itself has said that catfish is a low risk food and can’t explain how its inspections will reduce that risk in any meaningful way. The Government Accountability Office has advised Congress to repeal the program.
The new inspection regime is slated to cost taxpayers $14 million more per year than the current one. But there’s actually a much greater harm being done here.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/crony-catfish
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