ENROLLED
2024 Regular Session
HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOL UTION NO. 10
BY REPRESENTATIVES KERNER, AMEDEE, BAYHAM, BERAULT, BILLINGS,
BRAUD, BROWN, BUTLER, CARPENTER, CARRIER, WILFORD CARTER,
CARVER, COX, EGAN, GLORIOSO, GREEN, HUGHES, JACKSON, MIKE
JOHNSON, LACOMBE, LAFLEUR, JACOB LANDRY, LYONS, MARCELLE,
MENA, MOORE, ORGERON, RISER, STAGNI, TAYLOR, WALTERS, WILDER,
AND WILLARD
A CONCURRENT RESOL UTION
To memorialize the United States Congress to take such actions as are necessary to compel
the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to fulfill its duties regarding
inspection and testing of imported seafood.
WHEREAS, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in
2019 the United States imported six billion pounds of edible seafood products, including one
and one half billion pounds of shrimp, an increase of nearly six and one half million pounds
more than the shrimp imported in 2018; and
WHEREAS, the 2019 shrimp imports alone, valued at six billion dollars, accounted
for twenty-seven percent of the total value of imported seafood that year, which reached
twenty-two billion dollars; and
WHEREAS, it is estimated that over half of the imported seafood consumed in the
United States is from aquaculture, or seafood farming, rather than wild-caught; and
WHEREAS, the FDA is responsible for the safety of all fish and fishery products
entering the United States and sold in Louisiana; and
WHEREAS, the FDA's seafood safety program is governed by its Hazard Analysis
Critical Control Point regulations, which address food safety management through the
analysis and control of biological, chemical, and physical hazards from raw material
production and procurement and handling to manufacturing, distribution, and consumption
of the finished product; and
WHEREAS, FDA regulations are supposed to measure the compliance of imported
seafood with inspections of foreign processing facilities, sampling of seafood offered for
import into the United States, domestic surveillance sampling of imported products,
inspections of seafood importers, foreign country program assessments, and the use of
information from foreign partners and FDA overseas offices; and
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WHEREAS, in 2011 the FDA was only inspecting two percent of the seafood
imported into the United States; and
WHEREAS, unfortunately 2011 is the last year for which data regarding the
percentage of imports inspected is available due to a lack of transparency and inadequate
assessment measures; and
WHEREAS, in 2011 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted that the
FDA's assessment of foreign aquaculture operations was limited by the FDA's lack of
procedures, criteria, and standards; and ten years later, a 2021 GAO report found that the
agency was failing to monitor the effectiveness of its own enforcement policies and
procedures; and
WHEREAS, in contrast, the European Union regularly conducts physical checks of
approximately twenty percent of all imported fish products that are fresh, frozen, dry, salted,
or hermetically sealed, and for certain fishery products, physical checks are conducted on
approximately fifty percent of imports; and
WHEREAS, the Louisiana State University School of Renewable Natural Resources
published a 2020 paper titled "Determination of Sulfite and Antimicrobial Residue in
Imported Shrimp to the USA", which presented findings from a study of shrimp imported
from India, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Bangladesh, and Ecuador and purchased
from retail stores in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and
WHEREAS, a screening of these shrimp for sulfites and residues from antimicrobial
drugs found the following: (1) five percent of the shrimp contained malachite green, (2)
seven percent contained oxytetracycline, (3) seventeen percent contained fluoroquinolone,
and (4) seventy percent contained nitrofurantoin, all of which have been banned by the FDA
in domestic aquaculture operations; and
WHEREAS, although the FDA requires that food products exposed to sulfites must
include a label with a statement about the presence of sulfites, of the forty-three percent of
these locally purchased shrimp found to contain sulfites, not one package complied with this
labeling requirement; and
WHEREAS, the drug and sulfite residues included in this screening can be harmful
to human health during both handling and consumption and have been known to cause all
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of the following: liver damage and tumors, reproductive abnormalities, cardiac arrhythmia,
renal failure, hemolysis, asthma attacks, and allergic reactions; and
WHEREAS, the results of this study confirm that existing screening and enforcement
measures for imported seafood are insufficient; whatever the percentage of imports inspected
may be, seafood is currently being imported that contains unsafe substances that put
American consumers at risk; and
WHEREAS, because imported seafood is not held to the same standards as domestic
seafood, domestic fishing industries are put at a distinct and significant disadvantage
commercially; and
WHEREAS, according to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, the
average value of Louisiana shrimp fell from three dollars and eighty cents per pound in 1980
to one dollar fifty cents per pound in 2017; and
WHEREAS, this unfair competition allows foreign competitors to flood the United
States market with seafood harvested under intensive farming practices using antimicrobial
drugs, while devastating local industries and the coastal communities built around them; and
WHEREAS, shrimp consumption is on the rise in the United States, yet domestic
shrimp profits have decreased in recent years, particularly for shrimp sourced in the Gulf of
Mexico and South Atlantic regions; and
WHEREAS, Senator John Kennedy has previously introduced legislation to bolster
Louisiana's shrimp, red snapper, and seafood industry and protect American consumers from
illegal exports; and
WHEREAS, this legislation would increase funding to the Seafood Import
Monitoring Program (SIMP) and would allow SIMP to conduct audits on seafood under its
purview to prevent foreign seafood imports that misrepresent themselves from entering U.S.
markets; and
WHEREAS, proposed legislation such as this is a necessary step that Congress must
take to protect American consumers and bolster the Louisiana seafood industry.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislature of Louisiana does hereby
memorialize the United States Congress to take such actions as are necessary to compel the
United States Food and Drug Administration to fulfill its duties regarding inspection and
testing of imported seafood.
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BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this Resolution be transmitted to the
presiding officers of the Senate and the House of Representatives of the Congress of the
United States of America and to each member of the Louisiana congressional delegation.
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE
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