To ensure fair treatment in licensing requirements for the export of certain echinoderms.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Hawaii for the time.

I rise today as well in support of H.R. 2504, a bill that will end the practice of duplicative export inspections for sea urchin and sea cucumbers that are being shipped overseas.

This is the second time that the House has considered this legislation in recent years. I want to thank Chairman Bishop; Subcommittee Chairman Lamborn; Ranking Member Grijalva; and my good friend from California, Ranking Member Huffman, for their support in bringing this bill again to the floor today.

I also want to thank my colleague from Arizona (Mr. Gosar) for being here to speak in favor of this bill today.

Also, in the bipartisan effort that we are making here today, I want to recognize and thank my colleague from Maine (Mr. Poliquin), who well knows the importance of this issue and who has been an original cosponsor of this bill, both in this Congress and the last.

I think it is important to explain to the Members who are here today a little bit about why this bill is important and especially critical to our Nation's sea urchin industry.

As a few Members may know, but most probably don't, the sea urchin industry in Maine brings in over $5.4 million to our State every year. It supports 600 jobs, which includes harvesters of the species. Also, we have businesses in Maine which process the urchins harvested here, as well as those imported from Canada and Chile, before being exported overseas.

The need for this bill revolves around ending a duplicative inspection of exported product that is unnecessary and costly. Urchins imported to Maine from other countries to be processed are inspected by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service when they get to the United States. This scrutiny is necessary to ensure the integrity of the imported products.

However, in recent years, the Fish and Wildlife Service has inspected products once again before leaving the country, usually in New York or New Jersey. This occurs before they are shipped to Asia and Japan, in particular, where they are considered a delicacy.

I have spent the past few years working with my colleagues in the Maine delegation to better understand the impact of this policy on small businesses in our State and others where the urchins are harvested. I believe these extra inspections are unnecessary. There is really no reason why sea urchins should be treated differently than shellfish, which have been exempted from these export inspections for decades.

This process often leads to costly delays and lost product, as urchins may end up sitting in hot warehouses waiting for days. At times, the Fish and Wildlife office closes right when a shipment arrives for inspection. The highly perishable product must then sit there because of bad timing.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has worked with my office to try to find solutions, and I know they have tried to work with us on particular problems and trouble spots. But the continual delays, despite their best efforts and that of harvesters, means that the only real solution is to get rid of this duplicative inspection. Again, that is what this bill will do.

This bill is a commonsense solution that will take away an unnecessary inspection, while ensuring that the Fish and Wildlife Service can continue to do their work and their jobs on other important issues affecting our coast and coastal communities.

It will put our sea urchin and sea cucumber businesses on equal footing with their partners in the shellfish industry who do not have this extra scrutiny. It will help the hardworking men and women who harvest and process in this fishery to dedicate their time and efforts to that fishery, not to the bureaucracy.

I urge all of my colleagues to support this bill, as we did in the past Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2504) to ensure fair treatment in licensing requirements for the export of certain echinoderms.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous materials on the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2504, introduced by my Maine colleagues, Chellie Pingree and Bruce Poliquin, is a bipartisan effort to right a bipartisan wrong. In regulations created by an outgoing George W. Bush administration and carried on by administrations since, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has imposed unnecessary fees and duplicative and costly inspection requirements on what was once a growing industry that aims to export niche seafood to overseas markets.

Even the National Marine Fisheries Service, a bastion of Federal regulatory growth, disagrees with its sister agency on this matter. The stories of spoiled food shipments, loss of jobs, and bureaucratic indifference embody the arrogance of an agency gone wild. This bill preserves and promotes jobs as a counter.

I will include in the Record an exchange of letters with Chairman Royce of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who also received a referral of this bill. I thank him for his cooperation in allowing this bill to go forward today.

Again, I commend our two Maine colleagues for working on a bipartisan basis to address this matter. I urge adoption of this commonsense measure, and I reserve the balance of my time.

U.S. House of Representatives,

Committee on Natural Resources,

Washington, DC, January 8, 2018.

Hon. Edward R. Royce,

Chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. Chairman: H.R. 2504, To ensure fair treatment in

licensing requirements for the export of certain echinoderms,

was introduced on May 17, 2017. The bill was referred

primarily to the Committee on Natural Resources, with an

additional referral to the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

I thank you for allowing the Committee on Foreign Affairs

to be discharged from further consideration of the bill so

that it may be scheduled by the Majority Leader. This

discharge in no way affects your jurisdiction over the

subject matter of the bill, and it will not serve as

precedent for future referrals. In addition, should a

conference on the bill be necessary, I would support having

the Committee on Foreign Affairs represented on the

conference committee. Finally, to memorialize our

understanding, I would be pleased to include your letter and

this response in the Congressional Record when the bill is

considered by the House.

Thank you for your response and cooperation. I look forward

to further opportunities to work with you this Congress.

Sincerely,

Rob Bishop,

Chairman, Committee on Natural Resources.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Poliquin).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I, too, want to compliment the two Representatives from Maine. They gave us a hands-on and a palate-trying type of opportunity in our hearing. It doesn't get better than that, and I want to compliment them for both.

I ask all of my colleagues to vote for the underlying bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to salute Chellie Pingree, my cosponsor on this bill, H.R. 2504, for the great work that she has done and that we have done together.

Mr. Speaker, I will tell you that the job of government is to help our families, to help our small businesses, such that the kids and the young adults in Maine can stay in our State, such that they can raise their families and have a wonderful life.

The best part of the world is in the State of Maine. Now, Ms. Pingree represents the southern part of our coast, Mr. Speaker, the southern half, from Camden down to Kittery. I represent the downeast part of our coast, from Lincolnville up to Eastport.

Now, in the downeast part of our coast, mostly we are the folks that dive for the sea urchins and cucumbers. These are little critters that are delicacies in the Far East. We might not eat them here in Washington, but they are delicacies in the Far East. And in Chellie's district, the southern part of the coast, they process these critters.

Mr. Speaker, this is very dangerous work. The folks that harvest these sea urchins and cucumbers strap on tanks and go into deep, dark, cold waters off the coast of Maine, and they are doing a great job getting this product to market.

This product is incredibly perishable, so it is very important to get them from the bottom of the sea floor in coastal Maine onto their boats, down to Portland where they are processed in Ms. Pingree's district, and then onto a truck, down to JFK, get them on a plane, and get them to the Far East and sell as many of these critters as is humanly possible.

This is where the problem comes in. As Ms. Pingree said, we already inspect this perishable delicacy in Maine. We do not need, Mr. Speaker, a second set of regulations that inspect them down in New York.

And God forbid that it is on a holiday and folks don't show up to inspect them.

What happens to this very perishable product?

It sits in a warehouse on a tarmac where it is exposed to things that would cause them to go bad.

So we need to do commonsense Maine stuff here, which is to eliminate overregulation. We already inspect this product in Maine. We don't need to do it again down on a tarmac in New York.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage everybody, Republicans and Democrats, to work the way Chellie and I have on this, in a bipartisan manner, to make sure our families in Maine have an opportunity to dive for sea cucumbers and sea urchins and get them to market as quickly as possible.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for giving me the time to speak on this; I thank Ms. Pingree for the same. I really appreciate leadership moving this through the floor here. I hope we have a very big, bipartisan, unanimous vote on this, because it is commonsense Maine. It is the right thing to do.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ms. Pingree. I appreciate her work on this. Congratulations.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Maine (Ms. Pingree), the sponsor of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I can make this even more real for people. Hawaii, as you know, my home State, is very close to Asia. We have many of the cuisines of Asia, and I can tell you that these are delicacies. Sea urchins are also called uni, for those who frequent sushi bars, and sea cucumbers are called namako. I grew up eating both, and they are very critical and a major part of what we consume, especially, not only in the sushi bars, but during festive holidays in Hawaii. So you can imagine what it means in terms of an export industry for Maine, not only to my home State, but also to the Asian market.

For that reason, Mr. Speaker, I join the introducers of this bill, the sponsors, and I ask that my colleagues support this.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.