This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, August 12, 2014.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Most of the catfish that Americans eat is from foreign producers,

but that could change if Senator Thad Cochran gets his way in imposing a whole new way of inspecting fish.

The winners of such a regime, domestic catfish producers,

who will see big crony profits if the program is implemented.

Bill Watson, Trade Policy analyst at the Cato Institute, comments.

The price of catfish could skyrocket in America.

Unless Congress overturns or refuses to fund this new catfish inspection

regime we could see imported catfish excluded from the U.S. market for about five years until foreign producers

can prove equivalence to these new U standards. Right now the US imports at least 60% of the

catfish that we consume and so the impact on U.S. prices could be significant.

The rationale behind having a new catfish inspection regime is to improve the safety of catfish for consumers.

The problem with that rationale is that catfish is not dangerous to consumers.

It's a very low risk food.

And the USDA, which has now been charged with inspecting it, has admitted that there's nothing

it can really do to improve the safety of catfish,

but it has to do this new inspection regime because it's been required by law.

It's been pointed out that the program will cost $14 million more per year than the current FDA program

and that the USDA doesn't have any expertise in inspecting fish.

They do pork, poultry, and beef.

So they would have one kind of fish that they inspect

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