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Jumping From Fry Pan to Fire?

Mike

Well-known member
3/30/2007 6:00:00 AM Email this article • Print this article
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Agriculture leaders lobby to beef up border security
Lawmakers want to return ag inspectors to USDA from Homeland Security

Bob Krauter
Capital Press California Editor

California agricultural leaders are lobbying Congress to beef up protections at the border to fend against pests and disease.

Last week a Senate committee heard testimony to transfer 1,800 pest inspectors now under the Department of Homeland Security back to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's control.

California Citrus Mutual President Joel Nelsen reminded the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee that agricultural officials were wary about the plan to reassign inspectors five years ago. Agricultural inspectors in the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service became Customs and Border Protection employees.

"California Citrus Mutual and others in the specialty crop industry have always questioned the re-assignment of agricultural specialists from APHIS to CBP," stated Nelsen. "These agents are on the front lines of working to keep plant pests and diseases from entering the country through any of numerous border entry points."

Nelsen said a May 2006 General Accounting Office report on the effectiveness of the transfer revealed "disturbing findings" and identified areas of improvement.

"CBP has not developed sufficient performance measures that take into account the agency's expanded mission or consider all pathways by which prohibited agricultural items or foreign pests may enter the country," said Nelsen, referring to the GAO report. "The GAO report provides evidence that the original misgivings about the transfer were well founded."

Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration created the Department of Homeland Security. Despite concerns raised by agricultural groups at the time, port and border inspection functions were transferred to Homeland Security control from the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Agricultural specialists trained to intercept pests at borders and at the nation's 125 ports became Customs and Border Protection employees in 2003.

The 2006 GAO report, "Homeland Security: Management and Coordination Problems Increase Vulnerability of U.S. Agriculture to Foreign Pests and Disease," found that inspection rates at several key American points of entry have significantly decreased. Inspections decreased in Miami by 12.7 percent, in Boston by 17.9 percent, and San Francisco by 21.4 percent. The report also found that 60 percent of agriculture inspection specialists believed they were doing either "somewhat" or "many fewer" inspections since the transfer.

Democratic Sen. Diane Fein-stein, D-San Francisco, has authored legislation to return port and border inspectors to USDA control.

"Inspections are the first line of defense against exotic pests. Yet inspections have dropped dramatically since responsibility has been vested with the Department of Homeland Security," Feinstein said in a news release. "It is time to put USDA back in charge of inspections and ensure that keeping these pests out remains a top priority."

Nelsen called on lawmakers to reverse course, citing industry concerns about the effectiveness of the Department of Homeland Security to protect the nation against foreign invasive species.

"CCM recommends that the 2007 farm bill direct the Administration to transfer our nation's border inspection responsibilities back to APHIS," Nelsen said. "We believe this would more effectively protect specialty crop growers and other U.S. interests against the increasing threat of foreign invasive species being introduced into our nation."

This week, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia, and Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, introduced legislation that would accomplish the transfer of inspectors to USDA.

Andrew House, senior policy adviser to Nunes, said moving APHIS inspectors to Homeland Security has eroded pest defenses.

"Over the past several years, we have witnessed what many view as a steady decline in the quality of work being done at our ports and watering down of the mission of those inspectors," House said. "For a district like ours with 350 different crops and you have potential exposure to all kinds of pests and invasive species, you need that front line of defense to be very strong."

House said APHIS inspectors have an expertise that is clear and distinct from the counter-terrorism mission of Homeland Security. While the Homeland Security mission is critical to the nation's security, shifting personnel from USDA has eroded pest defenses.

"Taking that away from them was an experiment and we don't feel the experiment succeeded in producing a better defense in terms of protecting agriculture," House said. "In fact, we would conclude it has done the reverse."

Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, included the transfer language in a specialty crop agriculture bill he introduced last week. In addition to California Citrus Mutual, the transfer of pest inspectors back to USDA authority is supported by the California Farm Bureau Federation, California Grape and Tree Fruit League and Western Growers.

Bob Krauter is the Capital Press California editor based in Sacramento. His e-mail address is [email protected]
 

Econ101

Well-known member
This new Department of Homeland Security has been a failure and a drain on govt. resources.

The DHS should have been set up to help coordinate and find efficiencies not in place with existing agencies. Occasionally an overhaul of particular aspects of other agencies to promote efficiencies and change of priorities of existing agency responsibilities could have been a responsibility of the new agency. All of this should have been executed with the goal of enhanced govt. oversight into its responsibilities of protecting the country from foreign threats. The DHS has been a money hole and has shown little results for the money spent. This is but another example.

When it was formed, I was reminded of Hitler's use of "the motherland" rhetoric to galvanize the populace into going along with his plans for their country.
 
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