Legislation establishes safety net
Sat, Oct 5, 2002

By HANK ROWLAND
The Brunswick News

When you want to tell your neighbor something, you call him on the telephone.

When you want to sell something, you take out a newspaper ad.

When you want to let the nation know about a serious problem your home state is experiencing, you introduce legislation in Congress.

It's the tack U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-1, and other members of the House whose states touch coastline are taking to enlighten Congress about the woes of commercial shrimpers.

The bill, known as Shrimp Importation Financing Fairness Act, calls for holding further government regulation at bay and ceasing federal subsidies to foreign countries that are dumping shrimp in the United States.

"What we're trying to do is get some people who don't represent coastal areas to know how broad this problem is in the coastal shrimping industry," Kingston said.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, is the sponsor of the legislation. Kingston is a co-sponsor.

Seventy percent of the shrimp marketed in the states today comes mostly from seven countries that do not follow the same rules as American shrimpers.

"Our guys are at an international disadvantage," Kingston said. "Countries like Ecuador don't have to worry about bycatch reduction devices or turtle excluder devices.

"What we are trying to do is get our guys regulatory relief."

Other countries accused of dumping shrimp on U.S. markets, in addition to China and Ecuador, are Thailand, Vietnam, India, Indonesia and Brazil. According to the bill Kingston and others are introducing, each exported in excess of 20 million pounds of shrimp to the states in the first six months of 2002.

Even worse is that the American government is helping finance these and other countries with its contributions to the Overseas Private Investment Corp. and the International Monetary Fund.

Paul's legislation opposes channeling American dollars to any of the seven countries until after each has reduced exports to the United States to 3 million pounds per month for three consecutive months.

"What we're saying is that as long as these countries aren't using TEDs or BRDs, then we don't think they should be able to participate in the IMF," Kingston said. "The funds lend money to countries for industrial development, and part of that is to develop industry that doesn't pollute and doesn't hurt endangered species. We are subsidizing countries that are ignoring laws designed to protect endangered species."

To George Marra, director of the Georgia Shrimp Association, the legislation is a sight for sore eyes.

"After two years of appealing to our legislators to look into dumping, I feel we are finally making progress," Marra said. "It's positive news. We're pleased that something has finally happened."

Marra said Georgia shrimpers will continue working toward forming a coalition with shrimpers in other states for the purpose of lobbying Congress for tariff protection against countries that dump shrimp in America.