With lawmakers on Capitol Hill unable to agree on a budget — and a shutdown of the federal government due to commence at midnight on Friday — seafood professionals across the United States were bracing for the potential fallout.
But, to the relief of seafood professionals, congressional officials struck a deal that would fund the government through September and cut USD 38.5 billion in spending. They are currently operating under a one-week extension of the budget, which passed the House and Senate in the final hour before the federal government was to shut down.
If the government had shut down, only “non-essential” functions would have ceased, and “essential” services, such as regulating the U.S. food supply, would have remained.
That included inspecting seafood imported from Japan, an effort that’s been ramped up not only in the United States but also worldwide due to harmful levels of radioactive iodine turning up in Japanese-caught fish. Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had assured the National Fisheries Institute that federal employees working on the Japan situation will not be furloughed, an NFI spokesperson told SeafoodSource on Friday.
In its contingency plan, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would have continued to inspect food imported into the United States, as the 953 FDA employees who inspect food products and manufacturing facilities are deemed “essential.”
About 85 percent of the U.S. seafood supply is imported.
However, an anonymous FDA official had told CNN that the agency’s operations would be “severely limited” by a government shutdown. According to the source, the FDA’s Office of Regulatory Affairs would have continued to operate but with fewer inspectors on staff.
As far as fisheries management, Alaska’s KUCB reported that Unalaska/Dutch Harbor, the nation’s No. 1 fishing port in terms of volume, wasn’t expected to have been impacted significantly by a government shutdown, as many of the federal employees working there are considered “essential.” That includes on-board observers, who work on a contract system and are paid directly by the vessels, even though they coordinate with the federal government.
