A U.S. House of Representatives committee has advanced the Destruction of Hazardous Imports Act, legislation that would enable the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to destroy imported goods that have been refused entry due to contamination.
“I am proud to champion bills like the Destruction of Hazardous Imports Act, which was passed yesterday in [the House Committee on Energy and Commerce] to create a fair playing field for our fishermen and domestic shrimp industry,” U.S. Representative Troy Carter (D-Louisiana), who sponsored the bill, said in a social media statement.
Backers of the bill say it’s necessary to prevent the practice of “port shopping.” Because only a fraction of imports are physically subject to inspection, some importers will attempt to reexport products that were denied entry at one location at another location, hoping that they will not be inspected on the second attempt.
The Destruction of Hazardous Imports Act, introduced by Carter and U.S. Representative Clay Higgins (R-Louisiana), would prevent that practice by enabling the FDA to destroy products that fail inspection.
The FDA asked for the authority to do just that in its list of 2026 legislative proposals, pointing to a 2023 incident where a importer/wholesaler pled guilty to trying to reimport 2,100 cartons of frozen eels from China that had been denied entry due to contamination by “a carcinogenic unapproved animal drug.”
“FDA believes this new authority would prevent reimportation of refused products and would deter importers from seeking to import products they know or have reason to believe would pose a significant public health risk and could be ordered destroyed. This authority would also increase efficiency by reducing the need to involve the Customs and Border Protection in the seizure of unsafe FDA-regulated products and allow the Agency to require importers to pay the destruction costs up front, thereby avoiding additional legal action to recoup such costs,” the FDA explained.
The Destruction of Hazardous Imports Act was introduced in 2024, but was not acted upon by that session of Congress. Higgins and Carter reintroduced the bill in 2025, and on 21 May the House Committee on Energy and Commerce advanced the bill on a 43-0 vote.
“Once again, the U.S. shrimp industry bears fortunate witness to the effectiveness of the bipartisan leadership of Congressman Troy Carter and Congressman Clay Higgins to eliminate a long-standing complaint of American shrimpers,” Southern Shrimp Alliance Director Blake Price said in a statement. “Any shrimp, seafood, or other FDA-regulated product that poses a significant public health risk to Americans must be kept out of our market. While the job is not yet done, we are proud to have been able to work with a large coalition of organizations, the FDA, and members of Congress to bring forward a workable, common sense legislative solution to a universally-recognized problem.”
The legislation is broadly supported by industry; the Southern Shrimp Alliance led a coalition of 16 seafood groups in sending a letter backing the bill to lawmakers. The Safe Food Coalition has also backed the legislation.
The bill still needs to be passed by both the House and Senate before being send to the president to be signed into law.
