Congresswoman Julia Letlow said she will file a bill April 16 that would require the federal government to buy domestic seafood only as Louisiana’s shrimping industry teeters on the brink of collapse.
The U.S. government spends nearly $400 million annually on seafood for the National School Lunch Program and other food assistance initiatives as well as troops.
Acy Cooper of Plaquemines Parish, president of the Louisiana Shrimp Association, said the bill could be a major step in saving the state’s shrimping industry if it became law.
“If we can’t get the price up, we’re done,” Cooper said in an interview with USA Today Network. “This would be a tremendous help to the industry. It would really make a difference. Right now we’re losing fishermen by the day.”
Louisiana shrimpers numbered as high as 20,000 in the 1980s. Today there are fewer than 1,500, Cooper said, as cheap imports flood the U.S. market.
Letlow said the government shouldn’t support foreign seafood with federal tax dollars when the domestic industry is struggling.
“In Louisiana, seafood is a cornerstone of our economy and a way of life,” she said in a statement. “My Buy American Seafood Act would ensure that taxpayer-funded seafood is sourced from American fishermen and processors, protecting taxpayers from subsidizing foreign countries or adversaries like China.”
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