Panel votes to return inspectors to Agriculture Department

The House Agriculture subcommittee voted Thursday to move agricultural border inspectors from the Department of Homeland Security back to the Agriculture Department even though the Bush administration is adamantly opposed to the proposal.

The Horticulture and Organic Agriculture Subcommittee approved the move as part of its approval of the horticulture and organic agriculture title of the proposed 2007 farm bill (H.R. 2419). The title was approved on voice vote.

There was also no discussion of moving the inspectors, although there was debate on other issues during the business meeting. Subcommittee chairman Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Calif., told reporters afterward that if anyone in agriculture was opposed to moving the inspectors Republican members of his subcommittee would have voted against it or offered amendments.

"We have heard from sea to shining sea that the administration is not focusing on bugs moving across our border," Cardoza said. Homeland Security inspectors, he said, are looking for illegal immigrants and drugs, while another kind of "terrorists" -- bugs -- "are invading our country. Congress is opposed to the way Congress is conducting the operation."

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service was located in the Agriculture Department until the DHS was created. More than 2,600 animal and plant health inspectors at the borders were moved in DHS, which has undertaken a program of cross-training so that the former USDA employees and U.S. Customs Service employees can inspect all kinds of goods.

Cardoza did not ask Deputy Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner, who represented the Bush administration at the markup, to give his views on the proposal, but Conner told reporters that moving the inspectors back to USDA "would be turning the clock back." Cross-training is working and 60 percent of the workforce available for agricultural inspections is people who are not former USDA employees, Conner said. Asked about complaints from agricultural groups that Homeland Security border inspectors are focused on nonagricultural inspections, Conner said, "We're making headway."

But there is a lot of support among agricultural groups for moving the inspectors back to USDA. Robert Guenther, a vice president of United Fresh Produce who also represents the larger Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance, said his groups, "wholeheartedly" support the subcommittee's action. "We have been spearheading that for a long time," Guenther added.

The subcommittee also voted to continue the honey program, direct the Agriculture Department to increase federal purchases of fruits and vegetables and establish a new program to determine and prioritize pest and disease threats for fruits, vegetables and nut crops.