Congress considers reorganizing pest inspectors
Inspections are down after CBP absorbed the DOA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service; legislation will reverse the arrangement; pests and disease cause $41 billion in damage each year
At least they are not afraid to say they were wrong. Five years after DHS’ Customs and Border Protection bureau absorbed 1,800 pest inspectors from the Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, federal authorities on multiple levels are trying to undo the mistake after the Government Accountability Office last year reported low morale and decreased inspection rates. The department’s San Francisco office, for instance, managed to inspect “40 percent of the international passengers and pieces of cargo,” Scripps News Service reported. “In the three years after the reorganization, the inspection rate fell to 19 percent.” Senator Diane Feinstein (D-California and Representatives Dennis Cardoza (D-California) and Devin Nunes (R-California) have all introduced legislation on the issue. “They’re not doing an adequate job now of protecting us from pests and other things that could hurt our ag industry,” Nunes explained.
Overall, 60 percent of agriculture inspectors reported that they believed they were doing fewer inspections, a big problem because pests and agricultural diseases already cost the farming industry $41 billiion each year. “Once these pests and diseases have entered the country, it is very difficult and expensive to control the damage,” said Feinstein. Not that anyone expects the Bush administration to change its mind (on anything). DHS spokesman Russ Knocke told Government Executive magazine last week that that reorganization could “have a negative impact on our security” and amount to “rearranging the deck chairs yet again.
