KEY TAKEAWAYS: Louisiana lawmakers advanced bills cracking down on mislabeled imported seafood. Proposed laws would expand state authority to inspect, seize and destroy illegal seafood products. Retailers would be required to keep seafood invoices for at least six months. Legislation also allo ws state funds to promote Louisiana domestic seafood products.   A variety of proposals to continue the state’s campaign against the mislabeling and misrepresentation of imported seafood are nearing final passage in the Louisiana Legislature. On Tuesday, a state Senate committee approved three bills sponsored by Rep. Jessica Domangue, R-Houma, that will give more power to the state Department of Agriculture and Forestry to investigate and seize unlawful seafood. In Louisiana, foreign seafood becomes illegal if it is mislabeled or commingled with domestic catch, presumably in an effort to hide its true country of origin. State law also prohibits restaurants from selling imported shrimp or crawfish without disclosing its country of origin on the menu or on a sign. House Bill 725 would require food retailers, such as seafood markets, to retain all records of seafood invoices for at least six months and keep them available for state inspection. State Agriculture Commissioner Mike Strain, who testified at Tuesday’s hearing, told lawmakers invoice records are a mechanism that agriculture and health inspectors can use to quickly verify if a retailer is following the labeling law. If the records aren’t available, officials typically need to do a lab test to determine the animal’s origin. “It allows a degree of traceability,” Strain said, adding that most businesses already retain their wholesale invoices for several years for tax purposes. Another measure, House Bill 121, would empower the agriculture commissioner to seize, hold or destroy any seafood found to be in violation of state law. Under current law, the commissioner can issue a stop order that prevents the vendor from selling the product but has to ask the Health Department to seize the illegal seafood. The bill would further prevent bad actors from moving the product out of the state and selling it in another location, Strain said. A third proposal, House Bill 349, allows the Department of Agriculture and Forestry to use its Imported Seafood Safety Fund to pay for promoting and marketing domestic seafood. Currently, the fund can only be used to pay for testing and enforcement. The money comes from fees the department collects on seafood imports. “To grow domestic production, we have to let people know we have it,” Strain said. The foreign seafood industry has a number of problems, documented through academic research and news reports. Seafood companies have been caught using slave labor for commercial fishing and processing, and testing of imported seafood in Louisiana revealed the presence of banned veterinary chemicals potentially harmful to humans. The influx of foreign catch has also hurt Louisiana’s domestic shrimping industry, which Domangue said was once prevalent in her coastal district. She told the committee she doesn’t mind being called “the shrimp girl,” a nickname given to her by a colleague because of her support for the industry that employed her father and grandfather. All three measures cleared the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Forestry, Aquaculture, and Rural Development without objection and head to the Senate floor for final consideration. ...read more read less