Comment from DAVID LONGACRE

The proposed importation permission has the potential to significantly harm the nascent U.S. Hawaii-based lychee/longan industry. One of the stated missions of USDA is to protect U.S. agriculture. However, the action of any element of USDA to permit foreign tropical specialty fruit growers into the U.S. market is harmful to American growers. It is very unlikely that we can match the lower production costs of foreign growers. Additionally, since lychee and longan in the U.S. are most reliably grown in Hawaii, we face transocean shipping costs to the U.S. mainland market. While these costs may be lower than those of Asian growers, they probably are not enough lower to offset the lower production costs of our foreign competition. If the negative competitive impact upon U.S. growers does not dissuade the U.S. government from permitting the proposed importations, I do think that our government should empower U.S. Customs and Border Protection to not only inspect the foreign fruit for pests and diseases, but to test it for evidence of non-compliant pesticides contained within the fruit. Should such evidence be detected, CBP should have the authority to require return of the merchandise to the shipper. The U.S. consumer should not be subjected to the possibility of ingesting a pesticide that is not authorized in the U.S. for application to our fruit crops.