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has a broad grant of authority under the Federal Food, Drug, and 

 Cosmetic Act and the Public Health Service Act, under which the 

 Agency engages in inspections, import examinations, international 

 agreements, sampling and analysis, education, research, Federal- 

 State cooperation and assistance, and other functions. 

 Additional authority is not essential to the operation of the 

 program, although, as FDA has testified many times in the past, 

 some very specific additional authority may be helpful. The 

 larger question is whether additional authority can be justified 

 solely for seafood or should be considered in the context of 

 overall food safety. 



One authority that you ask about that would apply solely to 

 seafood is water closure authority. Such authority is 

 theoretically desirable but implementation might prove to be 

 extremely difficult. When a problem arises, such as the recent 

 discovery in Pacific waters of toxins in species of fish and 

 shellfish previously unknown to those species, it would be 

 difficult at best to establish the geographical boundaries of a 

 closure or to know whether to apply the closure to all fish of a 

 particular species or to base the closure on size of fish or 

 other factors. As a result, a water closure authority might 

 raise expectations that could not practically be met. However, 

 it is worthy of further consideration. 



