BATON ROUGE —  Several new bills introduced to the Louisiana Legislature are aimed at regulating imported seafood, according to a report by The Advocate.

House Bill 121, sponsored by Rep. Jessica Domagnue, hopes to give the commissioner of agriculture and forestry the ability to seize, hold or destroy imported seafood that fails to meet the state's regulations for food safety and testing. 

Commissioner Mike Strain said that under the current system, any seafood that doesn't meet regulations has to be seized by the state's health department. The new bill would allow seafood that doesn't meet regulations to be taken out of the supply more quickly. 

In addition, Domagnue sponsored House Bill 109, which would take 2.5% of the revenue the state makes from sports gambling and transfer it to a state fund to pay for the safety monitoring of foreign seafood. Another proposed bill would allow the money from that fund to be used for marketing for Louisiana seafood. 

Rep. Timothy Kerner also proposed House Bill 857, which aims to address the "commingling" of imported seafood with local seafood. Processors and distributors are required to label whether their seafood is imported or local. The bill proposes penalties for those who mix imported seafood with local seafood without labeling it as such. 

A new bill sponsored by Sen. Bill Cassidy also attempts to battle seafood "dumping" by sending money collected from taxes imposed on seafood products subsidized by other countries to shrimpers and fishermen.

Other countries have been accused of subsidizing seafood products exported to the U.S. in an attempt to artificially lower prices to beat out local producers.