Lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan bill to help protect U.S. agriculture from a pest currently causing import pauses.
Republican Senators John Cornyn, Ted Cruz, Democratic Senator Ben Ray Luján, and Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales recently tabled the STOP Screwworms Act.
If passed, the USDA would receive $300 million in funding to construct a New World screwworm (NWS) sterile fly facility in the country.
This facility would produce sterile male flies released into the wild to compete with other males and help reduce populations.
Currently, the only facility of this kind in North America is in Pacora, Panama. It can produce over 100 million pupae per week.