If you’ve noticed more catfish on local menus in the past five years, it isn’t your imagination. At Pop’s Sea Bar in Adams Morgan you can order it fried, simple or deviled. At Rose’s Luxury, it comes with crispy bread, green tomato relish and saffron aioli. And at the Dabney near the Convention Center, catfish shows up as a smoked dip, served with corn chips and pickled red onion.

The protein is affordable, tasty, and can be prepared in an infinite number of creative ways. It’s plentiful in our region, and consuming it serves an environmental benefit since catfish are an invasive species, overpopulating species in local waterways.

“It’s a win for the environment, it’s a win for the fishermen and it’s a win for the chefs because it’s a high protein, affordable fish,” says Steve Vilnit, the Director of Marketing and Business Development at JJ McDonnell & Co., a seafood wholesaler.

But the abundance of catfish on our region’s menus may be coming to an end.

A new rule requires the U.S. Department of Agriculture to apply the same inspection standards to catfish as currently apply to farm-raised meat. This makes catfish the only fish to require inspection by the USDA rather than the Food and Drug Administration.

Catfish are predators of many of the Chesapeake region’s native species: shad, menhaden, mussels and blue crabs. As catfish overpopulate the ecosystem, other fish are suffering.

Vilnit worked at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources when it began its program to encourage fishing of catfish in local rivers, and served on the Invasive Catfish Task Force, which was formed in 2012. He pushed catfish enthusiastically in the local market.

“The market was created for the fish about four or five years ago. Up until that point nobody was really using it. And then once we introduced it into the market place, it exploded. You’re seeing it at Wegmans, at Whole Foods, at restaurants across the region,” he says.

He says that will likely change under the new rule, which can be traced back to the omnibus farm bills of 2008 and 2012 and has caused tussles between environmental activists, the food and fish industries, and members of Congress.

“The unintended consequence of the USDA inspection rule is that local catfish fishermen are targeted. We would have to have a USDA inspector on staff while we’re processing just this one product which makes it cost prohibitive to do,” Vilnit says. “It basically puts a bunch of these fishermen out of business.”

While local catfish farmers and environmentalists are mostly displeased with the change, Catfish Farmers of America is supporting the measure. They say it would improve the safety of catfish imports from China, Vietnam and other Asian countries.

“Our position is that this is an issue about food safety,” says Chad Causey, who is a spokesman for the group. “This isn’t about trade. It’s about making sure the catfish Americans buy is a safe product that will allow our domestic farmers not to be hurt or harmed by a food safety scare. Consumers won’t discriminate once they learn about the problems and safety concerns of imported products and that will hurt us.”

The national trade association also challenges the idea that it would make fishing catfish more expensive in the Chesapeake region.

“We have not confirmed that those fears are valid,” Causey says. “If people are doing what they’re supposed to be doing, then there should be no significant cost increases.”

Although the rule has already technically gone into effect, it won’t be enforced until September 2017, giving locals time to prepare for its impact and continue to fight for it to be revoked.

Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) spearheaded an effort in the Senate to end the USDA Catfish inspection program. The measure passed in May by a vote of 55-43, but has not yet been scheduled for a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.

McCain and others in Congress point to a report from the Government Accountability Office, which calls the program “duplicative,” and points out that the USDA catfish inspection program is expected to cost the federal government and industry $14 million annually. The FDA currently spends about $700,000 per year inspecting catfish.

On May 26, a bipartisan group of Congress members, largely from the Gulf region, sent a letter to House leadership urging them to not allow a vote on the measure that would switch catfish inspection back to the FDA.

Whatever happens nationally is sure to have a large impact locally, says Vilnit. “We’re talking about a filet that’s $5 dollars per pound that feeds people and that’s healthy.”