The Associated Press

BATON ROUGE - For the second consecutive year, Louisiana crawfish processors who filed an anti-dumping petition in 1996 will receive money from federal tariffs on Chinese crawfish tailmeat, the state Agrigulture Department says in a news release.

The processors are eligible for about $9 million, an increase from last year, when $7.4 million was divided among the group, the department says.

Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom believes more should have been collected in tariffs. "I suspect that tens of millions of dollars should have been collected but was not. I'm not going to complain about our processors getting more money from the tariffs. I just would like for it to be more."

Louisiana crawfish processors are getting the tariff money as a result of the Byrd Amendment, which says anti-dumping petitioners are to receive funds collected by Customs for their industry.

Odom said roughly 27 processors in the state would benefit from the money. There were more than 100 crawfish processors in Louisiana until cheap Chinese crawfish imports flooded the market in the early 1990s.