APHIS Withdraws Unimplemented Rule on Importation of Diseased Fish

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is withdrawing long-delayed regulations that would have prohibited the importation or interstate movement of live fish that are susceptible to viral hemorrhagic septicemia (here). The agency had issued the rule in 2008 to supplant a federal order issued two years earlier in response to outbreaks of the disease in the Great Lakes. APHIS later delayed implementation indefinitely in response to public comments. The agency now says state regulations have rendered the federal order (and interim rule) unnecessary.