The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is adding Cambodia and Vietnam to its list of regions subject to import restrictions on pork and pork products because they are affected by African swine fever, it said. Restrictions take effect retroactively to April 4, 2019, for Cambodia, and to Feb. 18, 2019, for Vietnam.
The Foreign Agricultural Service will charge a fee of $300 for the 2020 tariff-rate quota (TRQ) year for each license issued to a person or firm by the U.S. Department of Agriculture authorizing the importation of certain dairy articles that are subject to tariff-rate quotas set forth in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, it said. The new fee is the same as last year's for 2019 TRQ licenses.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture revised the appendices to its Dairy Tariff-Rate Import Quota Licensing Regulation for the 2019 tariff-rate quota year, in a notice. USDA is making the changes to reflect the cumulative annual transfers from Appendix 1 to Appendix 2 for certain dairy product import licenses permanently surrendered by licensees or revoked by the Foreign Agricultural Service.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is tightening restrictions on importation of bovines and bovine products from Scotland, it said in a notice. APHIS is reclassifying Scotland as having controlled risk of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, after a case of BSE was discovered there in October 2018, the agency said. Scotland had been classified as having negligible risk of BSE. The reclassification takes effect retroactively Oct. 18, 2018.
A majority of lieutenant governors adopted a resolution at their annual meeting that proposes an inspection fee of 5 to 10 cents per pound of imported seafood, so that more inspectors can be hired. They want every lot of imported seafood to be certified as complying with U.S. food and drug laws. The resolution, which was sponsored by National Lieutenant Governors Association members from Alaska, Louisiana, Connecticut, Delaware and Nevada, argues that the lack of inspections "can lead to unhealthy levels of chemicals and antibiotics in the seafood being consumed by Americans," and the lower standards for farmed seafood in Asia puts American seafood producers at a competitive disadvantage. The resolution said that American seafood that is shipped overseas for processing and returned for U.S. consumption should be exempt from the additional inspections.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will allow imports of raspberries from Morocco into the continental U.S. as of July 24, it said in a notice. APHIS previously issued a proposed rule to allow the imports (see 1608260012), but since that proposal, the agency's regulations were changed to allow fruit and vegetable imports through notifications, it said. "With those changes to the regulations, we cannot issue the final regulations as contemplated in our August 2016 proposed rule and are therefore discontinuing that rulemaking without a final rule," it said. "Instead, it is necessary for us to finalize this action through the issuance of a notification." The allowed raspberries must be produced at a registered location under a “systems approach” to mitigate for the fungus Monilinia fructigena and would have to be inspected prior to exportation from Morocco and found free of this pest, APHIS said. The raspberries would have to be imported in commercial consignments and accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate from the Moroccan government, and would be subject to inspection at the U.S. port of entry.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service released a document that answers questions about using ACE for imports regulated by APHIS. The agency explains that APHIS data will eventually be required in ACE. "When an importer or broker selects a tariff code in ACE, the system notifies the user when APHIS data is or may be required," it said. "At this time, importers and brokers can bypass these flags and proceed without entering APHIS-required data in the system. Eventually, APHIS will enforce the flags, and users won’t be able to proceed until they enter APHIS-required import data via the message set. When ready, APHIS will announce the timeline for enforcing these flags."
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is planning to update the entry conditions for imports of citrus longhorned beetle (CLB) and Asian longhorned beetle (ALB) host plants from Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, APHIS said in a notice. Those countries "have previously approved genera exempted from the category of plants Not Authorized Pending Pest Risk Analysis," it said. The exempt plants from those countries "would be admissible with the current import permit requirements with a stem or root collar diameter greater than 10 mm (0.4 inches)," it said. APHIS also plans to recognize 22 EU states as being free from CLB and ALB, but the import requirements for host plants will only change for the four countries, it said. Comments on the changes are due Sept. 16.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is adding Bulgaria to the list of regions it considers to be affected by highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), it said in a notice. Temporary restrictions on importation of poultry, commercial birds, other types of birds (research, performing), ratites, any avian hatching eggs, unprocessed avian products and byproducts, and certain fresh poultry products from Bulgaria have been in place since Oct. 17, 2018, after discovery of the virus in the country, APHIS said.
The Agriculture Department is asking for comments on the sanitary and phytosanitary standard (SPS) setting activities at the Codex Alimentarius Commission from July 20, 2018, to June 21, 2019, and June 21, 2019, to May 31, 2020. The notice provides a list of the standard-setting activities, as well as other types of Codex standards like commodity standards, guidelines, codes of practice and revised texts. Attachment 1 to the notice sets forth the SPS standards under consideration or planned for consideration, as well as, for each SPS standard specified: (1) a description of the consideration or planned consideration of the standard; (2) whether the U.S. is participating or plans to participate in the consideration of the standard; (3) the agenda for U.S. participation, if any; and (4) the agency responsible for representing the U.S. with respect to the standard.