The Drug Enforcement Administration is extending for one more year the temporary listing of cyclopentyl fentanyl, isobutyryl fentanyl, pharmacologist fentanyl, portamento fentanyl, and valeryl fentanyl in schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, it said. The synthetic opioids, first temporarily listed in 2018 (see 1801310009), will now remain listed in schedule I until Feb. 2, 2021. DEA also issued a proposed rule to permanently list these synthetic opioids in schedule I, with comments due March 2. Substances may only be temporarily listed under the CSA for three years.
The Agricultural Marketing Service is lowering its fees for rice inspection services, it said in a notice. The final rule decreases fees across the board by 20 percent for fiscal year 2020, and by another 20 percent for FY21. Export port services will fall to $0.059 per hundredweight in the first year, and to $0.047 in the second, which begins Oct. 1, 2020. The new fees are applicable as of Jan. 1, 2020.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned eight people and on entity related to Russian interference in Ukraine, Treasury said in a Jan. 29 press release. The sanctions target Yuri Gotsanyuk, Mikhail Razvozhaev, Vladimir Nemtsev, Sergei Danilenko, Lidia Basova, Ekaterina Pyrkova, Ekaterina Altabaeva, Alexander Ganov and the Grand Service Express, a Moscow railway company that offers transportation between Russia and Crimea. The sanctions were coordinated with Canada, Treasury said, which announced similar sanctions Jan. 29. The European Union Council sanctioned seven of the eight people Jan. 28 (see 2001280047).
The Directorate of Defense Trade Controls published documents related to the Sept. 26, 2019, Defense Trade Advisory Group plenary meeting, DDTC said in a Jan. 28 notice. The documents include meeting minutes, presentations and a white paper.
The Commerce Department again postponed the first meeting of its Emerging Technology Technical Advisory Committee and may not reschedule it until March, a Commerce official said. The meeting, which was originally scheduled for Dec. 4, 2019,was initially postponed to January as the agency faced delays in issuing members their security clearances (see 1911200045). But the problem persisted, according to Anita Zinzuvadia, a licensing officer with the Bureau of Industry and Security, who said Commerce canceled the January meeting.
In the Jan. 23-28 editions of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, as he talked about attending the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement signing ceremony, acknowledged that there are a number of steps before the NAFTA replacement can come into force. He said on a Jan. 28 phone call with reporters that he thinks Canada will ratify “probably within the next 30 days,” but then all parties will have to show how they “will be able to carry out their USMCA obligations so that this can enter into force.” Here at home, uniform regulations for the new rules of origin have to be promulgated before the U.S. can certify it's ready for USMCA. Still, Grassley said, Trump will be running his re-election campaign on replacing NAFTA. “I'm glad he can say that, and I'm willing to say it for him, too,” he said. “He likes to brag, and this is legitimately something to brag about.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service released a report on U.S. exports to Taiwan that were rejected or destroyed during 2019, including the findings in each case and the types of goods most susceptible to rejections. Taiwan rejected or destroyed 53 agricultural imports from the U.S. that were deemed non-compliant with Taiwan’s Food and Drug Administration food safety standards, with chemical residue on imports accounting for 34 of the rejections. Vietnam detected the chemical residue “fluopyram” on 11 shipments, including blueberries, broccoli, onion, lettuce and fruit powder. The second-largest source of violations was food additives, with 11 rejections, USDA said.
Small and medium-sized companies can apply to attend one of the Australian government's free training seminars on U.S. export controls during March in Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth, Australia said Jan. 23. The two-day seminars will provide companies with “practical expertise of current best practice” for dealing with technologies controlled under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations and the Export Administration Regulations, it said. The seminars are open to manufacturers and companies involved in research and development with “immediate intent or actively involved with US technologies subject to these regulations.”
The Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security is seeking comments on a proposal for an information collection that BIS will submit to the Office of Management and Budget, BIS said in a notice. The information collection involves 10 “miscellaneous” activities described in the Export Administration Regulations relating to the exchange of documents among parties in Commerce Department-controlled export transactions. Comments are due Feb. 28.