Officials at the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service have made available a “Lacey Act Updates” presentation, which provides an overview of the 2008 Lacey Act Amendments, and what the agency views as the challenges and common problems in completing the Lacey Declaration (PPQ 505) for imported plants and plant products.1
Sources at the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service state the agency is still working to issue its final rule that will define two categories of products that are exempt from the Lacey Act Declaration -- common cultivars and common food crops. In addition, the report to Congress on the declaration is still under review, but the agency is “getting close” to completing it. APHIS’ top priority right now is to complete its report to Congress.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has updated the following PPQ electronic manuals as of August 29, 2011 (since August 26):
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has issued a proposed rule to restrict the importation of dogs from any part of the world into the continental U.S. or Hawaii for purposes of resale, research, or veterinary treatment, unless the dogs are in good health, have received all necessary vaccinations, and are at least 6 months of age.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has issued a notice to remind the public of the user fees for fiscal year 2012 (October 1, 2011 through September 30, 2012) for Veterinary Services quarantine and other import- and export-related services that APHIS provides for animals, animal products, birds, germ plasm, organisms, and vectors; for certain veterinary diagnostic services; and for export certification of plants and plant products. The notices details these charges, and provides links to APHIS' regulations on the fees, including charts listing the FY 2012 fee levels.
Broker Power is providing readers with some of the top stories for August 22-26, 2011 in case they were missed last week.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is advising the trade of future changes to the ABI Harmonized Tariff Extract reference file and to the ABI HTS Query transaction records to display new output records that will identify tariff numbers that have PGA (Participating Government Agency) indicators associated with the tariff number. CBP is also providing the formats for the new record identifiers, for trade programming purposes.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has updated the following PPQ electronic manuals as of August 24, 2011 (since August 22):
At the August 18, 2011 COAC meeting, COAC’s “One U.S. Government at the Border” Subcommittee gave an update on its upcoming plans to improve the relationship between CBP and the government agencies that it represents and works with when clearing and examining imported goods.
Broker Power is providing readers with some of the top stories for August 15-19, 2011 in case they were missed last week.