The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is proposing to revise existing requirements for importing fragrant pears from the Korla region of Xinjiang, China, and also allow imports of fragrant pears from the Akesu region of Xinjiang, it said in a notice. Comments are due June 17.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is seeking comments by May 10 on using a "standardized set of pest risk mitigations for routine market requests to import plants in approved growing media," the agency said in an April 9 new release. The use of a "programmatic environmental assessment would eliminate the need to prepare a unique environmental assessment for each routine market request, thereby making the process for approving imports of plants in approved growing media simpler and more efficient," APHIS said in a notice. Most pest mitigation measures APHIS proposes are very similar and a default mitigation structure "would ensure continued levels of safeguarding while facilitating international trade, allowing healthier plant imports, reducing the growing time for plants to reach markets, reducing unnecessary or repetitive environmental and other documentation, and increasing the speed of port of entry inspections," it said. The agency also posted a draft version of the programmatic environmental assessment.
The Food Safety Inspection Service will allow exports of raw poultry products from Honduras to the U.S., FSIS said in a final rule. “The FSIS review of Honduras’ laws, regulations, and inspection system demonstrated that its poultry slaughter inspection system is equivalent to the system FSIS has established under the Poultry Products Inspection Act (PPIA) and its implementing regulations,” the agency said. The determination applies only to raw poultry products. Honduras would need to get a separate equivalency determination for exports of heat-treated poultry such as canned or cooked product, FSIS said. Also, despite the equivalency determination, Honduras is currently ineligible to ship raw poultry to the U.S. because it is not recognized by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to be free of Newcastle Disease, FSIS said. The final rule takes effect May 6.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is proposing new standards that would allow it to recognize “compartments” for animal disease status in foreign countries. The standards would ”closely parallel” procedures for recognizing the disease status of regions in foreign countries for the purposes of setting import restrictions on livestock. Compartmentalization, as recognized by the World Organization for Animal Health, “is a procedure that a country may implement to define and manage animal subpopulations of distinct health status and under common biosecurity management within its territory,” APHIS said. “Compartmentalization is distinct from regionalization, which involves the recognition of geographical zones of a country that can be identified and characterized by their level of risk for different diseases, but the two are not mutually exclusive.” Comments are due June 3.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is adding China to its list of regions subject to import restrictions on pork and pork products because they are affected by African swine fever, it said. China reported an outbreak of the swine disease in August 2018. "As a result, pork and pork products, including casings, from China are subject to APHIS import restrictions designed to mitigate the risk of ASF introduction into the United States," the notice said. Restrictions take effect retroactively to Aug. 6, 2018.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is moving toward allowing imports of jujube fruit from China. The agency issued a draft pest risk analysis that recommended imports of jujube be allowed, with certain conditions including an import permit, phytosanitary certificate from the Chinese government, registration of production locations and packinghouses, and port of entry inspections, among other things. Comments on the draft pest risk analysis are due May 24.
Filing in ACE of Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service “core” partner government agency (PGA) message set data is about to be announced in a Federal Register notice coming in “March or April,” beginning a six- to nine-month informed compliance period before the new data becomes mandatory, Livingston International said in a client alert. The new electronic filing requirements will cover APHIS-regulated commodities, besides Lacey Act data, which is already mandatory in ACE, and will include PGA message set data from 18 paper licenses, permits, certificates and other documents, including health certificates, phytosanitary certificates and import permits. An update to the CBP and trade advanced interface requirements (CATAIR) for APHIS Core, issued in October 2016, “will be required and is expected that it will be reissued upon the announcement,” Livingston said.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is proposing minor revisions to its regulations on importation of live dogs, in a broader proposed rule amending Animal Welfare Act licensing provisions in general. The agency would clarify language in its dog import licensing and certification regulations to clarify that dogs intended for resale for research purposes, or dogs intended for resale following veterinary treatment, must be imported with an import permit and accompanying certifications. APHIS would also replace references to the “continental United States or Hawaii” with the word “States,” which is defined elsewhere as “a State of the United States, the District of Columbia, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, or any other territory or possession of the United States.” That’s intended to clarify that no import permit is required when transporting dogs within the U.S., APHIS said. Comments are due May 21.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has preliminarily found the state of Baja California, Mexico, free of fever ticks, and also preliminarily found Singapore free from foot-and-mouth disease. If it confirms these findings, certain restrictions on importation of ruminants from Baja California and on live ruminants and swine from Singapore may be lifted. Comments on each evaluation are due May 20.
Broad descriptions of the budget for trade-related operations show the administration would like to spend more on enforcement, and would like to collect more fees from travelers and traders. The submissions, released March 11, for fiscal year 2020, asked for $9 million more for the Bureau of Industry and Security -- slightly more than last year's requested increase. "The Budget increases resources to support the Department of Commerce's membership in the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the summary said. "The Budget includes $16 million to support the President’s robust trade agenda," the summary said, including implementing the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act of 2019, which asked Commerce to identify emerging technologies that should be subject to export controls. The summary said the administration wants to establish "a new initiative within the International Trade Administration to counter the circumvention or evasion of U.S. trade actions aimed at those who engage in unfair and illegal trade practices."