The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is proposing to allow imports of pummelo from Thailand, subject to certain conditions, it said. The citrus fruit would be subject to a systems approach that would include irradiation treatment, packinghouse processing requirements and port of entry inspections. It would also have to be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate issued by the Thai government. Comments on the proposal are due May 29.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will allow imports of cherimoya fruit from Chile into the entire U.S. without the currently required soapy water and wax treatment, it said in a final rule. The cherimoya would be required to be produced under a systems approach with requirements for production site registration, low pest prevalence area certification, post-harvest processing, and fruit cutting and inspection at the packinghouse. Cherimoya that don't meet the requirements of the systems approach would still be allowed for importation under the soapy water and wax treatment. The final rule takes effect April 30.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service on March 19 issued a final rule overhauling its plants for planting regulations. The new regulations will no longer include restrictions on importation of specific types of plants for planting. Rather, these restrictions will be found in the Plants for Planting Manual, which APHIS will be able to change after issuing notices in the Federal Register and allowing for comments. The final rule takes effect April 18.
CBP and other involved agencies should finalize an "interagency approach to managing ACE that includes processes for prioritizing enhancements and sharing system costs," the Government Accountability Office said in a March 14 report. CBP is also considering keeping multiple options for how to move forward with the collections function, which has yet to move from the Automated Commercial System to ACE, GAO said. "CBP officials stated that the agency will continue to link the newly deployed post-release capabilities to collections in ACS while deciding how to proceed."
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will now allow imports of blueberries from Peru to be treated for pests by way of irradiation, it said in a bulletin. Previously, Peruvian blueberries had to either be cold treated or fumigated with methyl bromide to mitigate for fruit flies. Peru had requested irradiation as an alternate treatment. “APHIS is amending the import requirements for blueberries from Peru to authorize irradiation at 150 Gy at approved U.S. irradiation facilities as an alternate treatment option, instead of cold treatment or methyl bromide fumigation,” it said. The change was added to the APHIS’ Fruits and Vegetables Import Requirement Database (FAVIR), Fruits and Vegetables Manual and Treatment Manual on March 13.
Several partner government agencies (PGAs) have now confirmed in writing that they will attach their message sets to e214 electronic Foreign-Trade Zone admissions filings once they are available in ACE, trade associations said in a Feb. 21 letter to CBP. The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (for both its core and Lacey Act data sets), the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have all said they will switch from current PGA message set filing at the time of type 06 entry/entry summary filing to at time of admission to the zone once the e214 is deployed, the letter said.
A recent change to Peruvian logging permit rules will make it “nearly impossible” for Peruvian timber to be legally imported into the U.S. and European Union, the non-governmental Environmental Investigation Agency said in a Feb. 7 news release. Following concerns that cropped up in 2015 over illegal timber harvesting in Peru (see 1608170039), the Peruvian government’s response has been to “fire and intimidate key officials, reduce data collection at export points, and most recently to change transport permit requirements so that wood cannot be traced back to its source -- in contravention of Peru’s own laws and international commitments,” the EIA said. “Peru’s new rule interpretation will make it impossible to trace any wood product for sale or export back to its forest source and therefore, given the way U.S. and European Union regulations are being enforced, will make it essentially impossible for Peruvian timber to legally enter those markets,” said Lisa Handy, EIA director-forest campaigns. “If you can’t even figure out where your timber came from, how can you possibly claim to know it’s legal?”
The Trump administration's budget request for fiscal year 2019 keeps funding for the Commerce Department's International Trade Administration largely flat. Still, that funding "would allow ITA to conduct robust investigations into alleged trade violations, aggressively advocate for U.S. businesses facing tariff and non-tariff barriers abroad, and increase the capacity to closely review proposed foreign investments in U.S. businesses." The request, released Feb. 12, said "the President insisted on a simple, but forgotten principle -- America First," and said that trade enforcement is a high-priority, mission-critical program.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is amending its regulations to ease the approval process for cold treatment facilities in the Southern and Western U.S., it said in a final rule. New general criteria for approving cold treatment facilities across the U.S. replaces the location-specific criteria currently in place, APHIS said. Previously, cold treatment facilities could only be located north of 39 degrees latitude and east of 104 degrees longitude, with exemptions granted for the maritime ports of Wilmington, North Carolina; Seattle; Corpus Christi, Texas; and Gulfport, Mississippi; as well as Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Hartsfield-Atlanta International Airport and MidAmerica St. Louis Airport in Mascoutah, Illinois. "These criteria, if met, will allow us to approve new cold treatment facilities without rulemaking and facilitate the importation of fruit requiring cold treatment while continuing to provide protection against the introduction of pests of concern into the United States," APHIS said. The rule becomes effective March 14.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is adding additional requirements for the importation of citrus fruits from Colombia, it said in a notice. The agency will require that citrus fruit be produced only in approved places of production registered with the Colombian government, under fruit fly trapping programs and standard packing house procedures, and be imported only in commercial consignments, it said. Those new requirements would come on top of existing requirements for importation of citrus from Colombia. They would apply to fresh sweet orange, grapefruit, mandarin, clementine and tangerine fruit from the country imported on or after Feb. 6, APHIS said. Importation of citrus fruits from Colombia has been suspended since 2015, and no commercial shipments of Colombian citrus have occurred since 1995, APHIS said. Comments on the change are due April 9.