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.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is issuing a final rule to allow importation from Taiwan of orchids of the genus Dendrobium in approved growing media, subject to certain growing, inspection and certification requirements. Previously, Dendrobium orchid plants could only be imported into the U.S. from Taiwan as bare root plant, APHIS said. The final rule takes effect March 1.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is finalizing a decision to end a ban on importation of fresh pork and pork products from most of Mexico to prevent the spread of classical swine fever (CSF), after finding the entire country to be essentially free of the illness. APHIS had already recognized nine Mexican states as free of CSF: Baja California, Baja California Sur, Campeche, Chihuahua, Nayarit, Quintana Roo, Sinaloa, Sonora and Yucatan. Now, fresh pork and pork products will be eligible for importation from every Mexican state, and APHIS is adding the entire country of Mexico to its web list of regions considered to be free of CSF but from which live pork, swine and pork products can be imported to the U.S. under conditions specified in 9 CFR 94.32.
The Agriculture Department is withdrawing a proposed rule issued in 2013 that would have overhauled the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s Lacey Act forfeiture regulations, it said in a notice. Under the withdrawn proposal, APHIS would have increased the threshold for referral to federal court to $15,000, provided for recovery of costs related to APHIS storage of seized merchandise, and set forth procedures for valuation of seized property and posting of seizure notices at the port, among other things. The withdrawal is one of several announced in the USDA notice that “were either published in the Federal Register more than 4 years ago without subsequent action or determined to no longer be candidates for final action,” USDA said. “USDA is taking this action to reduce its regulatory backlog and focus its resources on higher priority actions. The Department’s actions are part of an overall regulatory reform strategy to reduce regulatory burden on the public and to ensure the Spring and Fall 2017 Unified Agendas of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions provided the public accurate information about rulemakings the Department intends to undertake,” it said.
U.S. soybean exports to China must include a declaration on the phytosanitary certificate that says, “This consignment exceeds 1 percent foreign material,” starting Jan. 1, 2018, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said Dec. 27. Chinese officials in September notified the agency of “foreign material” in U.S. soybeans exceeding Chinese standards as well as weed seeds “of quarantine concern,” APHIS said. Chinese officials “have assured” the U.S. that the declaration will clear the way for all U.S. soybean exports to China, including those with over 1 percent foreign material, without interruption until the U.S. can “fully implement” a series of “science-based measures from farm to export terminal, called a systems approach,” during the 2018 crop year. The “systems approach” will aim to reduce the volume of foreign material and weed seeds in soybean exports to China, APHIS said. “We are confident that this agreement will allow U.S. soybean farmers and exporters to continue to service the important Chinese market without interruption,” U.S. Soybean Export Council CEO Jim Sutter said in a statement.
Regulatory agencies with jurisdiction over imports and exports published their regulatory plans for the next several months as part of the Fall 2017 Unified Agenda. As in the first regulatory agenda published by the Trump administration this spring, the fall agenda takes a deregulatory bent, although many regulations left off the prior agenda reappear in several agencies' plans. The Food and Drug Administration looks set to be particularly active, listing in its agenda new deregulatory actions as well as several new enforcement authorities.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service on Dec. 14 published a “major update” to the wood and wood products section of its Miscellaneous and Processed Products Import Manual, it said in an emailed update. The update “does not change APHIS’ import requirements for wood and wood products; it simply makes them easier to find and understand,” the agency said. Changes include reorganizing requirements into subsections, placing information in shorter tables, removing redundant language that already appears on permits and creating a new section with guidance on importing wooden handicrafts. The revision is “part of a larger 18-month effort to clarify agency guidance and improve communication with both APHIS stakeholders and [CBP] inspectors on wood and wood product requirements,” APHIS said.
The Agriculture Department is amending its regulations to increase its civil monetary penalty amounts to account for inflation, it said in a final rule. Affected penalties include fines for violating Agricultural Marketing Service marketing orders and the provisions of the Plant Protection Act, as enforced by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. The final rule takes effect Dec. 5.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will allow imports of fresh mangoes from Vietnam into the continental U.S., it said in a final rule. Importation will be subject to conditions, including orchard or packinghouse requirements, irradiation treatment and port of entry inspection, APHIS said. The mangoes must also be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate from the Vietnamese government with an additional declaration that the fruit is free of certain pests. The final rule takes effect Dec. 29.