APHIS Seeks Comments on Lacey Act Info Collection
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is requesting comments by Oct. 20 for an existing information collection on the import of certain plants and plant products, as required by the Lacey Act. APHIS proposes to extend the expiration date of this information collection with a change to the burden hours. While the estimated "number of respondents has decreased, there has been an overall increase in the burden estimates due to an increase in the number declarations completed per respondent," it said.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
Lacey Act Declaration Requirement
The Lacey Act prohibits the import of certain plants and plant products without an import declaration. The declaration must contain, among other things, the scientific name of the plant, value of the importation, quantity of the plant, and name of the country in which the plant was harvested. For paper and paperboard products with recycled plant content, the importer is not required to specify the species or country of harvest with respect to the recycled plant product component, but is required to provide the average percentage of recycled content. If the product also contains non-recycled plant materials, the basic declaration requirements still apply to that component of the product imported. In addition to the declaration, there is a supplemental form that must be completed if additional space is needed to declare additional plants and plant products. Also, records of the import declaration and supplemental form must be retained for at least 5 years.
APHIS Estimates 17,140 Respondents
APHIS estimates the number of respondents annually will be 17,140, down from 20,352, and the number of responses per respondent to be 30.375. The total annual responses are estimated be 520,629 and the total annual burden hours to be 252,019.
(Federal Register 08/21/14)