The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced changes June 24 to Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) electronic manuals. While some changes are minor, other changes may affect the admissibility of the plant products, including fruits, vegetables, and flowers.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service issued a proposed rule June 21 that would consolidate its regulations on permits for importation and interstate movement of plant and plant products. The proposal would create a single section of the import quarantine regulations that would apply permit application, approval, and revocation procedures to a wide variety of plants and plant products regulated under 7 CFR 319. The new permit requirements would also apply to importation of honeybees and honeybee semen, and noxious weeds. Comments on the proposed rule are due by Aug. 20.
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a lower court ruling in favor of the 2008-09 antidumping duty administrative review on laminated woven sacks from China (A-570-916). Shapiro Packaging challenged the Commerce Department’s decision to assign respondent Zibo Aifudi a higher China-wide rate because of its decision to stop participating midway through the review, which meant Commerce couldn’t verify the company’s submissions on independence from government control. But the appeals court on June 24 said no law prohibits Commerce from disregarding information it can’t verify, and affirmed.
A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages from the Commerce Department posted to CBP's website June 24, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at addcvd.cbp.gov. (CBP occasionally adds backdated messages without otherwise indicating which message was added. ITT will include a message date in parentheses in such cases.)
Cast iron and aluminum lampposts and lamppost bases, imported by a municipality and bearing the name of a U.S. locality, do not necessarily have to be conspicuously and indelibly marked with the country of origin, as long as the municipality is aware of the source, said CBP in a May 31 ruling. Domestic lamppost manufacturer Spring City Electrical Manufacturing Company requested the ruling, HQ H215535, arguing that when a product is imported by a municipality, the ultimate purchaser is the taxpaying public. Therefore, country of origin marking for lampposts imported by municipalities must be visible to the public, it said. CBP disagreed, pointing to past rulings, and also denied Spring City’s request to revoke one of those past rulings for lack of standing.
Mexico's Diario Oficial of June 24 lists notices from the Secretary of the Economy as follows:
The Commerce Department published notices in the June 24 Federal Register on the following AD/CV duty proceedings (any notices that announce changes to AD/CV duty rates, scope, affected firms, or effective dates will be detailed in another ITT article):
The Environmental Protection Agency changed the address of its Region 7 office, in a final rule that made various conforming changes in its regulations. The new address is as follows:
On June 21 the Food and Drug Administration posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of:
On June 21, the Foreign Agricultural Service posted the following GAIN reports: