The Environmental Protection Agency is issuing several final rules amending maximum tolerances allowed for pesticides in agricultural products. The rules set maximum tolerances for pyraflufen-ethyl in milk, fat, meat, meat byproducts, peanuts, and peanut hay (here); and pyroxasulfone in soybean seed, forage, and hay (here). A final rule also amends tolerances for acetochlor in crop groups 15 (cereal grains) and 16 (forage, fodder and straw of cereal grains) to drop the exceptions for rice and rice straw (here). All three rules are effective Feb. 27.
On Feb. 25 the Food and Drug Administration posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of:
The Food and Drug Administration will continue to target imported cantaloupes at the border for sampling after two major outbreaks in recent years, it said in a letter to the cantaloupe industry. The letter encouraged the cantaloupe industry to “observe best practices already recognized by FDA and the industry as effective in reducing the risk of harmful contamination,” it said. The outbreaks occurred in 2011 and 2012 as a result of unsanitary conditions at domestic cantaloupe packinghouses, FDA said, and were caused by the bacterial pathogens listeria monocytogenes and salmonella.
On Feb. 22-25 the Foreign Agricultural Service issued the following GAIN reports:
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced changes Feb. 25 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 Food Safety and Inspection Service, along with the Food and Drug Administration, will hold a meeting March 12 in College Park, Md., to discuss and get comments on U.S. positions for the upcoming Codex Committee on Contaminants in Foods session, to be in Moscow in April. Agenda items include proposed maximum residue levels, new and revised codes of practice to prevent contamination of various foods, guidelines for radionuclides in food, and a priority list of contaminants and naturally occurring toxicants. Participation by teleconference will be available by calling 1-888-858-2144, passcode 6208658. The meeting begins at 10 a.m. ET.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will begin issuing permits for importation of fresh strawberries from Egypt to the continental U.S., subject to certain conditions, it said in a Federal Register notice set for publication Feb. 27. To mitigate the risk of pest or weed introduction, the fruit may be imported in commercial consignments only, and will be subject to inspection at the U.S. port of entry. Each consignment will also have to be inspected by Egypt’s national plant protection organization, and be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate declaring the inspection found the strawberries free of Chrysodeixis chalcites, Eutetranychus orientalis, and Spodoptera littoralis.
The Foreign Trade Zones Board issued the following notices for Feb. 26:
A citizen of Ukraine pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate the Arms Export Control Act by attempting to export military-grade night vision equipment from the U.S. to Ukraine, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE agents arrested Volodomyr Ponomarenko while attempting to enter the U.S. on March 23, 2011. Ponomarenko faces up to five years in prison at sentencing.
The Court of International Trade sustained the selection of Indonesia as surrogate country in the 2009-10 antidumping duty administrative review of floor-standing, metal-top ironing tables and certain parts thereof from China (A-570-888), despite a challenge from Foshan Shunde Yongjian that the International Trade Administration should have instead picked India. According to Yongjian, the selection of Indonesia arbitrarily broke a long chain of China reviews that used India as surrogate country, and was effectively a change in methodology without the required notice and comment period. The court disagreed, finding the selection to be consistent with the methodology of prior reviews, and finding the use of Indonesia as surrogate country to be reasonable based on record evidence.