From April 11 to April 13, 2012, the Foreign Agriculture Service issued the following GAIN reports:
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service issued emails April 16, 2012, announcing changes to some 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 final rule, effective May 17, 2012, amending the fruits and vegetables regulations to allow the import into the continental U.S. of pomegranates from Chile, subject to a systems approach.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is requesting comments by July 31, 2012, on a Status Review Report and a draft Management Report prepared by the NOAA in response to a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) to list 83 coral species as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is seeking comments by June 18, 2012, on a proposed rule that would amend the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) by (i) adding a requirement for persons shipping under Authorization Validated End-User to send written notice of such shipments to the recipient VEU; (ii) saying that item-specific conditions under Authorization VEU no longer apply when such items no longer require licenses or become eligible under a license exception; and (iii) for such items, VEUs are still subject to the recordkeeping requirements for items shipped before removal of the license requirement or addition of the license exception.
This is a reminder that, as set forth in its February 14, 2012 final rule, the International Trade Administration will calculate antidumping rates in a manner which provides offsets for non-dumped comparisons (i.e., no “zeroing”) while adopting a new monthly average-to-average calculation methodology as its default practice, for all administrative reviews where the preliminary results are issued after April 16, 2012. Note that this elimination of zeroing is a matter of policy; the amended regulations do not specify the provision of offsets. Furthermore, alternative methodologies may still be utilized by ITA in exceptional circumstances, although the ITA does not specify what these circumstances may be.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is requesting comments by June 15, 2012, on a proposed extension of its information collection on the reporting of transfers of schedule 1 and schedule 3 chemicals, pursuant to the Chemical Weapons Convention.
On April 13, 2012, 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 issued its weekly Enforcement Report for April 11, 2012 that lists the status of recalls and field corrections for food, drugs, biologics, and devices. The report covers both domestic and foreign firms.
Moon Marine USA Corporation (also known as MMI) of Cupertino, CA is voluntarily recalling 58,828 lbs of a frozen raw yellowfin tuna product, labeled as Nakaochi Scrape AA or AAA, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Nakaochi Scrape is tuna backmeat, which is specifically scraped off from the bones, and looks like a ground product. The Nakaochi Scrape AA and AAA from MMI was sold through distributors to restaurants and grocery stores that make sushi, and has been linked to an outbreak of Salmonella Bareilly, which has caused 116 illnesses in 20 states and the District of Columbia to date. Of the reported illnesses, there have been 12 hospitalizations, and no deaths.