The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will on Oct. 1 begin notifying importers and customs brokers when they submit Lacey Act declarations that contain errors, APHIS said in an emailed update. Importers who receive these letters of non-compliance “do not need to take action to correct the declaration in question, but they should take steps to correct future declarations,” APHIS said. “Repeated failures to correct errors may result in APHIS referring future violations for investigation or potential enforcement action.” Most notifications will be sent by email, it said. “Common errors include: misidentifying the species of imported wood or wood products, listing unlikely country and plant species pairs, submitting incomplete declarations, and/or failing to file a declaration in a timely manner,” APHIS said.
Importers lauded the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s proposal to create a de minimis exemption from Lacey Act declaration requirements, but called for the agency to allow flexibility in how products may qualify, in recently submitted comments on the APHIS proposed rule. But commenters criticized a proposed requirement for declarations to be submitted within three days after importation, instead urging APHIS to harmonize the timeline with other agencies’ import requirements.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is loosening requirements on importation of bovines and bovine products from Poland, Croatia, Scotland and Northern Ireland, it said in a notice. APHIS will reclassify the four countries as having negligible risk of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, concurring with recommendations recently issued by the World Organization for Animal Health, the agency said. Poland, Croatia, Scotland and Northern Ireland were previously classified as having controlled risk of BSE, a category for which imports face tighter restrictions.
ATLANTA -- CBP is set to begin two “proofs of concept” in fiscal year 2019 to test out a single replacement for company unique identifiers used by CBP and its partner government agencies (PGAs), said Danielle Pierson, an international trade specialist at CBP’s Office of Trade Policy and Programs, at the CBP 2018 Trade Symposium on Aug. 15. The goal of the agency’s “global business identifier initiative,” currently under discussion by a Border Interagency Executive Council working group, is to develop a set of identifiers that can be used across the government as well as replace CBP’s own problematic manufacturer ID (MID), Pierson said.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is proposing a new de minimis exemption from Lacey Act declaration requirements for importers. Under the proposed rule, importers would not have to submit declarations for products with minimal amounts of plant material. The agency is considering setting thresholds based on either weight or volume at either the product or entry line level. APHIS is also proposing to codify certain declaration requirements in its regulations, including a deadline of three days after importation for the submission of declarations, and seeks comments on a separate exemption for composite wood products. Comments on both exemptions are due Sept. 7.
Emergency Action Notifications issued by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service can’t be challenged at the Court of International Trade, CIT said in a decision issued June 20. Dismissing an importer’s challenge to an EAN citing contaminated wood packaging material and ordering destruction or exportation of the entire shipment, CIT found U.S. district courts have jurisdiction over actions by the Agriculture Department and transferred the case to the Southern Texas U.S. District Court.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is proposing to allow importation of fresh avocado fruit from continental Ecuador into the continental United States. Conditions would include a systems approach with production site registration, field sanitation, packinghouse procedures designed to exclude the quarantine pests and procedures for packing, storing and shipping the avocado fruit. Shipments would have to be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate from the Ecuadorean government. Comments are due Aug. 14.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced it has found Japan to be free of classical
swine fever and swine vesicular disease. The change in disease status, which eliminates certain requirements for importation of live swine, pork and pork products from Japan, takes effect July 9.
An importer will drop its court challenge of an Emergency Action Notification blocking its shipment of corn at the Port of San Francisco, after reaching an agreement with the government to settle the case. In return for voluntarily dismissing its lawsuit, Sunrise will get an in-person meeting with representatives of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service in Washington, according to the settlement agreement. The shipment of corn, initially released based on an entry documentation that said it was organic and from Turkey but later found to be of Russian, Moldovan and Kazakhstani origin, never left its ship, and departed the Port of San Francisco the day after Sunrise’s initial bid for a court order failed in April (see 1804240065). Sunrise maintains that the shipment complied with all APHIS requirements. Sunrise agreed to dismissal with prejudice, which means it can’t bring the same legal claim again.
The Fish and Wildlife Service recently clarified inspection requirements for shipments that include both plants and wildlife listed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, whether or not CITES-listed. The April 16 policy bulletin, posted to the FWS website on May 31, clarifies the application of a 2016 agreement between FWS and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service that allows FWS inspectors to validate such shipments, which has “led to some confusion as to which agency provides inspection,” FWS said.