The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's updated April 2010 guidance on filing Lacey Act Declarations for articles containing composite, recycled, or reused materials (CRR) also contains instructions for three other special cases.
Lacey Act
The Lacey Act and subsequent amendments make it unlawful to import, export, transport, sell, receive, or acquire any plant, fish or wildlife obtained in violation of U.S., tribal or foreign law, as well as any injurious wildlife. The law is administered by the Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and CBP. APHIS has been implementing Lacey Act declaration requirements since 2009. Lacey Act declarations may be filed by the importer of record or its licensed customs broker, and include information on imported item's species name, value, quantity, and country where it was harvested.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service posted updated guidance in April 2010 on filing Lacey Act Declarations for articles containing composite, recycled, or reused (CRR) materials.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has issued new guidance announcing that Spruce Pine Fir (abbreviated SPF) is an approved shorthand term for the Lacey Act declaration, in circumstances where the list of possible species to declare includes all species in the Common Trade Grouping “SPF”.
The World Resources Institute (WRI), Enironmental Investigation Agency (EIA-US) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) have created a global initiative, the Forest Legality Alliance, to help private corporations reduce their trade in illegal wood. The alliance's formation comes after the U.S. amended the Lacey Act in 2008 to ban the trade of illegal wood products in the US.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a revised CSMS message on the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s requirement that plant materials be reported on the Lacey Act declaration using standardized units of measure (such as kg, m, m2, and m3), effective May 1, 2010.
Officials from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have confirmed that APHIS will be enforcing its requirement for plant material quantities to be reported on the Lacey Act declaration using standardized metric units (such as kg, m, m2, and m3), for both paper and electronic Lacey Act Amendment declarations.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message on the recently posted Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service notice requiring plant material quantities to be reported on the Lacey Act declaration using standardized metric units (such as kg, m, m2, and m3) effective May 1, 2010.
CBP issued a CSMS message stating that APHIS recently posted a clarification stating that beginning May 1, 2010, APHIS is requiring that plant material quantities be reported on the Lacey Act declaration using standardized metric units (such as kg, m, m2, m3). This change only affects importers using the paper PPQ 505 form, and does not impact any entity filing electronically via ABI. There are no pending programming changes for Lacey Act reporting in ABI. (See ITT’s Online Archives or 05/13/10 news, 10051356, for BP summary of APHIS granting a grace period for the metric requirement.) (CSMS #10-000124, dated 05/18/10, available at http://apps.cbp.gov/csms/viewmssg.asp?Recid=17907&page=&srch_argv=10-000124&srchtype=all&btype=&sortby=&sby)
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has added a sentence to its announcement that a metric unit of measure and quantity is required for the Lacey Act declaration as of May 1, 2010. The new sentence states that in response to industry concerns, APHIS will implement a grace period of two months (ending July 1, 2010), to allow industry to make the needed changes to declaration procedures. (Notice, posted 05/17/10, available at http://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/lacey_act/downloads/ClarificationQuantityandUnitofMeasure.pdf)
On May 11, 2010, the Departmental Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Related Homeland Security Functions (COAC) met in Philadelphia, PA to discuss a variety of trade issues. Highlights of the discussions include: