The Trump administration looks set to continue its focus on deregulation, judging by its recently released Spring 2018 unified regulatory agenda. Regulatory agencies with a hand in trade laid out their plans to harmonize and streamline regulatory requirements, including on Lacey Act implementation, a modernized seafood inspection program and an update to Toxic Substances Control Act chemical data reporting requirements. On the other hand, regulatory plans also include enforcement measures, including procedures for Commerce scope rulings during CBP investigations of antidumping and countervailing duty evasion and increased oversight over organic imports.
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.
Agencies involved in wildlife trafficking enforcement should improve their use of rewards for tips that lead to fines or convictions, the Government Accountability Office said in a report issued May 8. The Fish and Wildlife Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration should improve their tracking of rewards and guidance on reward amounts for information on Lacey Act and Endangered Species Act violations, and better advertise to the public the availability of rewards, GAO said.
Several partner government agencies (PGAs) have now confirmed in writing that they will attach their message sets to e214 electronic Foreign-Trade Zone admissions filings once they are available in ACE, trade associations said in a Feb. 21 letter to CBP. The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (for both its core and Lacey Act data sets), the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have all said they will switch from current PGA message set filing at the time of type 06 entry/entry summary filing to at time of admission to the zone once the e214 is deployed, the letter said.
A recent change to Peruvian logging permit rules will make it “nearly impossible” for Peruvian timber to be legally imported into the U.S. and European Union, the non-governmental Environmental Investigation Agency said in a Feb. 7 news release. Following concerns that cropped up in 2015 over illegal timber harvesting in Peru (see 1608170039), the Peruvian government’s response has been to “fire and intimidate key officials, reduce data collection at export points, and most recently to change transport permit requirements so that wood cannot be traced back to its source -- in contravention of Peru’s own laws and international commitments,” the EIA said. “Peru’s new rule interpretation will make it impossible to trace any wood product for sale or export back to its forest source and therefore, given the way U.S. and European Union regulations are being enforced, will make it essentially impossible for Peruvian timber to legally enter those markets,” said Lisa Handy, EIA director-forest campaigns. “If you can’t even figure out where your timber came from, how can you possibly claim to know it’s legal?”
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Jan. 2-5 in case they were missed.
The Agriculture Department is withdrawing a proposed rule issued in 2013 that would have overhauled the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s Lacey Act forfeiture regulations, it said in a notice. Under the withdrawn proposal, APHIS would have increased the threshold for referral to federal court to $15,000, provided for recovery of costs related to APHIS storage of seized merchandise, and set forth procedures for valuation of seized property and posting of seizure notices at the port, among other things. The withdrawal is one of several announced in the USDA notice that “were either published in the Federal Register more than 4 years ago without subsequent action or determined to no longer be candidates for final action,” USDA said. “USDA is taking this action to reduce its regulatory backlog and focus its resources on higher priority actions. The Department’s actions are part of an overall regulatory reform strategy to reduce regulatory burden on the public and to ensure the Spring and Fall 2017 Unified Agendas of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions provided the public accurate information about rulemakings the Department intends to undertake,” it said.
Regulatory agencies with jurisdiction over imports and exports published their regulatory plans for the next several months as part of the Fall 2017 Unified Agenda. As in the first regulatory agenda published by the Trump administration this spring, the fall agenda takes a deregulatory bent, although many regulations left off the prior agenda reappear in several agencies' plans. The Food and Drug Administration looks set to be particularly active, listing in its agenda new deregulatory actions as well as several new enforcement authorities.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will end its pilot program on blanket Lacey Act declarations in April 2018, it said. APHIS is ending the pilot, which began in 2009, “due to the development of the ACE system, and a diminishing number of participants,” with only eight companies still participating out of a total of 119 that have registered over the life of the program. “CBP’s [Border Release Advanced Screening and Selectivity (BRASS)] program will continue to operate as it did prior to the creation of the pilot program, and participants in the blanket declaration pilot program will not lose their line release status in the expedited border release programs,” APHIS said. “When the program ends, importers whose products are subject to the Lacey Act declaration requirement and clear under the BRASS program are advised to file the required declaration information along with their CBP entry summary documentation,” it said.
Regulatory agencies with oversight on imports and exports released their plans for upcoming rulemaking as part of the 2017 Unified Agenda. As the first regulatory agenda issued by the Trump administration, the new version touts the withdrawal of "469 actions proposed in the Fall 2016 Agenda," as well as the reconsideration of "391 active actions by reclassifying them as long term (282) and inactive (109), allowing for further careful review." New regulations are listed from the Department of Agriculture, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
International Trade Today is providing a list obtained from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of approved manufacturers of wooden handicrafts in China. Under regulations issued in 2012 by APHIS, wooden handcrafts from China made with twigs with bark of a diameter of over 1 centimeter or more are subject to treatment requirements (see 12030122). Fumigation by approved facilities may be used to satisfy the requirements if the twigs with bark have a diameter of less than 6 centimeters. "By the utilization of an approved facility, the U.S. importer is only responsible for obtaining an import permit and submitting a Lacey Act declaration to make entry,” an APHIS spokeswoman said. The list is current as of Feb. 28, 2017.