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.
Several agencies have said they are at least willing to consider accepting partner government agency (PGA) data at the time of admission of goods into a foreign-trade zone, said leadership from the National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones at the NAFTZ Legislative Summit on Feb. 15 in Washington. Once CBP implements its Form 214 application for FTZ admission form in ACE, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration could use the new capability to accept data before entry, they said.
Popp Forest Products destroyed 24 pallets of timber from Peru as part of a settlement over allegations of Lacey Act violations, the Justice Department said on Jan. 18 (here). The timber was imported by Popp Forest and seized by ICE Homeland Security Investigations in December of 2015 at the Port of Houston, the DOJ said. The settlement marks the first time the U.S. "has taken such action under the Lacey Act, which was amended in 2008 to include timber products," the DOJ said. The settlement "resolves allegations that the timber was harvested in Peru without proper authorization as required under Peruvian law or outside an approved zone," it said. The company agreed to "bear all costs associated with the transportation, destruction, and disposal of the seized timber" and the DOJ agreed to waive further civil enforcement action, it said.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
Regulatory agencies with jurisdiction over imports and exports published their regulatory plans for the next several months as part of the Fall 2016 Unified Agenda (here). New rulemakings include the development of a national standard for disclosing bioengineered food, a final rule to require filing of new data elements for high-risk seafood imports and a proposal to allow imports of poultry slaughtered in China.
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Oct. 3-7 in case they were missed.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will allow for several "interim" measures for filing electronic Lacey Act information in ACE for goods leaving Foreign Trade Zones, the agency said in a letter to the National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones. The interim measures are necessary because the electronic CBP Form 214 (e214) system, used to provide data for Partner Government Agencies on goods admitted into an FTZ, won't be "fully integrated for PGA data until 2017," APHIS Administrator Kevin Shea said in a Sept. 7 letter to the NAFTZ. Entry/entry summaries for entry type 06 were required to be filed in ACE as of May 28, but the requirement won't be enforced until after Nov. 28 (see 1608190035).
A Maine importer faces up to $1.25 million in fines and forfeitures after pleading guilty to Lacey Act violations related to seafood it imported from Canada, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maine said (here). ISF Trading bought sea urchins from a Canadian supplier, TGK Fisheries of Grand Manan, that wasn’t authorized to export to the U.S., then brought them across the border under the false label of a different Canadian company, Matthews Seafood, that was allowed to export, the U.S. attorney’s office said. ISF also faces up to five years of probation.