APHIS Issues Broad Revision of Plants for Planting Regulations
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service on March 19 issued a final rule overhauling its plants for planting regulations. The new regulations will no longer include restrictions on importation of specific types of plants for planting. Rather, these restrictions will be found in the Plants for Planting Manual, which APHIS will be able to change after issuing notices in the Federal Register and allowing for comments. The final rule takes effect April 18.
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The final rule “does not make any major change to the restrictions that currently apply to the importation of plants for planting,” APHIS said. “These changes will make restrictions on the importation of specific types of plants for planting easier for readers to find and less cumbersome for us to change,” it said. APHIS will “typically provide” for a comment period of 60 days on notices to change restrictions in the Plants for Planting Manual, with an option to extend the deadline upon request, the final rule said.
As part of the restructuring, APHIS is grouping together general restrictions on importation of plants for planting within the regulations, and adding “general requirements for the development of integrated pest risk management measures that we may use to mitigate the risk associated with the importation of a specific type of plants for planting,” the agency said. APHIS is also amending its foreign quarantine regulation to remove provisions on specific types of plants for planting not currently subject to general requirements, and adding them to the Plants for Planting Manual, it said.
The final rule largely mirrors a proposed rule issued in April 2013 (see 13042420). One change from the proposal removes language that would have unintentionally added requirements for participants in the Canadian greenhouse certification program. APHIS also made several other changes to correct unintended changes to the substance of requirements for importation of plants for planting.