Department of Agriculture April 9, 2009 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is amending its administrative regulations to add a new part that establishes regulations governing the submission to FSIS of petitions for rulemaking. The new regulations supersede existing guidance on the submission of petitions to FSIS to issue, amend, or repeal its regulations. FSIS is taking this action to help ensure the filing of well-supported petitions that contain information that the Agency needs to proceed with consideration of the requested rulemaking in a timely manner.

We are adopting as a final rule, with one change, an interim rule that amended the citrus canker regulations to explicitly prohibit, with limited exceptions, the interstate movement of regulated nursery stock from a quarantined area. The interim rule provided two exceptions to this prohibition, one that allowed nursery stock to be moved interstate for immediate export under certain conditions and another that allowed calamondin and kumquat plants to be moved interstate in accordance with a protocol designed to ensure their freedom from citrus canker. Our decision to provide for the interstate movement of calamondin and kumquat plants was based on their apparent resistance to citrus canker infection. However, since the publication of the interim rule, we have confirmed that 47 calamondin plants growing in an area quarantined for citrus canker were infected with the disease. Therefore, this final rule amends the protocol to exclude calamondin plants. The interim rule was necessary to clarify our regulations and

The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is requesting public comment on a draft quantitative food safety risk assessment for Listeria monocytogenes (L. monocytogenes) that compares the risk of listeriosis from consumption of prepackaged ready-to-eat (RTE) deli meat versus RTE deli meat that is sliced and packaged at retail. The risk assessment analyzes the comparative risk of listeriosis from prepackaged RTE deli meat versus RTE deli meat that is sliced and packaged at retail using data from a study by the National Alliance for Food Safety and Security (NAFSS) and new consumer survey data from Research Triangle Institute (RTI) International, Tennessee State University, and Kansas State University.

The purpose of this rule is to establish procedures which the Department of Agriculture (USDA or the Department) will use in conducting a referendum to determine whether the issuance of the proposed Processed Raspberry Promotion, Research, and Information Order (Proposed Order) is favored by producers of raspberries for processing and importers of processed raspberries. The Order will be implemented if it is approved by a simple majority of the eligible producers and importers voting in the referendum. These procedures would also be used for any subsequent referendum under the Proposed Order, if it is approved in the initial referendum. The Proposed Order is being published separately in this issue of the Federal Register. This proposed program would be implemented under the Commodity Promotion, Research, and Information Act of 1996 (1996 Act).

This rule proposes the establishment of an industry-funded promotion, research, and information program for processed raspberries. The proposed program, Processed Raspberry Promotion, Research, and Information Order (Proposed Order), was submitted to the Department of Agriculture (Department) by the Washington Red Raspberry Commission (WRRC). Under the Proposed Order, producers of raspberries for processing and importers of processed raspberries would pay an assessment of up to one cent per pound, with the initial assessment rate being one cent per pound, which would be paid to the proposed National Processed Raspberry Council (Council). Producers and importers of less than 20,000 pounds annually of raspberries for processing and processed raspberries respectively would be exempt from the assessment. The proposed program would be implemented under the Commodity Promotion, Research, and Information Act of 1996 (1996 Act). An initial referendum would be conducted among eligible producers of raspberries for processing and importers of processed raspberries to determine whether they favor the implementation of the program prior to it going into effect. This rule also announces the Agricultural Marketing Service's (AMS) intention to request approval of new processed raspberries information collection requirements by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the Proposed Order.