Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service June 2021 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

We are reopening the comment period for our notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement regarding a request from Bayer seeking a determination of nonregulated status for maize developed using genetic engineering for dicamba, glufosinate, quizalofop, and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid resistance with tissue- specific glyphosate resistance facilitating the production of hybrid maize seed. This action will allow interested persons additional time to prepare and submit comments.

We are advising the public of our preliminary concurrence with the World Organization for Animal Health's (OIE) bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) risk designation for Bolivia and the United Kingdom's zone of Jersey. The OIE recognizes this country and this zone as being of negligible risk for BSE. We are taking this action based on our review of information supporting the OIE's risk designation for Bolivia and the United Kingdom's zone of Jersey.

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service issued a final rule on December 31, 2012, to establish regulations under which research facilities and dealers, exhibitors, intermediate handlers, and carriers must meet certain requirements for contingency planning and training of personnel. Implementation of the final rule was stayed on July 31, 2013, so that the agency could conduct additional review to further consider the impact of contingency plan requirements on regulated entities. Since that time, we have conducted such a review, and the 2021 Congressional Appropriations Act has required us to propose to lift the stay. We are therefore proposing to lift the stay and make minor revisions to the requirements in order to update compliance dates and clarify intent. The lifting of the stay and proposed revisions would better ensure that entities responsible for animals regulated under the Animal Welfare Act are prepared to safeguard the health and welfare of such animals in the event of possible emergencies or disasters.

We are advising the public that we removed Japan from the list of regions the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service recognizes as free of classical swine fever (CSF). This action follows the detection of CSF in Japan. This action is necessary in order to inform the public and to prevent the introduction of CSF into the United States.

We are advising the public that we have added Thailand to the list of regions that the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service considers to be affected with African horse sickness (AHS). We have taken this action because of confirmation of AHS in Thailand.

We are advising the public of our decision to add 26 taxa of plants for planting that are quarantine pests (weeds), all Myrtaceae taxa (when destined to Hawaii), and 43 other taxa of plants for planting that are hosts of 17 quarantine pests, to our lists of plants for planting whose importation is now not authorized pending pest risk analysis. A previous notice made datasheets available for public comment that listed the evidence we used to determine that the taxa are quarantine pests or hosts of quarantine pests. This notice responds to the comments we received and announces final versions of the datasheets.