Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, USDA.
Proposed rule; supplemental.
We are proposing a change related to our proposed rule published in the
We will consider all comments that we receive on or before November 22, 2010.
You may submit comments by either of the following methods:
• Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to (
• Postal Mail/Commercial Delivery: Please send one copy of your comment to Docket No. APHIS-2007-0117, Regulatory Analysis and Development, PPD, APHIS, Station 3A-03.8, 4700 River Road Unit 118, Riverdale, MD 20737-1238. Please state that your comment refers to Docket No. APHIS-2007-0117.
Mr. John Tyrone Jones, Trade Director (Forestry Products), Phytosanitary Issues Management, PPQ, APHIS, 4700 River Road Unit 140, Riverdale, MD 20737-1231; (301) 734-8860.
The regulations in “Subpart-Logs, Lumber, and Other Unmanufactured Wood Articles” (7 CFR 319.40-1 through 319.40-11, referred to below as the regulations) govern the importation of various logs, lumber, and other unmanufactured wood products into the United States. Under § 319.40-9 of the regulations, all regulated articles must be inspected at the port of first arrival. If a regulated article shows any signs of pest infestation, the inspector may require treatment, if an approved treatment exists, or refuse entry of the consignment.
Prior to 2005, wood decorative items and craft products (wooden handicrafts) from China had been entering the United States in increasing quantities. However, between 2002 and 2005, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) issued more than 300 emergency action notices for wooden handicrafts from China, including artificial trees manufactured from a composite of natural and synthetic materials, garden trellis towers, home and garden wood décor, and craft items. Moreover, in 2004, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) intercepted live wood boring beetles,
APHIS prepared a pest risk assessment, titled “Pests and mitigations for manufactured wood décor and craft products from China for importation into the United States,” to evaluate the risks associated with the importation of such wooden handicrafts into the United States from China. We also prepared a risk management document, titled “Pests and mitigations for manufactured wood décor and craft products from China for importation into the United States,” to determine mitigations necessary to prevent pest entry, introduction, or establishment associated with imported wooden handicrafts from China. Based on the conclusions in the pest risk assessment and the accompanying risk management document, we determined that wooden handicrafts could be imported from China provided they met certain requirements for treatment, issuance of a phytosanitary certificate, inspection, and box identification.
Accordingly, on April 9, 2009, we published in the
One of the commenters urged us to finalize the proposed rule without
One commenter disagreed with our proposed requirement that would have required that, unless the wooden handicraft is 6 inches or less and treated with methyl bromide, it must be treated with heat treatment in accordance with § 319.40-7(c) or heat treatment with moisture reduction in accordance with § 319.40-7(d). At the time our proposed rule was published, paragraph (c) of § 319.40-7 provided that, if heat treatment is required for a regulated article, any heat treatment procedure may be employed that raises the temperature at the center of the regulated article to at least 71.1 °C and maintains the regulated article at that center temperature for at least 75 minutes. Similarly, paragraph (d) provided that, if heat treatment with moisture reduction is required for a regulated article, unless the article is treated with kiln drying conducted in accordance with the schedules prescribed for the article in the Dry Kin Operator’s Manual, Agriculture Handbook 188, it must be treated with a method that raises the temperature at the center of the article to at least 71.1 °C and maintains the regulated article at that center temperature for at least 75 minutes.
The commenter stated that the two paragraphs require regulated articles to be treated at a significantly higher temperature and for a longer duration than the temperature and duration recommended by International Standard for Phytosanitary Measures (ISPM) 15, which recommends that wood packaging material (WPM) be treated according to a heat treatment schedule that raises the temperature at the center of the WPM to at least 56 °C and maintains the WPM at that center temperature for at least 30 minutes.
Because the composition of WPM often differs from that of wooden handicrafts—for example, WPM is almost always debarked, while wooden handicrafts often are not—the plant pest risks associated with these classes of articles also often differ, and we therefore determined that we could not summarily modify the heat treatment requirement in the manner suggested by the commenter. Rather, we reexamined the findings of the pest risk assessment that accompanied the proposed rule to determine whether treatment in accordance with ISPM 15 would neutralize the pests of greatest concern identified in the pest risk assessment as likely to follow the pathway on imported wooden handicrafts from China.
These pests were wood-boring beetles in the families Buprestidae, Cerambycidae, and Scolytidae. Based on a review of the relevant scientific literature and on efficacy studies conducted by the Center for Plant Health Science and Technology of APHIS’ Plant Protection and Quarantine division, we determined that heat treatment of Chinese wooden handicrafts at the temperature and duration recommended by ISPM 15 would be effective in neutralizing all pests in these families except Emerald Ash Borer (EAB). EAB is an extremely destructive pest; the mortality rate for infested trees is 100 percent, and EAB has already killed more than 20 million ash trees in the United States since it was first discovered in Michigan in the summer of 2002. It was therefore our intent to retain the heat treatment requirements of the proposed rule in issuing a follow-up regulatory action.
However, in the December 2009 issue of
The experiments suggested that “a minimum heat treatment of 60 °C for 60 minutes…would provide >99.9% control (for EAB) based on probit estimates.”
Based on this article, we have reason to believe that heat treatment or heat treatment with moisture reduction methods that raise the center of wooden handicrafts from China to at least 60 °C and maintain the handicrafts at that center temperature for at least 60 minutes will neutralize all the pests of greatest concern identified in the pest risk assessment as likely to follow the pathway on imported Chinese wooden handicrafts.
On January 26, 2010, we published in the
Under this process, when we are proposing to add a new treatment schedule to the Treatment Manual, we will publish a notice in the
Consistent with this process, we have prepared a treatment evaluation document (TED) to accompany this proposed rule. The TED provides information regarding why the findings of the December 2009 article, which pertain to firewood, also apply to Chinese wooden handicrafts, and why we believe that heat treatment methods that raise the center of the wooden handicrafts to at least 60 °C and maintain the handicrafts at that center temperature for at least 60 minutes will neutralize all the pests of greatest concern likely to follow the pathway on those handicrafts. The TED is available from the person listed under
In our proposed rule, proposed paragraph (o)(1)(i) of § 319.40-5 would have required that wooden handicrafts from China be treated with heat
This proposed rule has been determined to be not significant for the purposes of Executive Order 12866, and therefore, has not been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget.
This action supplements a proposed rule published in the
The analysis took into consideration that the cost of treating Chinese handicrafts could be passed on to certain of these entities. However, it also noted that China already has in place the heat treatment facilities necessary to conduct treatment, and expected that, because of this, any increase in prices due to individual treatments would not be significant.
In assessing the possible cost of heat treatment, we determined that, because China already has heat treatment facilities at their disposal, a range of treatment schedules and durations would cost approximately the same amount per treatment, and would accordingly result in the same cost pass-through. The treatment schedule that we would authorize in this supplemental proposal—one that raises the center of Chinese wooden handicrafts to at least 60 °C and maintains the handicrafts at that center temperature for at least 60 minutes—falls within this range.
Therefore, we believe that the findings of the initial regulatory flexibility analysis prepared for the proposed rule are still accurate and appropriate.
That analysis was included in the proposed rule in its entirety, and is available on the Internet at the Regulations.gov Web site (see
This action supplements a proposed rule published in the
This supplemental proposed rule contains no new information collection or recordkeeping requirements under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501
Coffee, Cotton, Fruits, Imports, Logs, Nursery stock, Plant diseases and pests, Quarantine, Reporting and recordkeeping requirements, Rice, Vegetables.
7 U.S.C. 450, 7701-7772, and 7781-7786; 21 U.S.C. 136 and 136a; 7 CFR 2.22, 2.80, and 371.3.
(o) * * *
(1) * * *
(i) Wooden handicrafts must be treated with heat treatment or heat treatment with moisture reduction as specified in the PPQ Treatment Manual in accordance with part 305 of this chapter.
Done in Washington, DC, this 17th day of September 2010.