Federal Register
•
•
Trade Activity
Calendar
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Congressional
Activities
•
•
|
Volume 16, Issue 119
|
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
|
Modified Food Safety Bill Has Lower Registration Fees
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health has approved a modified version of the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 (H.R. 2749) after lowering the required registration fees and making certain other changes. The full committee is expected to consider the bill June 17, at which time concerns with respect to criminal and civil penalties, inspection frequency, effects on small businesses and other issues are likely to be raised.
According to press reports, the subcommittee-passed bill includes the following provisions.
Facility Registration - requires all food facilities operating within the U.S., all importers of foods, drugs and medical devices, and customs brokers handling food imports to register annually with the Food and Drug Administration
Fees - requires registered facilities to pay an annual registration fee of $500 (down from $1,000 in the previous version of the bill), caps the registration fee at $175,000 annually per company, requires registered food facilities to pay for FDA costs associated with reinspections and food recalls, and allows FDA to charge a fee to domestic firms requesting export certificates for exported food
ID Number - creates unique identification numbers for all food, drug and medical device facilities and importers
Increased Inspections - requires high-risk facilities to be inspected at least once every six to 18 months, low-risk facilities to be inspected at least once every 18 months to three years, and warehouses that store food to be inspected at least once every three to four years
Stronger Enforcement - provides FDA with new authority to issue mandatory recalls of tainted foods, increases criminal penalties to a maximum of $100,000 for individuals and $500,000 for organizations, establishes civil monetary penalties that may be imposed on food facilities that fail to comply with safety requirements, strengthens FDA’s authority to administratively detain unsafe food products, grants FDA quarantine authority under which it may restrict or prohibit the movement of unsafe food products from a particular geographic area, and grants FDA new authority to subpoena records related to possible violations
Expedited Imports - importers meeting voluntary security guidelines developed by FDA for imported foods would receive expedited processing
Country of Origin Labeling - requires all processed food labels to indicate the country in which final processing occurred and requires country-of-origin labeling for all produce (according to Inside US Trade, the subcommittee removed a provision requiring food manufacturers to identify the country of origin for all ingredients on their Web sites)
Foreign Government Certification - FDA would be able to require food to be certified as meeting all U.S. food safety requirements by the government of the country from which the article originated or by certain qualified third parties
Safety Plans - requires all food facilities operating within the U.S. or importing food to the U.S. to implement safety plans that identify and protect against food hazards and gives FDA the authority to specify minimum food safety plan requirements and audit food safety plans
Hazard Mitigation Efforts - directs FDA to identify industry and regulatory approaches to minimize hazards in the food supply
Traceability - FDA would have to issue regulations that require food producers, manufacturers, processors, transporters or holders to (a) maintain the full pedigree of the origin and previous distribution history of the food and link that history with the subsequent distribution history of the food and (b) establish an interoperable record to ensure fast and efficient traceback (according to Inside US Trade, however, FDA would have to conduct a pilot program before issuing these regulations and take other steps to judge their feasibility)
Expanded Lab Capacity - requires FDA to establish a program to recognize laboratory accreditation bodies and to accept test results only from duly accredited laboratories; also gives FDA the ability to require laboratories to send test results to FDA
Foreign Inspectorate - requires FDA to establish and maintain a corps of inspectors to monitor foreign facilities producing food, drugs, medical devices and cosmetics for U.S. consumers
Infant Formula - enhances FDA’s ability to assure the safety of new infant formulas before they go on the market
|
Study Highlights Need to Modernize Freight Transportation System
The RAND Corporation released recently a study finding that the long-term efficiency and effectiveness of the U.S. freight transportation system is threatened by bottlenecks, inefficient use of some infrastructure components, vulnerability to disruptions and crucial environmental and energy concerns. Demand for freight transportation is expected to increase in the future, a RAND press release states, but the nation’s highways, ports and railroads are nearing the limits of their capacity in key urban areas and transportation corridors, and delays and uncertainty in the system’s performance translate into higher prices for consumers and reduced productivity.
“There’s an opportunity now for the United States to develop policies and plans that will improve the flexibility and security of the freight transportation system, which is currently vulnerable to a host of dangers that could cause costly disruptions, whether from a terrorist attack or a natural disaster, such as an earthquake,” said Richard Hillestad, lead author of the study. “The whole functionality of freight transportation is built on reliability and speed, and those elements need to be protected.”
To that end, the study concludes that there are four issues that are particularly critical to address.
• increasing the capacity of the United States’ national and international freight systems through a combination of operational improvements and selected infrastructure enhancements, such as congestion pricing to promote more highway transportation during non-peak hours, integrating freight and passenger planning on urban rail and highways, providing more opportunities for mode shifts from road to rail or waterway (e.g., more streamlined and transparent intermodal connections), developing an information technology-based “infostructure” to facilitate freight movements across modes and increase the efficiency of the system, developing port connector strategies such as short-sea shipping and using short-haul rail to shift truck traffic from ports, and expanding some port operations to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week
• creating a freight transportation system that is more flexible and less vulnerable to disruption through steps such as providing incentives for the use of alternative ports of entry and debarkation (e.g., differential container fees that could be used to pay for additional infrastructure development and environmental pollution mitigation in the more heavily used ports), increasing system-level modeling to include interactions between modes, regions and components of the freight infrastructure and developing an expanded freight data system to support that modeling, identifying and analyzing key freight system vulnerabilities to disruption and simulating possible responses, and constructing infrastructure that separates freight and passenger traffic on railways and highways, particularly in urban areas
• addressing the energy and environmental issues associated with freight transportation through measures such as reducing truck, ship and rail emissions and fuel use through the development of cleaner fuels, improved engines and better aerodynamics; providing electric shore power for docked ships; replacing diesel equipment in ports with electric equipment; and improving efficiency through better routing, reducing trips with no load, providing real-time information as a way to avoid congestion, and reducing or shifting demands for freight movement in time
• making the case for public and private investment in supply-chain infrastructure and establishing sustainable priorities for funding
Source Document 1...
|
Arbitration Panel Rejects Canadian Company Claim under NAFTA Investment Rules
A NAFTA arbitration tribunal has rejected a claim by a Canadian company that certain federal and state actions relating to its proposed gold mine in the U.S. violated the investment protection provisions of NAFTA. While the U.S. government welcomed the decision, a watchdog group said the case highlights the need to reform the investor state provisions of NAFTA and similar trade agreements.
Glamis Gold Ltd. alleged that certain actions taken by the Department of the Interior during the permitting process and certain land reclamation measures adopted by the state of California made the company’s development of an open-pit gold mine on environmentally-sensitive federal lands in California economically infeasible and deprived it of the value of its investment in that project. Glamis claimed that these actions violated the provisions of NAFTA Chapter Eleven, which ensure a minimum level of treatment and prohibit uncompensated takings of property, and that the California measures in particular were politically motivated and lacked any legitimate public policy basis. However, according to the State Department, the panel rejected Glamis’ claim in its entirety, holding that the actions and measures in question were supported by legitimate public policy goals, did not violate the NAFTA minimum standard of treatment provision and did not constitute an expropriation of Glamis’ investment.
U.S. officials welcomed the decision. “As this ruling demonstrates, neither the NAFTA nor other U.S. investment agreements prevent the federal government or our states from regulating in the public interest, including to protect the environment, public health, and safety,” said U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk. “At the same time, the NAFTA and our other investment agreements provide important protections for American companies that invest abroad against discriminatory or otherwise wrongful foreign government actions.” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., agreed, saying the ruling “is a clear illustration that we can vigorously protect our environment and remain open to global investment.” House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Ranking Member Kevin Brady, R-Texas, added that the tribunal’s decision “is further proof that critics are wrong” about the effects of the investment provisions and continues “the perfect record of the United States in defending investor/state arbitrations under NAFTA.”
Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch division, disagreed. “It is no surprise that this long-delayed NAFTA case was dismissed given the major flaws in Glamis’ claim,” Wallach said. “In addition, there would have been serious political ramifications if a foreign corporation had been able to use NAFTA to be awarded millions of our tax dollars because it did not want to comply with non-discriminatory mining regulations that protect public health, the environment and the cultural and religious practices of an Indian tribe.” She added that the dismissal of the Glamis case “does nothing to fix the underlying problems with U.S. trade agreements’ foreign investor rights rules, which are replicated in the leftover Bush trade pacts with Panama, Colombia and Korea.” A Public Citizen press release added that the Glamis decision “does not affect the outcome of the four other NAFTA challenges pending against the United States in which foreign investors are demanding more than $6 billion in U.S. taxpayer compensation.”
|
House Appropriations Committee Approves Homeland Security Spending Bill
The House Appropriations Committee approved June 12 a $42.6 billion Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill for fiscal year 2010 that includes the following provisions.
• $10 billion for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, including $692 million for southwest border investments for border security fencing, infrastructure and technology, $26.1 million for southwest border counterdrug initiatives (including $10 million for additional scanning systems for southbound lanes), $40 million in BSFIT for additional investments in northern border security technology, $140 million to deploy technology and infrastructure for the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative at the 46 busiest border ports of entry, $162 million to continue implementation of pilot and overseas container security programs ($12.5 million more than in 2009), and $2.8 million and 20 CBP officers to enhance targeting of dangerous goods and people
• $9.97 billion for the Coast Guard, including efforts to improve port security and marine safety
• $250 million for port security grants, $150 million below 2009
• $7.7 billion for the Transportation Security Administration, including $123 million to meet the 100% air cargo security screening mandate by August 2010
• $804 million for CBP and the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office to develop and deploy systems to screen cargo for weapons or nuclear precursor materials
• no funding for DNDO to procure radiological/nuclear detection equipment because there are carry-over balances exceeding $100 million and delays in certifying next-generation detection machines
• no funding for programs such as advanced spectroscopic portal monitors and trucking industry security grants
|
DHS: Textile Entry Requirements Changed; Customs Agreement with Mexico
CBP Makes “Significant Change” in Textile Entry Requirements. U.S. Customs and Border Protection recently issued a memorandum to its field offices outlining “a significant change in textile entry requirements” in light of the elimination of quotas on merchandise from China entered after Dec. 31, 2008.
Formal Entry. On May 24, 1989, CBP provided a list of HTSUS numbers that required formal entry regardless of value because of quota/visa concerns as well as a separate list of HTSUS numbers for which formal entry was required because of regulatory requirements. With the elimination of the China quotas, however, there is no longer a requirement to file a formal entry as established by TBT-01-036, except (pursuant to 19 CFR 143.21(a)) with respect to shipments of articles valued in excess of $250 that are classified in HTSUS Sections VII, VIII, XI and XII; Chapter 94; and Chapter 99, subchapters III and IV. The following HTSUS numbers currently fall within these sections:
• 3901.10.1000-4304.00.0000
• 5001.00.0000-6704.90.0000
• 9401.10.4000-9406.00.8090
• 9903.02.21-9904.52.50
CBP states that it is in the process of reviewing the above regulations to raise the $250 limit but that before a change can be implemented it must be proposed through the formal regulatory process.
Commercial Samples. With the elimination of the visa arrangements, CBP states, no provisions remain that allow for properly marked commercial sample shipments. As a result, samples entering the U.S. must now meet the conditions in HTSUS chapter 98, under subheading 9811.00.60, providing for mutilated samples, or another chapter 98 provision, as appropriate.
Source Document 1...
|
New Customs Agreement with Mexico. The Department of Homeland Security announced June 15 the signing of a letter of intent with Mexico that aims to increase security in, and facilitate the flow of legal travel and trade between, the two countries. DHS explains that this agreement seeks to strengthen border enforcement by creating a framework for establishing bi-national Port Security Management Committees, developing a joint implementation plan for cooperative capacity building and increasing trade facilitation through increased information sharing and a harmonized customs clearance process.
|
U.S. to Negotiate First Stand-Alone Agreement on Transparency with Mongolia
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced last week that the U.S. and Mongolia have launched negotiations on a bilateral transparency agreement. According to a USTR press release, the agreement reflects a joint recognition of the importance of transparency with regard to trade and investment policies and practices and is linked to the two countries’ mutual desire to promote trade cooperation through their existing Trade and Investment Framework Agreement. This is the first time the U.S. has sought to conclude a stand-alone agreement on transparency, the USTR noted, as in the past the U.S. has only negotiated transparency commitments as part of broader agreements, such as free trade agreements.
|
President Moves to Lift Restrictions on Export Financing to Cambodia, Laos
President Obama issued June 12 separate determinations that Cambodia and Laos have ceased to be Marxist-Leninist countries as defined by the Export-Import Bank Act of 1945. These decisions will enable the Export-Import Bank to back loans and credit guarantees that support exports of U.S. goods to these two countries, which totaled $154 million and $18 million, respectively, in 2008. According to an Obama administration official, the change was made based on the “commitment of Cambodia and Laos to open markets.”
|
FMC: OTI License Revocations, Reissuances, Applicants
OTI Licenses Revoked. The Federal Maritime Commission has given notice that the following ocean transportation intermediary licenses have been revoked. A revocation may occur after a license is surrendered voluntarily by the OTI or for failure to maintain a valid bond.
• License #020700F: Allen & Sally Associates LLC d/b/a USA Customs Brokers & Freight Forwarders, Norcross, Ga.
• License #020488N: Cycle Logical Supply Chain Solutions LLC, Canton, Ga.
Source Document 1...
Source Document 2...
|
OTI License Reissued. The Federal Maritime Commission has given notice that the following ocean transportation intermediary license has been reissued.
• License #019278N: Nelcon Cargo Corp., Miami, Fla.
Source Document 1...
|
OTI License Applicants. The Federal Maritime Commission has provided notice that the following applicants have filed applications for licenses as non-vessel-operating common carrier and/or ocean freight forwarder ocean transportation intermediaries. Persons knowing of any reason why any of these applicants should not receive a license are requested to contact the FMC.
• I.M.A. Limited d/b/a Miracle Brokers International, George Town, Cayman Islands
• World Wide Cargo Partners LLC, Pleasanton, Calif.
• Transmodal Corporation, Ramsey, N.J.
• Scrap Freight Inc., Alhambra, Calif.
• Magic Transport Inc., Puerto Rico
• Interlogistix LLC, Brighton, Colo.
• Guempel Lynnwood Corporation d/b/a GalaxSea Freight Forwarding, Lynnwood, Wash.
• American Global Logistics LLC, Atlanta, Ga.
• Upakweship Inc., Charleston, S.C.
Source Document 1...
|
RECENTLY INTRODUCED LEGISLATION IN THE 111th CONGRESS:
Legislation Repository...
|
|
Bill#
Sponsor
|
Date Introduced
|
Description
|
Action
|
|
|
H.R. 2856
Fallin
|
06/12/09
|
A bill to amend title 10, United States Code, to require that military decorations, ribbons, badges, medals, insignia and other uniform accouterments used by the Armed Forces be produced in the United States
|
Referred to the House Committee on Armed Services
|
RECENTLY ANNOUNCED CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS:
Hearings Repository...
|
|
Date/Time
|
Committee
|
Subject
|
|
|
6/18/2009
10:00am
|
House Committee on Small Business, Subcommittee on Rural Development, Entrepreneurship and Trade
|
Textile import enforcement: Is the playing field level for American small businesses
|
|
|
6/18/2009
2:00pm
|
House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade
|
Export Administration Act: A review of outstanding policy considerations
|
|
|
6/18/2009
2:30pm
|
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine
|
Freight transportation in America, focusing on options for improving the nation's network
|
|
|
6/16/2009
10:30am
|
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
|
Nomination of Inez M. Tenenbaum, Chair, Consumer Product Safety Commission
|
|
Executive Editor: Shawn McCausland
Contact:
smccausland@strtrade.com
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20004
Tel: (202) 216-9307
Fax: (202) 842-2247
Circulation/User Registration/General Information/Advertising:
Director of Marketing
Contact:
marketing@strtrade.com
1000 Northwest 57th Court, Suite 600
Miami, Florida 33126
Tel: (800) 5-TRADE-5 or (800) 587-2335 or (305) 267-9200
Fax: (305) 261-0403
|
World Trade\INTERACTIVE™ is an online international trade information service, published electronically by
WorldTrade Interactive, Inc. It is prepared by the law firm of Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, P.A.
The publisher has taken all reasonable steps to verify the accuracy of the content of this site.
However, WorldTrade Interactive, Inc., and Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, P.A.,
shall not be responsible for any errors or omissions.
NOTE: Information contained herein is of necessity a summary of complicated and fact-specific issues.
It is not intended to convey legal advice, and receipt of it does not constitute or create an attorney-client relationship.
Before you act on any information provided in this document,
you should seek professional advice regarding its applicability to your specific circumstances.
Copyright © 2010 WorldTrade Interactive, Inc. - All Rights Reserved
Receipt of this free publication is allowed under the House and Senate gift rules.
See Senate Rule XXXV 1.(c)(9) and 1.(c)(19); House Rule XXV 5.(a)(3)(I) and 5(a)(3)(R)(i).
|
|
|
