Farm Bill Creates New Requirement on Imports of Certain Goods made from Wood or Plants

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Issue 46, August 26, 2008

The recently passed U.S. Farm Bill, H.R. 2419, contained a significant revision to the Lacey Act (16 USC 3371), and establishes a new import declaration requirement for "plants and plant products."

Effective for goods arriving on or after November 24, 2008, any person importing any plant or plant product must file a declaration upon importation that contains the (1) scientific name (i.e. genus and species) of any plant contained within the shipment, (2) the plant species country of origin (i.e., the country where the plant was harvested, cut, logged, or removed), and (3) a description of the value of the importation and quantity (including the unit of measure) of the plant/plant product.

This new requirement is not yet in affect and there is currently very limited information available regarding which products are affected. However, these changes are expected to have a potentially high impact on wide variety of importers. Based on a survey of HTSUS chapters 44, 45, 47 and 48, it has been suggested that an estimate of 8,000 lines daily might need the declaration. Additionally, it must be recognized there are over 1000 genus and species of wood alone!

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) monitors imports and exports of plants and plant products. Currently importers of regulated plant or plant products including species identified under the Convention of the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) or the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) are required to report the genus, species and origin as part of the commercial invoice. The new rules will dramatically change the current process (no standardized form, declaration or notice applicable to only regulated plants & products) to a highly regulated process including a formal declaration on ALL plants and plant products.

The potential scope of this new requirement is very broad, as it applies to all members of the plant kingdom (e.g. plants, trees, etc) including roots, seeds, parts, and products constructed thereof, and both wild and artificially propagated (i.e. planted by man). The exact scope has not been defined as yet; however conceivably, this new requirement may potentially include all wood and paper products such as: wood furniture, textile and apparel products of rayon, paper products, and many other articles that have wood or plant components. Example: When importing a cook pan with a wooden handle the importer will be required to declare the value of the wooden handle, the genus and species of the wood, the weight (or other unit of measure) for the handle and the country of origin of the wood (before it was a handle).

It must also be noted that the law specifies that for plants products where the required species information is not definitively discernable, the importer must declare all potential species and countries of origin of the plants that may have been used in the plant product. For example, in the case where the plant species used to produce a plant product is unknown, the declaration must contain the name of each species of plant that may have been used to produce the plant product. The same would apply in instances where the plant country of origin is unknown. In addition, for paper or paperboard plant products that include recycled plant products, only the average percent of the recycled content must be declared without any reference to the actual species or country of origin of the recycled plant product. However all declaration requirements (e.g. species scientific name, country of origin etc) would apply for the non-recycled plant content.

This new declaration requirement is set to become effective in late November or December of this year. Failure to comply with the new requirement could result in civil fines of up to $10,000 and criminal prosecution, revocation of plant import licenses & permits, and other punitive actions. At this time, the exact format of the plant declaration (e.g., paper form, electronic filing, dissemination of required information on commercial invoice, etc.) has not been published.

DHL will continue to monitor this topic and provide additional detail as it becomes available.

Sincerely,
Paul E. Vroman
Manager,Regulatory & Compliance Consulting and Projects
Licensed Customs Broker
NCBFAA Certified Customs Specialist