USDA Office of Communications

 

Washington, D.C., February 3, 2020 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) will continue accepting comments until February 24, 2020, on data sheets regarding certain taxa of plants for planting that are quarantine pests or hosts of quarantine pests. Based on the scientific evidence outlined in the data sheets, APHIS experts determined that 26 taxa of plants for planting are quarantine pests, and that all Myrtaceae taxa (when destined to Hawaii), all subfamily Bambusoideae taxa, and 43 other taxa of plants for planting are hosts of 18 quarantine pests, and therefore should be added to our lists of taxa of plants for planting whose importation is not authorized pending pest risk analysis (NAPPRA).

Plants can carry a wide variety of pests and in some cases, the plant themselves are the pest. For this reason, APHIS does not authorize the importation of certain plants for planting pending pest risk analysis (PRA), a process that evaluates the pests and diseases associated with a commodity. Upon request, APHIS will develop a PRA evaluating the potential importation of a plant on the NAPPRA list. Based on the PRA results, APHIS will either remove the taxon from the NAPPRA list from the country or countries for which we conducted the PRA, and then allow its importation subject to general requirements, allow its importation subject to specific restrictions, or continue to prohibit its importation.

You can view the data sheets on Regulations.gov and submit comments until February 24, 2020. After reviewing the comments, APHIS will announce its decision regarding the NAPPRA status of these taxa in a final notice.