DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE (USDA)
Statement of Regulatory
Priorities
USDA's regulatory efforts in the coming
year will be focused on achieving the Department's goals identified in the
Department's Strategic Plan for 2010 to 2015. To assist the country in
addressing today's challenges, USDA established the following goals:
Assist
rural communities to create prosperity so they are self-sustaining,
re-populating, and economically thriving. USDA is the leading advocate for rural
America. The Department supports rural communities and enhances quality of
life for rural residents by improving their economic opportunities, community
infrastructure, environmental health, and the sustainability of agricultural
production. The common goal is to help create thriving rural communities where
people want to live and raise families, and where children have economic
opportunities and a bright future.
Ensure
that all of America's children have access to safe, nutritious, and balanced
meals. A
plentiful supply of safe and nutritious food is essential to the well-being of
every family and the healthy development of every child in America. USDA
provides nutrition assistance to children and low-income people who need it and
works to improve the healthy eating habits of all Americans, especially
children. In addition, the Department safeguards the quality and wholesomeness
of meat, poultry, and egg products and addresses and prevents loss and damage
from pests and disease outbreaks.
Ensure
our national forests and private working lands are conserved, restored, and
made more resilient to climate change, while enhancing our water resources. America's prosperity
is inextricably linked to the health of our lands and natural resources.
Forests, farms, ranches, and grasslands offer enormous environmental benefits
as a source of clean air, clean and abundant water, and wildlife habitat.
These lands generate economic value by supporting the vital agriculture and
forestry sectors, attracting tourism and recreation visitors, sustaining green
jobs, and producing ecosystem services, food, fiber, timber and non-timber
products, and energy. They are also of immense social importance, enhancing
rural quality of life, sustaining scenic and culturally important landscapes,
and providing opportunities to engage in outdoor activity and reconnect with
the land.
Help
America promote agricultural production and biotechnology exports as America
works to increase food security. A productive agricultural sector is critical
to increasing global food security. For many crops, a substantial portion of
domestic production is bound for overseas markets. USDA helps American farmers
and ranchers use efficient, sustainable production, biotechnology, and other
emergent technologies to enhance food security around the world and find export
markets for their products.
Important regulatory activities
supporting the accomplishment of these goals in 2011 will include the
following:
Rural
Development and Renewable Energy. USDA priority regulatory actions for the
Rural Development mission will be to finalize regulations for bioenergy
programs, including the Biorefinery Assistance Program. While USDA utilized
notices of funding availability to implement many of these programs in fiscal
years 2009 and 2010, regulations are required for permanent implementation.
Access to affordable broadband to all rural Americans is another priority.
USDA will finalize reform of its on-going broadband access program through an
interim rule. Rural Development will utilize comments received from the
proposed rule, address statutory changes required by the 2008 Farm Bill, and
incorporate lessons learned from implementing the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act program to develop the interim rule.
USDA
will continue to promote sustainable economic opportunities to revitalize rural
communities through the purchase and use of renewable, environmentally friendly
biobased products through its BioPreferred Program. USDA will continue to
designate groups of biobased products to receive procurement preference from
Federal agencies and contractors. In addition, USDA will finalize a rule
establishing the Voluntary Labeling Program for biobased products.
Nutrition
Assistance.
As changes are made to the nutrition assistance programs, USDA will work to
foster actions that expand access to program benefits, improve program
integrity, improve diets and healthy eating through nutrition education, and
promote physical activity consistent with the national effort to reduce
obesity. In support of these activities in 2011, the Food and Nutrition
Service (FNS) will propose a rule updating nutrition standards in the school
meals program, finalize a rule updating the WIC food packages, and establish
permanent rules for the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program. FNS will continue
to work to implement rules that minimize participant and vendor fraud in its
nutrition assistance programs.
Food
Safety.
In the area of food safety, USDA will continue to develop science-based regulations
that improve the safety of meat, poultry, and processed egg products in the
least burdensome and most cost-effective manner. Regulations will be revised
to address emerging food safety challenges, streamlined to remove excessively
prescriptive regulations, and updated to be made consistent with hazard
analysis and critical control point principles. FSIS will propose regulations
to establish new systems for poultry slaughter inspection, catfish inspection,
as well as a new voluntary Federal-State cooperative inspection program. To
assist small entities to comply with food safety requirements, the Food Safety
and Inspection Service will continue to collaborate with other USDA agencies
and State partners in the enhanced small business outreach program.
Farm Loans and Disaster Assistance. USDA will work to
ensure a strong U.S. agricultural system through farm income support and farm
loan programs. In addition, USDA will implement a new disaster assistance
program authorized by the 2008 Farm Bill, the Emergency Forest Restoration
Program. Regulations are also being developed for conservation loan programs
intended to help producers finance the construction of conservation measures.
Forestry
and Conservation.
USDA has completed all rulemaking for the new and reauthorized 2008 Farm Bill
conservation programs and will focus on their continued implementation in
2011. In the forestry area, the Department will focus on developing a new
planning rule that improves the National forests' planning process,
decisionmaking, and the legal defensibility of land management plans. In 2011,
the Department plans to complete the transition from the 2000 planning rule
that is now in effect to the new planning rule that will update planning
procedures to reflect contemporary collaborative planning practices.
Marketing and Regulatory Programs. USDA will work to
support the organic sector and continue regulatory work to protect the health
and value of U.S. agricultural and natural resources. USDA will also implement
regulations to enhance enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act. In
addition, USDA is working with stakeholders to develop acceptable animal
disease traceability standards. Regarding plant health, USDA anticipates
revising the permitting of plant pests and biological control organisms. USDA
will also amend regulations for importing nursery stock to better address plant
health risks associated with propagative material. For the Animal Welfare
Act, USDA will propose specific standards for the humane care of birds and dogs
imported for resale. USDA will also implement regulations to implement dairy
promotion and research provisions of the 2008 Farm Bill.
Reducing Paperwork Burden on
Customers
USDA continues to make
substantial progress in implementing the goal of the Paperwork Reduction Act of
1995 to reduce the burden of information collection on the public. To meet the
requirements of the E-Government Act, agencies across USDA are providing
electronic alternatives to their traditionally paper-based customer
transactions. As a result, producers increasingly have the option to
electronically file forms and all other documentation online. To facilitate
the expansion of electronic government, USDA implemented an electronic
authentication capability that allows customers to "sign-on" once and
conduct business with all USDA agencies. Supporting these efforts are ongoing
analyses to identify and eliminate redundant data collections and streamline
collection instructions. The end result of implementing these initiatives is
better service to our customers, enabling them to choose when and where to
conduct business with USDA.
Major Regulatory Priorities
This document represents summary
information on prospective significant regulations as called for in Executive
Order 12866. The following USDA agencies are represented in this regulatory
plan, along with a summary of their mission and key regulatory priorities in
2011:
Food
and Nutrition Service
Mission:
FNS increases food security and reduces hunger in partnership with cooperating
organizations by providing children and low-income people access to food, a
healthful diet, and nutrition education in a manner that supports American
agriculture and inspires public confidence.
Priorities: In addition to responding to provisions of legislation authorizing
and modifying Federal nutrition assistance programs, FNS' 2011 regulatory plan
supports USDA's goal to ensure that
all of America's children have access to safe, nutritious, and balanced meals:
Increase Access to
Nutritious Food.
This objective represents FNS' efforts to improve nutrition by providing access
to program benefits (food consumed at home, school meals, commodities) and
distributing State administrative funds to support program operations. To
advance this objective, FNS plans
to publish a proposed rule to codify provisions of the 2008 Farm Bill that
expand access to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits and
address other eligibility, certification, employment, and training issues. An interim rule implementing provisions of the Child
Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004 to establish
automatic eligibility for homeless children for school meals further supports
this objective.
Promote
Healthy Diet and Physical Activity Behaviors. This objective
represents FNS' efforts to improve the diets of its clients through nutrition
education, support the national effort to reduce obesity by promoting healthy
eating and physical activity, and to ensure that program benefits meet
appropriate standards to effectively improve nutrition for program
participants. In support of this
objective, FNS plans to propose a rule updating the nutrition standards in the
school meals programs, finalize a rule updating the WIC food packages, and
establish permanent rules for the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, which
currently operates in a select number of schools in each State, the District of
Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
Food Safety and
Inspection Service
Mission: The Food Safety and
Inspection Service (FSIS) is responsible for ensuring that meat, poultry, egg,
and catfish products in interstate and foreign commerce are wholesome, not
adulterated, and properly marked, labeled, and packaged.
Priorities: FSIS
is committed to developing and issuing science-based regulations intended to
ensure that meat, poultry, egg, and catfish products are wholesome and not
adulterated or misbranded. FSIS regulatory actions support the objective to protect public health by ensuring that food
is safe under USDA's goal to ensure access to safe food. To reduce the number
of foodborne illnesses and increase program efficiencies, FSIS will continue to
review its existing authorities and regulations to ensure that it can address
emerging food safety challenges, to streamline excessively prescriptive
regulations, and to revise or remove regulations that are inconsistent with the
FSIS' hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) regulations. FSIS is
also working with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to improve
coordination and increase the effectiveness of inspection activities. FSIS'
priority initiatives are as follows:
Rulemakings
that support initiatives of the President's Food Safety Working Group:
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Poultry
Slaughter Inspection. FSIS plans to amend poultry products inspection
regulations to put in place a system in which the establishment sorts the
carcasses for defects and FSIS verifies that the system is under control and
producing safe and wholesome product. FSIS will propose to adopt performance
standards designed to ensure that the establishments are carrying out
slaughter, dressing, and chilling operations in a manner that ensures no
significant growth of pathogens.
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Revision
of Egg Products Inspection Regulations. FSIS is planning to propose
requirements for federally inspected egg product plants to develop and
implement HACCP systems and sanitation standard operating procedures. FSIS
will be proposing pathogen reduction performance standards for egg products and
will remove prescriptive requirements for egg product plants.
Initiatives
that provide for disclosure or that enable economic growth. FSIS plans to
issue two final rules to promote disclosure of information to the public or
that provide flexibility for the adoption of new technologies and that promote
economic growth:
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Nutrition
Labeling of Single-Ingredient Products and Ground or Chopped Meat and Poultry
Products. Regulations have been proposed to require nutrition information on
the major cuts of single-ingredient, raw meat and poultry products to appear on
the product label or at the point of purchase, unless an exemption applies.
These regulations would also require nutrition labeling on all ground or
chopped meat or poultry products unless an exemption applies.
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Permission
to Use Air Inflation of Meat Carcasses and Parts. FSIS has proposed to revise
the Federal meat inspection regulations to permit establishments that slaughter
livestock or prepare livestock carcasses and parts to inflate carcasses and
parts with air if they develop, implement, and maintain written controls to
ensure that the procedure does not cause insanitary conditions or adulterate
product. In addition, FSIS has proposed to amend its regulations to remove the
approved methods for inflating livestock carcasses and parts by air and the
requirement that establishments seek approval from FSIS for inflation
procedures not listed in the regulations.
Interstate
Shipment of State-Inspected Meat and Poultry Products. As authorized by the
2008 Farm Bill, FSIS will issue final regulations to implement a new voluntary Federal-State cooperative inspection program
under which State-inspected establishments with 25 or fewer employees would be
eligible to ship meat and poultry products in interstate commerce.
Notification,
Documentation, and Recordkeeping Requirements for Inspected Establishments.
As authorized by the 2008 Farm Bill, FSIS will issue final regulations that
will require establishments that are subject to inspection to promptly notify
FSIS when an adulterated or misbranded product received by or originating from
the establishment has entered into commerce. The regulations also will require
the establishments to prepare and maintain current procedures for the recall of
all products produced and shipped by the establishments and to document each
reassessment of the establishments' process control plans.
Catfish
Inspection. FSIS is developing regulations to implement provisions of the 2008
Farm Bill provisions that make catfish an amenable species under the Federal
Meat Inspection Act (FMIA).
Public Health
Information System. To support its food safety inspection activities, FSIS is
developing the Public Health Information System (PHIS). PHIS, which is
user-friendly and Web-based, will replace many of FSIS' current systems and
automate many business processes. To facilitate the implementation of some
PHIS components, FSIS is proposing to provide for electronic export and import
application and certification processes as alternatives to the current
paper-based systems for these certifications.
Other
planned initiatives. FSIS plans to finalize a February 2001 proposed rule to
establish food safety performance standards for all processed ready-to-eat
(RTE) meat and poultry products and for partially heat-treated meat and poultry
products that are not ready-to-eat. Some provisions of the proposal addressed
post-lethality contamination of RTE products with Listeria monocytogenes.
In June 2003, FSIS published an interim final rule requiring establishments to
prevent L. monocytogenes contamination of RTE products. FSIS has
carefully reviewed its economic analysis of the interim final rule and is
planning to affirm the interim rule as a final rule with changes.
FSIS
small business implications. The great majority of businesses regulated by
FSIS are small businesses. Some of the regulations listed above substantially
affect small businesses. Some rulemakings can benefit small businesses. For
example, the rule on interstate shipment of State-inspected products will open
interstate markets to some small State-inspected establishments that previously
could only sell their products within State boundaries.
FSIS conducts a small business outreach program that provides critical
training, access to food safety experts, and information resources (such as
compliance guidance and questions and answers on various topics) in forms that
are uniform, easily comprehended, and consistent. FSIS collaborates in this
effort with other USDA agencies and cooperating State partners. For example,
FSIS makes plant owners and operators aware of loan programs, available through
USDA's Rural Business and Cooperative programs, to help them in upgrading their
facilities. FSIS employees meet with small and very small plant operators to
learn more about their specific needs and provide joint training sessions for
small and very small plants and FSIS employees.
Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service
Mission: A major part of the mission of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service (APHIS) is to protect the health and value of American agricultural and
natural resources. APHIS regulatory actions support USDA's goal of ensuring
access to safe, plentiful, and nutritious food by minimizing major diseases and
pests that have the potential for reducing agricultural productivity. In
support of this goal, APHIS conducts programs to prevent the introduction of
exotic pests and diseases into the United States and conducts surveillance,
monitoring, control, and eradication programs for pests and diseases in this
country. These activities enhance agricultural productivity and
competitiveness and contribute to the national economy and the public health.
APHIS also conducts programs to ensure the humane handling, care, treatment,
and transportation of animals under the Animal Welfare Act.
Priorities: With respect to animal health, APHIS is working with State and tribal
representatives to identify a regulatory approach that will provide national
traceability standards for livestock moved interstate while allowing each State
and tribe the flexibility to work with their producers to develop standards
that will work best for them. In the area of animal welfare, APHIS plans to
propose standards for the humane handling, care, treatment, and transportation
of birds covered under the Animal Welfare Act and to establish regulations to
ensure the humane treatment of dogs imported into the United States for
resale. Regarding plant health, APHIS anticipates publishing a proposed rule
that would revise the current regulations governing the permitting of plant
pests and biological control organisms. APHIS is also preparing a final rule
that will conclude the first phase of its comprehensive revision to its
regulations for importing nursery stock (plants for planting) to better address
plant health risks associated with propagative material.
Agricultural
Marketing Service
Mission:
The Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) provides marketing services to
producers, manufacturers, distributors, importers,
exporters, and consumers of food products. The AMS also manages the government's food purchases, supervises
food quality grading, maintains food quality
standards, and supervises the Federal research and promotion programs. AMS
programs contribute to the achievement of a number of objectives under the
Department's goal to assist rural communities to create prosperity and the goal
to ensure
that all of America's children have access to safe, nutritious, and balanced
meals.
Priorities:
National
Organic Program (NOP). AMS' priority items for the next year include several
rulemakings that impact the organic industry. Statistics indicating rapid
growth in the organic sector have highlighted issues that need to be addressed,
including:
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Origin
of Livestock. On October 24, 2008, NOP published a proposed rule with request
for comments on the access to pasture requirements for ruminants. This
proposed rule included a change in the origin of livestock requirements for
dairy animals under section 205.236 of the NOP regulations. Many of the
comments received on the October 2008 proposed rule suggested that the origin
of livestock issue should be pursued through a separate rulemaking from access
to pasture. As a result, the proposed change to the origin of livestock
requirements was not retained in the final rule on access to pasture published
on February 17, 2010. AMS plans to develop a proposed rule specific to origin
of livestock under the NOP during fiscal year (FY) 2011.
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Periodic
Pesticide Residue Testing. The Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) of 1990
included language requiring certifying agents to conduct periodic residue
testing of organic products produced or handled in accordance with the NOP.
This requirement was meant to identify organic products that contained
pesticides or other nonorganic residues in violation with the NOP or other
applicable laws. In March 2010, an Office of Inspector General (OIG) audit of
the NOP suggested that a legal review by the Office of General Counsel (OGC) of
the current NOP regulations was needed to assess whether the existing
regulations are in compliance with the residue testing requirement under OFPA.
As a result of the legal opinion received by the NOP on this issue, AMS will
publish a proposed rule on new periodic pesticide residue testing requirements
in 2011.
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Streamlining
Enforcement Related Actions. The March 2010 Office of Inspector General (OIG)
audit of the NOP raised issues related to the program's process for imposing
enforcement actions. One concern was that organic producers and handlers
facing revocation or suspension of their certification are able to market their
products as organic during what can be a lengthy appeals process. As a result,
AMS will publish a proposed rule in 2011 to streamline the NOP appeals process
such that appeals are reviewed and responded to in a timely manner.
Dairy Promotion and Research Program (Dairy Import
Assessments). AMS has entered the final stage of establishing the National
Dairy Promotion and Research Program. The Dairy Production Stabilization Act of 1983 (Dairy Act) authorized USDA to
create a national producer program for dairy
product promotion, research, and nutrition education as part of a comprehensive
strategy to increase human consumption of milk and dairy products. Dairy
farmers fund this self-help program through a mandatory
assessment on all milk produced in the contiguous 48 States and marketed
commercially. Dairy farmers administer the national program through the National
Dairy Promotion and Research Board (Dairy Board).
The 2008 Farm Bill extended the program to include
producers in Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, who
will pay an assessment of $0.15 per hundredweight of milk production. Imported
dairy products will be assessed at $0.075 per hundredweight of fluid milk
equivalent. AMS published proposed regulations establishing
the program in the May 19, 2009, Federal Register. The proposal had a 30-day comment period. The final rule
is expected to be published by the end of 2010.
Grain, Inspection,
Packers and Stockyards Administration
Mission: The
Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) facilitates the
marketing of livestock, poultry, meat, cereals, oilseeds, and related
agricultural products and promotes fair and competitive trading practices for
the overall benefit of consumers and American agriculture. GIPSA's activities
contribute significantly to the Department's goal to increase prosperity
in rural areas by supporting a competitive agricultural system.
Priorities: GIPSA intends to issue a final rule that will define practices or
conduct that are unfair, unjustly discriminatory, or deceptive, and/or that
represent the making or giving of an undue or unreasonable preference or
advantage, and ensure that producers and growers can fully participate in any
arbitration process that may arise relating to livestock or poultry contracts.
This regulation is being finalized in accordance with the authority granted to
the Secretary by the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921 and with the
requirements of sections 11005 and 11006 of the 2008 Farm Bill.
Farm Service Agency
Mission: The Farm Service Agency's (FSA)
mission is to equitably serve all farmers, ranchers, and agricultural partners
through the delivery of effective, efficient agricultural programs, which
contributes to two USDA goals. The goal of assisting rural communities in
creating prosperity so they are self-sustaining, re-populating, and
economically thriving; and the goal to enhance the Nation's natural resource
base by assisting owners and operators of farms and ranches to conserve and
enhance soil, water, and related natural resources. It supports the first goal
by stabilizing farm income, providing credit to new or existing farmers and
ranchers who are temporarily unable to obtain credit from commercial sources,
and helping farm operations recover from the effects of disaster. FSA supports
the second goal by administering several conservation programs directed toward
agricultural producers. The largest program is the Conservation Reserve
Program (CRP), which protects nearly 32 million acres of environmentally
sensitive land.
Priorities:
Disaster Assistance.
Regulations will be issued to establish a new disaster assistance program, the
Emergency Forest Restoration Program. This program requires new regulations
and minor revisions to the existing related Emergency Conservation Program
regulations.
Biomass Crop
Assistance Program. Final regulations were published to complete implementation
of the Biomass Crop Assistance Program. This program supports the
Administration's energy initiative to accelerate the investment in and production
of biofuels. The program will provide financial assistance to agricultural and
forest land owners and operators to establish and produce eligible crops,
including woody biomass, for conversion to bioenergy, and the collection,
harvest, storage, and transportation of eligible material for use in a biomass
conversion facility.
Farm Loan Programs.
FSA will develop and issue regulations to amend programs for farm operating
loans, down payment loans, and emergency loans to include socially disadvantaged
farmers, increase loan limits, loan size, funding targets, interest rates, and
graduating borrowers to commercial credit. In addition, the regulations will
establish a new direct and guaranteed loan program to assist farmers in implementing
conservation practices.
Forest Service
Mission: The mission of the
Forest Service is to sustain the health, productivity, and diversity of the
Nation's forests and rangelands to meet the needs of present and future
generations. This includes protecting and managing National Forest System
lands, providing technical and financial assistance to States, communities, and
private forest landowners, and developing and providing scientific and
technical assistance and
scientific exchanges in support of international forest and range conservation. Forest Service regulatory priorities support the
accomplishment of the Department's goal to ensure our National forests are
conserved, restored, and made more resilient to climate change, while enhancing
our water resources.
Priorities:
Land Management
Planning Rule. The Forest Service is required to issue rulemaking for National
Forest System land management planning under 16 U.S.C. 1604. The first
planning rule was adopted in 1979 and amended in 1982. The Forest Service
published a new planning rule on April 21, 2008 (73 FR 21468). On June 30,
2009, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California
invalidated the Forest Service's 2008 Planning Rule published at 36 CFR 219
based on violations of NEPA and ESA in the rulemaking process. The District
Court vacated the 2008 rule, enjoined the USDA from further implementing it,
and remanded it to the USDA for further proceedings. USDA has determined that
the 2000 planning rule is now in effect, including its transition provisions as
amended in 2002 and 2003, and as clarified by interpretative rules issued in
2001 and 2004, which allows the use of the provisions of the 1982 planning rule
to amend or revise plans. The Forest Service is now in the 2000 planning rule
transition period. The Forest Service is proposing a new planning rule. In so
doing, the Forest Service plans to correct deficiencies that have been
identified over two decades of forest planning and update planning procedures
to reflect contemporary collaborative planning practices.
Community Forest and
Open Space Conservation Program. The purpose of the Community Forest Program
is to achieve community benefits through financial assistance grants to local
governments, tribal governments, and nonprofit organizations to establish
community forests by acquiring and protecting private forestlands. Community
forest benefits are specified in the authorizing statute and include economic
benefits from sustainable forest management, natural resource conservation,
forest-based educational programs, model forest stewardship activities, and
recreational opportunities.
Closure of NFS Lands
to Protect Privacy of Tribal Activities. There is currently no provision for a
special closure of NFS lands to protect the privacy of tribal activities for
traditional and cultural purposes. The Forest Service will amend its
regulations to allow special closure of NFS land to protect the privacy of
tribal activities for traditional and cultural purposes.
Rural Business-Cooperative Service
Mission: Promoting a dynamic business
environment in rural America is the goal of the Rural Business-Cooperative
Service (RBS). Business Programs works in partnership with the private sector
and the community-based organizations to provide financial assistance and
business planning, and helps fund projects that create or preserve quality jobs
and/or promote a clean rural environment. The financial resources are often
leveraged with those of other public and private credit source lenders to meet
business and credit needs in under-served areas. Recipients of these programs
may include individuals, corporations, partnerships, cooperatives, public
bodies, nonprofit corporations, Indian tribes, and private companies. The
mission of Cooperative Programs of RBS is to promote understanding and use of
the cooperative form of business as a viable organizational option for
marketing and distributing agricultural products.
Priorities: In support of the Department's goal
to increase the prosperity of rural communities, RBS regulatory priorities will
facilitate sustainable renewable energy development and enhance the
opportunities necessary for rural families to thrive economically. RBS's
priority will be to publish regulations to fully implement the 2008 Farm Bill.
This includes promulgating regulations for the Biorefinery Assistance Program (sec.
9003), the Repowering Assistance
Program (sec. 9004), the Bioenergy Program for Advanced Biofuels (sec.
9005), and the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program (RMAP). RBS has been
administering sections 9003, 9004, and 9005 through the use of Notices of Funds
Availability and Notices of Contract Proposals. Revisions to the Rural Energy
for America Program (sec. 9007) will be made to incorporate Energy Audits and
Renewable Energy Development Assistance and Feasibility Studies for Rural
Energy Systems as eligible grant purposes, as well as other Farm Bill
initiatives and various technical changes throughout the rule. In addition,
revisions to the Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan Program will be made to
implement 2008 Farm Bill provisions and other program initiatives. These rules
will minimize program complexity and burden on the public while enhancing
program delivery and RBS oversight.
Rural Utilities Service
Mission: The mission of the Rural
Utilities Service is to improve the quality of life in rural America by
providing investment capital for the deployment of critical rural utilities
telecommunications, electric, and water and waste disposal infrastructure.
Financial assistance is provided to rural utilities, municipalities, commercial
corporations, limited liability companies, public utility districts, Indian
tribes, and cooperative, nonprofit, limited-dividend, or mutual associations.
The public-private partnership, which is forged between the Rural Utilities
Service (RUS) and these industries, results in billions of dollars in rural
infrastructure development and creates thousands of jobs for the American
economy.
Priorities: RUS' regulatory priorities will be to achieve the President's
goal to bring
affordable broadband to all rural Americans. To accomplish this, RUS will continue
to improve the Broadband Program established by the 2002 Farm Bill. The 2002
Farm Bill authorized RUS to approve loans and loan guarantees for the costs of
construction, improvement, and acquisition of facilities and equipment for
broadband service in eligible rural communities. The 2008 Farm Bill is
significantly changing the statutory requirements of the Broadband Loan
Program. As such, RUS will be issuing an interim rule to implement the
statutory changes and will request comments on the section of the rule that was
not part of the proposed rule that was published in May 2007. In addition, the
regulations will be issued to implement provisions of the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act that expanded RUS's authority to make loans and provided new
authority to make grants to facilitate broadband deployment in rural areas.
Departmental Management
Mission:
Departmental Management's mission is to provide management leadership to ensure
that USDA administrative programs, policies, advice, and counsel meet the needs
of USDA program organizations, consistent with laws and mandates, and provide
safe and efficient facilities and services to customers.
Priorities: In support of the Department's goal to
increase rural prosperity, USDA's Departmental Management will finalize
regulations establishing a program allowing manufacturers and vendors of
eligible products made from biobased feedstocks to display the label on their
packaging and marketing materials. Once completed, this regulation will
implement a section of the 2008 Farm Bill and will promote alternative uses of
agriculture and forest materials.
Aggregate
Costs and Benefits
USDA will ensure that its regulations provide benefits that exceed costs, but
is unable to provide an estimate of the aggregated impacts of its regulations.
Problems with aggregation arise due to differing baselines, data gaps, and
inconsistencies in methodology and the type of regulatory costs and benefits
considered. In addition, aggregation omits benefits and costs that cannot be
reliably quantified, such as improved health resulting from increased access to
more nutritious foods, higher levels of food safety, and increased quality of
life derived from investments in rural infrastructure. Some benefits and costs
associated with rules listed in the regulatory plan cannot currently be
quantified as the rules are still being formulated. For 2011, the Department's
focus will be to implement the changes to programs in such a way as to provide
benefits while minimizing program complexity and regulatory burden for program
participants.