View Rule

The Department is required to announce the adjusted fee by June 1 each year, and it must be set at a sufficient level to recover the full costs of providing services. To meet the mandate that cotton growers pay a uniform fee that truly covers USDA's estimated cost of providing grading services, revenues and costs associated with classification services that will be provided during the 2014 crop year must be estimated. The user fee represents less than 1 percent of the average value of a bale of cotton, the cotton classing user fee has remained the same since 2009, and the publication of user fee adjustments over the past 10 years has generated no significant public comment.