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Statement of Need: Regarding certain agricultural quarantine and inspection services that are provided in connection with certain commercial vessels, commercial trucks, commercial railroad cars, commercial aircraft, and international passengers arriving at ports in the customs territory of the United States, we have determined that revised user fee categories and revised user fees are necessary to recover the costs of the current level of activity, to account for actual and projected increases in the cost of doing business, and to more accurately align fees with the costs associated with each fee service.

Summary of the Legal Basis: Section 2509(a) of the Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade (FACT) Act of 1990 (21 U.S.C. 136a) authorizes APHIS to collect user fees for certain agricultural quarantine and inspection (AQI) services. The FACT Act was amended on April 4, 1996, and May 13, 2002. The FACT Act, as amended, authorizes APHIS to collect user fees for AQI services provided in connection with the arrival, at a port in the customs territory of the United States, of commercial vessels, commercial trucks, commercial railroad cars, commercial aircraft, and international passengers. According to the FACT Act, as amended, these user fees should recover the costs of: • Providing the AQI services for the conveyances and the passengers listed above; • Providing preclearance or preinspection at a site outside the customs territory of the United States to international passengers, commercial vessels, commercial trucks, commercial railroad cars, and commercial aircraft; • Administering the user fee program; and • Maintaining a reasonable reserve. In addition, the FACT Act, as amended, contains the following requirement: • The fees should be commensurate with the costs with respect to the class of persons or entities paying the fees. This is intended to avoid cross-subsidization of AQI services.

Alternatives: APHIS focused on three alternatives composed of different combinations of paying classes. The first or preferred alternative is the proposed rule; the second alternative differed from the first by not including user fees for recipients of AQI treatment services; and under the third alternative, recipients of commodity import permits and pest import permits would pay user fees, in addition to the classes that would pay fees under the proposed rule. The latter two alternatives were rejected.

Anticipated Costs and Benefits: The proposed changes in user fees would ensure that the program can continue to protect America's agricultural industries and natural resource base against invasive species and diseases while more closely aligning, by class, the cost of AQI services provided and user fee revenue received.

Risks: AQI services benefit U.S. agricultural and natural resources by protecting them from the inadvertent introduction of foreign pests and diseases that may enter the country and the threat of intentional introduction of pests or pathogens as a means of agroterrorism. In the extreme, failure to maintain the nation's biosecurity could disrupt American agricultural production, erode confidence in the U.S. food supply, and destabilize the U.S. economy.