2013 Ss 0366

Supporting Statement

Importation of Shepherd’s Purse with Roots

from the Republic of Korea into the United States

OMB No. 0579-0366

August 2013

A. Justification

1. Explain the circumstances that make the collection of information necessary. Identify any legal or administrative requirements that necessitate the collection.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), is responsible for preventing plant pests and noxious weeds from entering the

United States, preventing the spread of plant diseases not widely distributed in the United States, and eradicating those imported pests and noxious weeds when eradication is feasible.

Under the Plant Protection Act (7 U.S.C. 7701 et seq.), the Secretary of Agriculture is authorized to carry out operations or measures to detect, eradicate, suppress, control, prevent, or retard the spread of plant pests new to the United States or not known to be widely distributed throughout the United States.

The regulations in “Subpart-Fruits and Vegetables” (7 CFR 319.56 through 319.56-58, referred to below as the regulations) prohibit or restrict the importation of fruits and vegetables into the United States from certain parts of the world to prevent the introduction and dissemination of plant pests that are new to or not widely distributed within the United States.

APHIS’ regulations concerning the importation of fruits and vegetables allow for the importation of fresh shepherd’s purse with roots from the Republic of Korea into the United States under a combination of mitigations to reduce the risk of introducing a variety of pests. As a condition of entry, fresh shepherd’s purse have to be produced in accordance with a systems approach that includes requirements for importation of commercial consignments, pest-free place of production, and inspection for quarantine pests by the National Plant Protection Organization (NPPO) of the Republic of Korea. This action is necessary to increase the supply of fresh shepherd’s purse without increasing the risk of introducing pests into the United States.

APHIS is asking Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to approve for an additional three years, the use of this information collection activity associated with its efforts to prevent the spread of plant pests and plant diseases into the United States.

2. Indicate how, by whom, and for what purpose the information is used. Except for a new collection, indicate the actual use the agency has made of the information received from the current collection.

APHIS uses the following information activities to increase the supply of fresh shepherd’s purse without increasing the risk of introducing pests into the United States.

Phytosanitary Certificate (foreign) - Shepherd’s purse from the Republic of Korea would be required to be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate with an additional declaration stating that the shepherd’s purse leaves and stems with roots in this consignment have been found in a pest-free place of production for quarantined nematodes, inspected and found free of quarantined pests, free of soil, and meet the conditions of 7 CFR 319.56.

Sampling and Microscopic Inspection (foreign) - Fields must be certified free of the quarantined nematodes by sampling and microscopic inspection of the sampling by the Korean NPPO, according to international standards. The sampling and inspection protocol must be pre-approved by APHIS.

Recordkeeping (foreign) - APHIS will monitor the sampling and inspection record maintained by the Korean NPPO. These records must be available for APHIS to review for one year.

Production Site Registration (Business) - The shepherd's purse with roots must be grown in a pest-free place of production that is registered with the national plant protection organization (NPPO) of the Republic of Korea.

3. Describe whether, and to what extent, the collection of information involves the use of automated, electronic, mechanical, or other forms of information technology, e.g., permitting electronic submission of responses, and the basis for the decision for adopting this means of collection. Also, describe any consideration of using information technology to reduce burden.

APHIS has no control or influence over when foreign countries will automate their phytosanitary certificate.

4. Describe efforts to identify duplication. Show specifically why any similar information already available cannot be used or modified for use for the purpose described in item 2 above.

The information APHIS collects is exclusive to its mission of preventing the entry of injurious plant pests, diseases, and noxious weeds and is not available from any other source.

5. If the collection of information impacts small businesses or other small entities, describe any methods used to minimize burden.

The information APHIS collects in connection with its program is the minimum needed to protect the United States from plant pests and diseases from entering the United States. APHIS has determined that 100 percent of the respondents are small entities.

6. Describe the consequences to Federal program or policy activities if the collection is not conducted or is conducted less frequently, as well as any technical or legal obstacles to reducing burden.

This information collection activity is critical to its mission in ensuring that shepherd’s purse is free of nematodes and other pests that could cause millions of dollars in damage to U.S. agriculture.

7. Explain any special circumstances that require the collection to be conducted in a manner inconsistent with the general information collection guidelines in 5 CFR 1320.5.

• requiring respondents to report informa­tion to the agency more often than quarterly;

• requiring respondents to prepare a writ­ten response to a collection of infor­ma­tion in fewer than 30 days after receipt of it;

• requiring respondents to submit more than an original and two copies of any document;

• requiring respondents to retain re­cords, other than health, medical, governm­ent contract, grant-in-aid, or tax records for more than three years;

• in connection with a statisti­cal sur­vey, that is not de­signed to produce valid and reliable results that can be general­ized to the uni­verse of study;

• requiring the use of a statis­tical data classi­fication that has not been re­vie­wed and approved by OMB;

• that includes a pledge of confiden­tiali­ty that is not supported by au­thority estab­lished in statute or regu­la­tion, that is not sup­ported by dis­closure and data security policies that are consistent with the pledge, or which unneces­sarily impedes shar­ing of data with other agencies for com­patible confiden­tial use; or

• requiring respondents to submit propri­etary trade secret, or other confidential information unless the agency can demon­strate that it has instituted procedures to protect the information's confidentiality to the extent permit­ted by law.

No special circumstances exist that would require this collection to be conducted in a manner inconsistent with the general information collection guidelines in 5 CFR 1320.5.

8. Describe efforts to consult with persons outside the agency to obtain their views on the availability of data, frequency of collection, the clarity of instructions and recordkeeping, disclosure, or reporting form, and on the data elements to be recorded, disclosed, or reported. If applicable, provide a copy and identify the date and page number of publication in the Federal Register of the agency's notice, soliciting comments on the information collection prior to submission to OMB.

In 2013, APHIS held productive consultations with the following individuals concerning the information collection activities associated with its program to import fresh shepherd’s purse from the Republic of Korea:

Chang-Yong Park, Director

National Plant Quarantine Service

433-1 Anyang 6-Dong, Manan-Ku,

Kyunggi-Do, Korea (430-016)

TEL: +82-31-420-7668

FAX: +82-31-42-=7605

E-mail: [email protected]

Yong-Chin Kim

Korea Agriculture Food Trade Association

Rm. 1106, Seoul Agriculture Trade Center, 232,

Yangjae-dong, Seocho-gu, Seoul

TEL: +82-2-6300-8200

FAX: +82-2-6300-8205

E-mail: [email protected]

Won-Byong Choi, Chairman

National Agricultural Cooperative Federation

Saemunangil 91, Chung-gu, Seoul

TEL: +82-2-2080-6237

FAX: +82-2-2080-6230

E-mail: [email protected]

On Monday, June 24, 2013, pages 37780 - 37781, APHIS published in the Federal Register, a 60-day notice seeking public comments on its plans to request a 3-year renewal of this collection of information. One comment was received from a concerned citizen about her perception of the general disregard of the environment by USDA. It had no relevance to the purpose of the collection.

9. Explain any decisions to provide any payment or gift to respondents, other than remuneration of contractors or grantees.

This information collection activity involves no payments (other than appropriate, program-related payments) or gifts to respondents.

10. Describe any assurance of confidentiality provided to respondents and the basis for the assurance in statute, regulation, or agency policy.

No additional assurance of confidentiality is provided with this information collection. Any and all information obtained in this collection shall not be disclosed except in accordance with

5 U.S.C. 552a.

11. Provide additional justification for any questions of a sensitive nature, such as sexual behavior and attitudes, religious beliefs, and others that are considered private. This justification should include the reasons why the agency considers the questions necessary, the specific uses to be made of the information, the explanation to be given to persons from whom the information is requested, and any steps to be taken to obtain their consent.

This information collection activity asks no questions of a personal or sensitive nature.

12. Provide estimates of the hour burden of the collection of information. Indicate the number of respondents, frequency of response, annual hour burden, and an explanation of how the burden was estimated.

• Indicate the number of respondents, frequency of response, annual hour burden, and an explanation of how the burden was estimated. If this request for approval covers more than one form, provide separate hour burden estimates for each form and aggregate the hour burdens in Item 13 of OMB Form 83-I.

See APHIS Form 71 for burden hour estimates.

• Provide estimates of annualized cost to respondents for the hour burdens for collections of information, identifying and using appropriate wage rate categories.

The total cost to respondents is computed by multiplying the average wage ($12) by the total number of burden hours needed to complete the work (163). 163 X $12.00 = $1,956.00.

The estimate for the average wage was developed by using historical data through discussions with the Republic of Korea and APHIS’ Plant Protection and Quarantine International Offices.

13. Provide estimates of the total annual cost burden to respondents or recordkeepers resulting from the collection of information, (do not include the cost of any hour burden shown in items 12 and 14). The cost estimates should be split into two components: (a) a total capital and start-up cost component annualized over its expected useful life; and (b) a total operation and maintenance and purchase of services component.

There is zero annual cost associated with capital and start-up costs, maintenance costs, and purchase of services in connection with this program.

14. Provide estimates of annualized cost to the Federal government. Provide a description of the method used to estimate cost and any other expense that would not have been incurred without this collection of information.

The estimated cost for the Federal Government is $ 2,353 (see APHIS Form 79).

15. Explain the reasons for any program changes or adjustments reported in Items 13 or 14 of the OMB Form 83-1.

ICR Summary of Burden:
	Requested	Program Change Due to New Statute	Program Change Due to Agency Discretion	Change Due to Adjustment in Agency Estimate	Change Due to Potential Violation of the PRA	Previously Approved
Annual Number of Responses	304	0	24	0	0	280
Annual Time Burden (Hr)	163	0	12	0	0	151
Annual Cost Burden ($)	0	0	0	0	0	0

There is a Program change increase of +24 respondents and +24 responses resulting in an increase of +12 burden hours. The increase is due to the addition of production site registrations included in the regulations that was not included on the first collection of information. APHIS is reporting this as a violation.

16. For collections of information whose results are planned to be published, outline plans for tabulation and publication.

APHIS has no plans to tabulate or publish the information collected.

17. If seeking approval to not display the expiration date for OMB approval of the information collection, explain the reasons that display would be inappropriate.

There are no USDA forms used in this information collection.

18. Explain each exception to the certification statement identified in the "Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act."

APHIS is able to certify compliance with all the provisions in the Act.

B. Collections of Information Employing Statistical Methods

Statistical methods are not used in this information collection.