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You may recall that in May 2014, the Ornithological Council,
American Society of Mammalogists, and the Society for the
Preservation of Natural History Collections filed a petition asking
the USFWS to suspend or revoke the validation requirement for CITES
permits, as to scientific imports. In June 2014, the Ornithological
Council also petitioned for changes to Part 14 (the clearance
regulation). <br>
<br>
We received a letter on Saturday stating that the Division of
International Affairs plans to publish revised CITES regulations in
2015 and will take the information in our petition into account when
doing so. Ditto for the request for revisions on the Part 14
regulations. I can't attach anything here but if you want a copy of
either petition, write to me OFF-LIST. <br>
<br>
The regulatory process is slow. <br>
<br>
N.B.! I am providing this context to demonstrate how slow and why,
not to criticize the USFWS. Writing these regs and getting them
through the sludgy, multi-level approval process - just before they
can be published for comment - is a real bear. I do not blame the
agency at all for waiting until they have a batch of items - mostly
procedural - to wrap them all into one regulatory revision. By
providing this context, I am just trying to demonstrate that it can
and almost certainly will take years before we even seen the
proposed rule. That the agency intends to publish it in 2015 is just
that - intention. Even if it is already in the approval process, it
can be halted on any number of desks of people who really have no
idea what it is about, not to mention the Offices of Policy,
Management, and Budget within Interior and the solicitor's office,
which has been massively understaffed as long as I can remember.<br>
<br>
With that caveat, consider that the last time the USFWS CITES
regulations were revised, they languished uncompleted and unapproved
for so long that - well, here's the preamble to a 2006 re-proposal
of a revision that had first been published in 2000:<br>
<br>
<i>Previous proposed rule and comments received: We published a
proposed rule on May 8, 2000 (65 FR 26664) (2000 proposal), to
incorporate changes from CoP2 through CoP10. </i><i><bullet><bullet><bullet><bullet>The
2000 proposal was never finalized, and we are here
proposing a new rule, which includes consideration of the
206 comments we received on the 2000 proposal. A little
over half of the comments were general comments. Most of
these were submitted by orchid hobbyists, commercial
orchid growers, or taxidermists. We also received 88
letters with specific comments from 42 individuals, 35
organizations, and 11 governmental agencies. We reviewed
all of the comments on the 2000 proposal and addressed
them where appropriate in this current proposed rule. We
received conflicting recommendations, and not all comments
were incorporated into this new proposal.</bullet></bullet></bullet></bullet></i><br>
<br>
Yes. Six years. Again - not the fault of the USFWS itself, but of
the regulatory process. <br>
<br>
And has worsened since 2000. And since 2006. <br>
<br>
Then this rule revision, published in March 2012:<br>
<br>
<i>SUMMARY: We, the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS or Service),
propose to revise the regulations that implement the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
(CITES or Treaty or Convention) by incorporating certain
provisions adopted at the fourteenth and fifteenth meetings of the
Conference of the Parties (CoP14 and CoP15) to CITES and
clarifying and updating certain other provisions. These changes
would bring U.S. regulations in line with revisions adopted at the
most recent meetings of the Conference of the Parties, which took
place in June 2007 (CoP14) and March 2010 (CoP15). The revised
regulations would help us more effectively promote species
conservation, help us continue to fulfill our responsibilities
under the Treaty, and help those affected by CITES to understand
how to conduct lawful international trade.</i><br>
<br>
So it took five years to revise the regulations to incorporate the
decisions made at the 2007 COP. Note - it was finalized on 24 May
2014, which is not bad at all. <br>
<br>
As to the prospect for substantive change, well, all I can do is
read tea leaves, of which there are precious few. We have had some
indication that the Division of Management Authority recognizes that
these problems are real. Before the validation requirement went into
force in 2008, they conducted trainings around the world. Obviously,
since then, people who were trained have moved on, have forgotten,
have misunderstood....and it seems extremely unlikely that the USFWS
would have the resources to conduct re-training around the world.
Further, even in countries where the Customs officials do handle
validation correctly on a regular basis, it is usually at only one
airport, meaning that the researcher has to travel to that airport
or trust their shipment to a third party (often FedEx) and hope and
pray that the third party obtains the validation as required. Which
has proved to be a rare occurrence. <br>
<br>
Nonetheless, the fact that they didn't turn us down at this juncture
is good. <br>
<br>
In the meantime, I plan to revive the plan to ask museums all around
the world to write to their CITES delegates and to the Standing
Committee. <br>
<br>
As soon as the proposed regulation is published, I will of course
share it with your organizations and with all of you and draft a
proposed response to issues of concern (validation and any other
issues that come up).<br>
<br>
In the meantime, if you have a problem with the validation
requirement, please send me a detailed note about the situation. <br>
<br>
Ellen Paul<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">Ellen Paul
Executive Director
The Ornithological Council
Email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:ellen.paul@verizon.net">ellen.paul@verizon.net</a>
Phone (301) 986 8568
"Providing Scientific Information about Birds<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://www.nmnh.si.edu/BIRDNET">"
http://www.nmnh.si.edu/BIRDNET"</a>
</pre>
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