[Nhcoll-l] Update on petition for suspension or revocation of the validation requirement

[Janaki Krishna]

From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Ellen Paul
Sent: Monday, December 15, 2014 7:46 AM
To: Bulletin Board for Bird Collections and Curators
Cc: NHCOLL-new
Subject: [Nhcoll-l] Update on petition for suspension or revocation of the validation requirement

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).

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.

The regulatory process is slow.

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.

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:

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. 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.

Yes. Six years. Again - not the fault of the USFWS itself, but of the regulatory process.

And has worsened since 2000. And since 2006.

Then this rule revision, published in March 2012:

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.

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.

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.

Nonetheless, the fact that they didn't turn us down at this juncture is good.

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.

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).

In the meantime, if you have a problem with the validation requirement, please send me a detailed note about the situation.

Ellen Paul



Ellen Paul

Executive Director

The Ornithological Council

Email: ellen.paul at verizon.net<mailto:ellen.paul at verizon.net>

Phone (301) 986 8568

"Providing Scientific Information about Birds"<http://www.nmnh.si.edu/BIRDNET>

http://www.nmnh.si.edu/BIRDNET"<http://www.nmnh.si.edu/BIRDNET>


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