Lesson 5: Considerations During the Process

Topic 4: Burden of Compliance (Paperwork Reduction Act)

In this topic, you’ll learn about the Paperwork Reduction Act and how it can affect market access requests.

Objective:

  • Explain the purpose of the Paperwork Reduction Act and how APHIS complies with it in the process of developing market access requirements

The Paperwork Reduction Act applies to any collection of information asked for or required by an agency. Often, market access requests involve collections of information. For example, most imported fruits and vegetables must be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate, which requires that certain information be provided. Imported animals and animal products typically must be accompanied by some sort of documentation of origin and, if necessary, compliance with any regulatory requirements. If implementing a systems approach that involves trapping for fruit flies (a common example), foreign producers might have to maintain records of the trapping and make them available to APHIS upon request. If there are limitations on the distribution of imported fruits or vegetables, the boxes containing those fruits and vegetables must be marked to reflect those limitations. All of these qualify as collections of information under the Paperwork Reduction Act.

The principal purpose of the Paperwork Reduction Act is to make the paperwork burden on regulated entities as small as possible and to ensure that agencies are not collecting any more information than necessary. APHIS takes care to avoid duplicate or unnecessary information collection requirements when establishing conditions for the importation of animals, plants, or their products.

For both rules and notices, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) must approve collections of information associated with market access requests. APHIS can only begin requiring the collection after OMB approval. This means that APHIS’ final action to approve a market access request could be delayed by the information-collection approval process.

Before OMB approves the information collection, APHIS must take public comment on it. This can be done at the same time as the comment period on the market access request itself, which APHIS normally does, or it can be done separately. If the market access is authorized through rulemaking, there will be a separate section in the proposed rule describing the proposed information-collection requirements and requesting comment.

In this topic, you learned about the Paperwork Reduction Act and how it can affect market access requests.

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