[Federal Register Volume 64, Number 48 (Friday, March 12, 1999)] [Notices] [Pages 12281-12282] From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] [FR Doc No: 99-6127] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE Food Safety and Inspection Service [Docket No. 99-009N] Equivalence Evaluation Process for Foreign Meat and Poultry Food Regulatory Systems
Agency
Food Safety and Inspection Service, USDA.
Action
Notice of public meeting and document availability; request for comments.
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Summary
The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is announcing the availability of a document that describes the Agency's process for evaluating foreign meat and poultry food regulatory systems to determine whether they are equivalent to the United States system. The Agency is soliciting public comments on the document and will hold a public meeting on April 14, 1999, to discuss the equivalence evaluation process.
Dates
The meeting will be held on April 14, 1999, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. To receive full consideration, written comments should be received on or before May 11, 1999.
Addresses
Copies of the equivalence evaluation document are available from the FSIS Docket Clerk, Room 102 Cotton Annex, 300 12th Street, SW, Washington, DC 20250-3700. A copy may also be obtained from the FSIS home page at www.fsis.usda.gov/. Written comments on the equivalence evaluation document should refer to Docket #99-009N and be submitted in triplicate to the FSIS Docket Clerk at the address shown above. Facsimile copies of comments may be sent to 202-205-0381. All comments received will be available for public inspection in the FSIS Docket Room from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. The meeting will be held at the Washington Plaza Hotel at 10 Thomas Circle NW (at Massachusetts Avenue and 14th Street), Washington, DC 20009, (202) 842-1300. Attendees requiring sign-language interpreters or other special accommodation should contact Mr. Mark Manis (identified below in FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT) by April 7, 1999. No pre-registration is required. Transcripts of the meeting will be available in the FSIS Docket Room, Room 102, 300 12th Street, SW., Washington, DC 20250-3700. In addition to publishing this Federal Register notice, FSIS will alert consumers and industry groups of the meeting through its Constituent Alert before the meeting date.
www.fsis.usda.gov/For Further Information Contact
Mr. Mark Manis, Director, International Policy Division; Office of Policy, Program Development, and Evaluation; (202) 720-6400, or by electronic mail to ``mark.manis@usda.gov''.
Supplementary Information
Background
``Equivalence'' is a relatively new international concept that is applied in the evaluation of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures taken by different nations to protect human, animal, or plant life or health. The equivalence concept was introduced in the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (the ``SPS Agreement''), which appears in the Final Act of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations signed in Marrackech on April 15, 1994. The SPS Agreement became effective in January 1995, concurrently with establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which superseded the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) as the umbrella organization for international trade. The United Stats is a signatory to the SPS Agreement and a member of the WTO. SPS measures include, among other things, all relevant laws, decrees, regulations, requirements, and procedures--including food regulatory systems--for protecting human or animal life within the territory of a WTO member government from disease, toxins, pests, and food or feed additives or contaminants. Under Article 4 of the SPS Agreement, an importing member nation must accept an exporting member's SPS measures as equivalent to its own measures if the exporting member has objectively demonstrated that its measure achieve the importing member's appropriate level of sanitary or phytosanitary protection (ALOP). In other words, each member nation of the WTO, including the United States, must accept as equivalent to its own food regulatory system the food regulatory system of another member that has been demonstrated to furnish the same level of public health protection. However, the burden of demonstrating equivalence is on the exporting country. Equivalent regulatory systems need not be identical. The specific SPS measures applied by an exporting nation may differ from those required by an importing nation. On the other hand, while WTO members are encouraged to adopt international food standards in order to ``harmonize'' the world's food regulatory systems and facilitate trade, an importing country remains free to set its ALOP at any level it deems appropriate to abate or eliminate risks from a foodborne hazard. An importing country has the right to decide whether a food regulatory system employed by an exporting country is equivalent to its own or is adequate to achieve the importing country's appropriate level of sanitary or phytosanitary protection. The importing country also has the right to decide whether the evidence provided to demonstrate equivalence is adequate.
Request for Comments
FSIS has developed a process for evaluating whether a foreign country's meat and poultry regulatory system and that country's specific sanitary measures are equivalent to the U.S. system and measures. This process is described in a January 1999 document entitled ``FSIS Process for Evaluating the Equivalence of Foreign Meat and Poultry Regulatory Systems,'' copies of which are available at the location indicated above in ADDRESSES. FSIS will use the comments it receives as a basis for further development of its equivalence evaluation process.
Done at Washington, DC on: March 5, 1999. Thomas J. Billy, Administrator. [FR Doc. 99-6127 Filed 3-11-99; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 3410-DM-M