Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 80 / Friday, April 25, 2014 / Proposed Rules 22895 

this section, 5 CFR part 551, or 19 CFR 

24.16. 

* * * * * 

PART 130—USER FEES 

■ 5. The authority citation for part 130 

continues to read as follows: 

Authority: 5 U.S.C. 5542; 7 U.S.C. 1622 

and 8301–8317; 21 U.S.C. 136 and 136a; 31 

U.S.C. 3701, 3716, 3717, 3719, and 3720A; 7 

CFR 2.22, 2.80, and 371.4. 

■ 6. Section 130.50 is amended as 

follows: 

■ a. In paragraph (b)(3) introductory 

text, by removing the words ‘‘or (ii)’’ 

and adding the words ‘‘, (ii), or (iii)’’ in 

their place. 

■ b. By revising the table in paragraph 

(b)(3)(i). 

■ c. By adding paragraph (b)(3)(iii). 

The addition and revision read as 

follows: 

§ 130.50 Payment of user fees. 

* * * * * 

(b) * * * 

(3) * * * 

(i) * * * 

OVERTIME FOR FLAT RATE USER FEES 1 2

Outside of the 

employee’s 

normal tour of 

duty 

Overtime rates (per hour) 

[Effective date 

of final rule]– 

Sept. 30, 2014 

Oct. 1, 2014– 

Sept. 30, 2015 

Oct. 1, 2015– 

Sept. 30, 2016 

Oct. 1, 2016– 

Sept. 30, 2017 

Beginning 

Oct. 1, 2017 

Rate for inspection, testing, certification or quarantine of animals, 

animal products or other commodities.3

Monday–Saturday 

and holidays.

Sundays ...............

$74 

98 

$74 

98 

$75 

99 

$75 

99 

$75 

100 

Rate for commercial airline inspection 

services.4

Monday–Saturday 

and holidays.

64 64 64 65 65 

Sundays ............... 84 85 85 86 86 

1 Minimum charge of 2 hours, unless performed on the employee’s regular workday and performed in direct continuation of the regular workday 

or begun within an hour of the regular workday. 2When the 2-hour minimum applies, you may need to pay commuted travel time. (See § 97.1(b) of this chapter for specific information about 

commuted travel time.) 3See § 97.1(a) of this chapter or 7 CFR 354.3 for details. 

4See § 97.1(a)(3) of this chapter for details. 

* * * * * 

(iii) For information on rules 

pertaining to the charges associated 

with employees of U.S. Customs and 

Border Protection performing 

agricultural inspection services, please 

see 7 CFR 354.1 and 9 CFR 97.1. 

* * * * * 

Done in Washington, DC, this 21st day of 

April 2014. 

Kevin Shea, 

Administrator, Animal and Plant Health 

Inspection Service. 

[FR Doc. 2014–09463 Filed 4–24–14; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3410–34–P 

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

Animal and Plant Health Inspection 

Service 

7 CFR Part 354 

[Docket No. APHIS–2013–0021] 

RIN 0579–AD77 

User Fees for Agricultural Quarantine 

and Inspection Services 

AGENCY: Animal and Plant Health 

Inspection Service, USDA. 

ACTION: Proposed rule. 

SUMMARY: We are proposing to amend 

the user fee regulations by adding new 

fee categories and adjusting current fees 

charged for certain agricultural 

quarantine and inspection services that 

are provided in connection with certain 

commercial vessels, commercial trucks, 

commercial railroad cars, commercial 

aircraft, and international passengers 

arriving at ports in the customs territory 

of the United States. We are also 

proposing to adjust or remove the fee 

caps associated with commercial trucks, 

commercial vessels, and commercial 

railcars. We have determined that 

revised user fee categories and revised 

user fees are necessary to recover the 

costs of the current level of activity, to 

account for actual and projected 

increases in the cost of doing business, 

and to more accurately align fees with 

the costs associated with each fee 

service. 

DATES: We will consider all comments 

that we receive on or before June 24, 

2014. 

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments 

by either of the following methods: 

• Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to 

http://www.regulations.gov/ 

#!docketDetail;D=APHIS-2013-0021. 

• Postal Mail/Commercial Delivery: 

Send your comment to Docket No. 

APHIS–2013–0021, Regulatory Analysis 

and Development, PPD, APHIS, Station 

3A–03.8, 4700 River Road Unit 118, 

Riverdale, MD 20737–1238. 

Supporting documents and any 

comments we receive on this docket 

may be viewed at http:// 

www.regulations.gov/ 

#!docketDetail;D=APHIS-2013-0021 or 

in our reading room, which is located in 

room 1141 of the USDA South Building, 

14th Street and Independence Avenue 

SW., Washington, DC. Normal reading 

room hours are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., 

Monday through Friday, except 

holidays. To be sure someone is there to 

help you, please call (202) 799–7039 

before coming. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For 

information concerning program 

operations, contact Mr. William E. 

Thomas, Senior Agriculturist, Office of 

the Deputy Administrator, PPQ, APHIS, 

4700 River Road Unit 130, Riverdale, 

MD 20737 1231; (301) 851–2306. For 

information concerning rate 

development, contact Mr. Michael 

Peranio, Chief, User Fees, Financial 

Services Branch, FMD, MRPBS, APHIS, 

4700 River Road Unit 55, Riverdale, MD 

20737; (301) 851–2852. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Background 

Section 2509(a) of the Food, 

Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade 

(FACT) Act of 1990 (21 U.S.C. 136a) 

authorizes the Animal and Plant Health 

Inspection Service (APHIS) to collect 

user fees for certain agricultural 

quarantine and inspection (AQI) 

services. The FACT Act was amended 

on April 4, 1996, and May 13, 2002. 

The FACT Act, as amended, 

authorizes APHIS to collect user fees for 

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AQI services provided in connection 

with the arrival, at a port in the customs 

territory of the United States, of 

commercial vessels, commercial trucks, 

commercial railroad cars, commercial 

aircraft, and international passengers. 

According to the FACT Act, as 

amended, these user fees should recover 

the costs of: 

• Providing the AQI services for the 

conveyances and the passengers listed 

above; 

• Providing preclearance or 

preinspection at a site outside the 

customs territory of the United States to 

international passengers, commercial 

vessels, commercial trucks, commercial 

railroad cars, and commercial aircraft; 

• Administering the user fee program; 

and 

• Maintaining a reasonable reserve. 

In addition, the FACT Act, as 

amended, contains the following 

requirements: 

• The fees should be commensurate 

with the costs with respect to the class 

of persons or entities paying the fees. 

This is intended to avoid crosssubsidization of AQI services. 

• The cost of AQI services with 

respect to passengers as a class should 

include the cost of related inspections of 

the aircraft or other vehicle. 

APHIS’ regulations regarding 

overtime services and user fees relating 

to imports and exports are found in 7 

CFR part 354. The user fees for the AQI 

activities described above are contained 

in § 354.3, ‘‘User fees for certain 

international services.’’ 

In an interim rule published in 

Federal Register on December 9, 2004 

(69 FR 71660–71683, Docket No. 04– 

042–1), and effective on January 1, 2005, 

we amended the user fee regulations in 

§ 354.3 by adjusting the fees charged for 

certain AQI services provided by APHIS 

and the Customs and Border Protection 

(CBP) bureau of the Department of 

Homeland Security in connection with 

certain commercial vessels, commercial 

trucks, commercial railroad cars, 

commercial aircraft, and international 

airline passengers arriving at ports in 

the customs territory of the United 

States. The AQI user fees contained in 

that interim rule covered fiscal years 

(FY) 2005 through 2010. A final rule 

affirming the interim rule without 

change was published in the Federal 

Register on August 24, 2006 (71 FR 

49984–49986, Docket No. 04–042–2). 

Those fees are still in effect today. We 

published an interim rule to increase 

AQI fees 10 percent across the board on 

September 28, 2009 (74 FR 49311– 

49315, Docket No. APHIS–2009–0048), 

but withdrew that interim rule before it 

became effective in order to explore 

other regulatory alternatives. 

Introduction 

The AQI fees have not been adjusted 

since FY 2010 and do not reflect the 

current cost of providing AQI services. 

In addition, the AQI fee reserve account 

has decreased because fees collected 

have not been sufficient to cover current 

costs, in part due to the recent economic 

recession. As a result, CBP has relied 

more heavily on its appropriated funds 

to supplement fee revenue. 

APHIS recently conducted a 

comprehensive fee review to determine 

the current cost of specific AQI services 

supported by these fees. That review 

determined that the AQI program was 

not recovering the full cost of its fee 

services, including costs of 

administering the user fee program and 

maintaining a reasonable reserve in the 

fee accounts. Some of this non-recovery 

is because most of the current fees do 

not accurately reflect the current full 

cost of the services related to those fees. 

However, some of this non-recovery is 

also due to prior APHIS policy 

decisions to: 

• Cap fees collected for commercial 

trucks (with transponders), commercial 

vessels, and commercial railroad cars; 

• Exempt certain commercial vessels, 

commercial trucks, commercial railroad 

cars, commercial aircraft, and 

international passengers as authorized 

in AQI regulations; 

• Exempt international passengers 

arriving as rail passengers, bus 

passengers, in privately owned vehicles 

(POV), private aircraft, and private 

vessels; and 

• Exempt individuals arriving as 

pedestrians. 

The fee caps refer to current AQI user 

fee regulations that limit the number of 

times a specific truck (with 

transponder), vessel, or railroad car 

must pay the AQI fee in a given year. 

As part of the AQI fee review, we 

reviewed the financial and workload 

implications of those caps. We also 

considered the financial, workload, and 

policy implications of creating new fees 

for international passengers arriving by 

cruise ship, bus, private vehicle, private 

aircraft, and private vessel, and for 

pedestrians. We also considered the 

financial, workload, and policy 

implications of establishing fees for 

commodity (plant and plant product) 

import permits, pest import permits, 

and conducting and monitoring 

treatments. 

Based on the findings of the AQI user 

fee review, we are proposing to amend 

the AQI user fee regulations to reflect 

the projected cost of providing AQI 

services, including expected changes in 

cost and workload for the period the 

revised fees will be in effect. 

Specifically, we are proposing to: 

• Adjust the fees charged for the 

following conveyances or persons to 

whom AQI services are provided: 

Commercial vessels, commercial trucks, 

commercial railroad cars, commercial 

aircraft, and international air 

passengers. However, because 

commercial truck inspections have 

separate fees for trucks with and 

without decals (transponders), we are 

actually proposing to adjust a total of six 

current fees. 

• Add a new fee to be charged for 

international commercial sea (cruise 

vessel) passengers, who were previously 

funded through fees collected for 

commercial vessels. The FACT Act 

gives APHIS authority to charge a fee for 

all international passengers. 

• Add a new fee for conducting and 

monitoring treatments, which is a 

significant cost that should be paid by 

those who use and benefit from these 

services. 

• Remove the caps for vessels and 

railcars. 

• Adjust the caps on fees for trucks 

with transponders. 

These proposed adjustments are 

designed to recover the full cost of 

providing these AQI services, 

commensurate with the class of persons 

or entities paying the fees, and are based 

on an analysis of our costs for providing 

services in FY 2010 and FY 2011, as 

well as our best projections of what it 

will cost to provide these services in 

FYs 2013 through 2016. The proposed 

adjustments will also allow us to 

maintain the AQI reserve account. 

These user fee adjustments are 

necessary to recover the costs of the 

current level of activity, to account for 

actual and projected increases in the 

cost of doing business, and to more 

accurately align fees with the costs 

associated with each fee service. 

AQI services are provided by a 

combination of APHIS and CBP 

personnel. Because of this arrangement, 

the AQI user fees collected will be 

shared with CBP based on the related 

respective costs for each agency. 

AQI User Fee Accounting 

We maintain all AQI user fees that we 

collect in a distinct account. We 

carefully monitor the balance in this 

account and use these funds to pay for 

our actual costs for providing these 

distinct AQI services. Any surpluses in 

the various AQI accounts carry forward 

from year to year. The AQI user fees are 

not subject to appropriation by 

Congress, although actual collections 

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and estimates of future collections are 

expressed in each year’s President’s 

Budget. Collected funds are available 

until expended to fund appropriate AQI 

activities. 

AQI Program Costs 

For AQI user fee purposes, we are 

required to capture the full cost of the 

AQI services that we provide. This is 

required by: 

• The FACT Act; 

• Office of Management and Budget 

(OMB) Circular A–25, User Charges; 

• Statement of Federal Financial 

Accounting Standards #4 (SFFAS #4), 

Managerial Cost Accounting Standards 

and Concepts; 

• OMB Circular A–11, Preparation, 

Submission, and Execution of the 

Budget; and 

• The Chief Financial Officers (CFO) 

Act. 

Full cost includes programmatic costs 

and overhead costs as well as imputed 

costs, which are costs (such as certain 

current benefits costs and future 

retirement costs and other postemployment benefits) paid by agencies 

other than APHIS and CBP. OMB 

Circular A–25 and SFFAS #4 require the 

inclusion of imputed costs when 

determining the full cost of an output, 

such as an AQI service, so that the full 

cost to the Federal Government is 

recovered. Full cost also includes 

depreciation costs related to facilities 

and equipment used in delivering AQI 

services. 

APHIS Costs 

AQI program costs incurred by APHIS 

include: 

• Direct charge costs; 

• Program delivery related costs 

(known as distributable costs) at the 

State level and below, at the regional 

and headquarters levels, the APHIS 

agency level, and the U.S. Department 

of Agriculture (USDA) departmental 

level (these costs are described in 

greater detail below); and 

• Depreciation and other imputed 

costs. 

As part of our accounting procedures, 

we maintain separate accounting codes 

to record costs that can be directly 

charged to an AQI activity. APHIS 

functions that are directly charged to 

AQI accounts include salary and 

benefits and other costs (e.g., travel, 

supplies, rents, and equipment) for 

various personnel, including: 

• Personnel in plant inspection 

stations inspecting propagative 

materials (e.g., seeds and bulbs) and 

conducting and monitoring treatments; 

• Personnel performing pest 

identification services (insects, 

pathogens, plants); 

• Personnel performing investigative, 

enforcement, and smuggling 

interdiction and trade compliance 

activities; 

• Personnel performing risk analysis, 

science and technology, policy 

development, training, and methods 

development activities relating to AQI 

work; and 

• Personnel performing training of 

CBP Agricultural Specialists, CBP 

Officers, and CBP Agriculture Specialist 

Canine Officers. 

Other program delivery related costs 

that cannot be directly charged to 

individual AQI accounts are charged to 

distributable accounts established at the 

State, regional, headquarters, agency, 

and departmental levels. These costs are 

driven to the AQI activities using 

staffing level (full time equivalents or 

FTE) counts as the cost driver. This then 

provides for a ‘‘fully loaded’’ activity 

cost. The activity costs are then driven 

to program outputs (such as inspections) 

based upon work counts. 

Distributable accounts typically 

contain the following types of costs: 

Salaries and benefits, utilities, rent, 

telephone, vehicles, office supplies, etc. 

The costs in these distributable accounts 

are distributed within the APHIS 

accounting system to all the programs 

and activities that benefit from the 

expense. This is based on a formula 

under which the costs that are directly 

charged to each activity are divided by 

the total costs directly charged to each 

account. For example, if a work unit 

performs work on both domestic 

programs and AQI user fee programs, 

the distributable account costs are 

allocated to each of these programs 

based on the percentage of the costs 

directly charged to that activity. 

Headquarters-level costs include costs 

for employees of APHIS’ Plant 

Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) and 

International Services (IS) programs 

who are based at those programs’ 

headquarters in Riverdale, MD, and 

Washington, DC. We incur agency-level 

support costs through activities that 

support APHIS, such as recruitment and 

development; legislative and public 

affairs; regulation development; 

regulatory enforcement; and budget, 

accounting, payroll, purchasing, billing, 

and collection services. Departmental 

charges are assessed for various AQI 

program costs including Federal 

telephone service, mail, processing of 

payroll and money management, 

unemployment compensation, Office of 

Workers Compensation Programs, and 

central supply for storing and issuing 

commonly used supplies and forms. 

Because the agency and department 

level costs are costs for all of APHIS, we 

assign a proportional amount to the AQI 

program, primarily based on the staffing 

level used in the AQI program. 

Imputed costs include Office of 

Workers’ Compensation costs from the 

Department of Labor; costs of employee 

leave earned in a prior fiscal year and 

used in the current fiscal year; 

headquarters space operation and 

maintenance costs; Office of Personnel 

Management (OPM) and State 

Department costs to provide retirement, 

health, and life insurance benefits to 

employees; unemployment 

compensation costs; and Department of 

Justice judgment fund costs. Fee 

revenue collected that is based on 

imputed costs is not retained in the AQI 

account but is forwarded to the U.S. 

Treasury. 

CBP Costs 

CBP program costs are similar to those 

for APHIS. CBP costs that are directly 

charged to AQI activities include 

salaries and benefits for CBP Agriculture 

Specialists, CBP Officers, CBP 

Agriculture Specialist Canine Officers, 

supervisors (such as port directors), CBP 

Technicians, and mission support staff; 

equipment and supplies used in 

connection with services subject to AQI 

user fees; contracts used for AQI 

services; and large supply items such as 

uniforms, laboratory and examination 

equipment, and non-intrusive 

inspection equipment used for AQI 

services. 

CBP activities that are directly 

charged to AQI accounts include 

various personnel at ports of entry, 

headquarters, and field offices, 

including: 

• Personnel deployed to international 

airports and seaports to perform 

regulatory enforcement activities that 

include: 

• Processing for entry of passengers, 

baggage, and personal effects; 

• Examination for entry of aircraft, 

containers, and vessels; 

• Administration of wood packaging 

material and regulated garbage 

compliance monitoring activities; and 

• Examination for entry of 

commercial cargo and parcels. 

• Personnel deployed to land border 

ports of entry to perform regulatory 

enforcement activities including 

examination for entry of commercial 

trucks, railcars, containers, and 

commercial cargo and parcels. 

• Personnel conducting pre-arrival 

analysis, targeting, and selection for 

examination of baggage, commodities, 

conveyances, packages, etc., that present 

a risk to American agriculture and 

natural resources; including agricultural 

and biological terrorism agents. 

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• Personnel providing expert 

guidance, training, and technical advice 

to CBP Officers, other CBP personnel, 

trade, industry, and other stakeholders 

on regulatory requirements pertaining to 

compliance with agricultural 

regulations and the processing of 

agriculture-related cargo and material. 

• Personnel performing pre- and postacademy training for CBP Agriculture 

Specialists, CBP Officers, other CBP 

personnel, and the performance of 

recruitment and agriculture-related 

outreach. 

Summary level costs for APHIS and 

CBP are shown in table 1 below. 

TABLE 1—FY 2011 ESTIMATED COSTS BY CATEGORY AND AGENCY

Cost category APHIS CBP Total 

Direct ............................................................................................................................................ $140,210,651 $418,647,765 $558,858,416 

Overhead ..................................................................................................................................... 12,220,530 223,776,057 235,996,587 

Imputed ........................................................................................................................................ 12,572,451 53,764,878 66,337,329 

Total ...................................................................................................................................... 165,003,632 696,188,700 861,192,332 

AQI Cost Analysis 

In order to determine the current cost 

of AQI services and understand the 

potential impact of alternative fee 

schedules, we first calculated the costs 

of the current AQI program by fee 

category, using the activity-basedcosting (ABC) methodology. We were 

then able to project volumes and 

perform detailed cost analysis for 

potential changes to the AQI fee 

schedule. This cost modeling effort 

included developing historical cost 

information using FY 2010 and FY 2011 

financial and workload data to provide 

the full cost of AQI activities and 

outputs. We used the ABC methodology 

because it supports the philosophy of 

full cost recovery, provides the 

functional elements and data for cost 

and business process analysis, and 

complies with regulatory guidance 

regarding full cost recovery. 

ABC uses a two-step methodology to 

assign an organization’s costs to its work 

activities and then to its related outputs. 

Costs are those things on which an 

organization spends its budget, such as 

salaries and benefits for employees, 

rent, equipment, etc. Work activities are 

the various endeavors that people in the 

organization undertake (e.g., air 

passenger inspection, pest 

identification), and outputs are the 

goods or services that the organization 

produces through its activities. 

In the first step of ABC, we assigned 

costs to activities using resource drivers, 

which typically represent a cause-andeffect relationship to establish how 

much of a resource is consumed by each 

activity. For example, if an organization 

spends 10 percent of its effort 

performing a particular activity, we 

assigned 10 percent of certain costs (e.g., 

salary and benefits) to that activity 

because the level of effort is a good 

indicator of resources consumed. In 

support of this step, we conducted an 

activity labor survey for APHIS State, 

regional, and headquarters organizations 

to estimate the level of effort devoted to 

AQI activities. We also incorporated 

activity cost information for CBP from 

their existing cost model. 

In the second step, we assigned 

APHIS and CBP activity costs to the 

outputs produced by performing the 

activities. We performed this cost 

assignment using activity drivers, again 

based on a cause-and-effect relationship. 

For example, if an activity is performed 

for more than one type of output, we 

assigned the cost of the activity to the 

outputs proportionately based on the 

workload data (volume) associated with 

each output. We used workload data 

from several APHIS and CBP systems as 

the activity drivers. 

While our AQI cost model design is 

based on the standard ABC 

methodology, it also incorporated 

several additional cost assignment 

layers to provide more transparent cost 

assignment and reporting. This included 

identifying and costing outputs at levels 

that were more detailed than necessary 

to capture costs just at current fee 

service levels. For example, we 

separately determined the cost of APHIS 

and CBP outputs and then combined 

this information to develop cost 

information for overall AQI services. 

This then provided us with flexibility 

for restructuring the AQI fee schedule. 

We also calculated expected future costs 

and workload and added those to the 

base to estimate the total costs and 

workload for the future periods when 

the new fees are expected to be in effect. 

The data for the AQI cost analysis 

came from financial and program 

workload information in standard 

APHIS and CBP records. The financial 

data included direct program costs and 

overhead costs previously discussed. 

This data was previously captured by 

those agencies to comply with other 

requirements. CBP already had a 

detailed cost model for its activities, and 

we used cost data from the CBP cost 

model. As noted above, we used a 

detailed labor survey to determine the 

cost of APHIS activities. 

Then, in accordance with Office of 

Management and Budget Circular, A–25 

‘‘User Charges,’’ and OMB Statement of 

Federal Financial Accounting 

Standards, Number 30, ‘‘Managerial 

Cost Accounting Standards and 

Concepts,’’ we identified and added an 

appropriate amount of imputed costs. 

These are costs borne by other Federal 

agencies (such as the U.S. Treasury and 

the Office of Personnel Management) in 

support of the AQI program. We used 

employee costs as the basis to identify 

the portion of these costs to attribute to 

the AQI program. 

We calculated APHIS depreciation by 

identifying equipment-related 

depreciation expenses. For APHISowned buildings where AQI work is 

performed, we used an appropriate 

portion (based on percent of work done 

in the building that was AQI) of the total 

depreciation for those buildings. CBP 

provided depreciation data for CBPowned facilities and capital equipment 

based on similar calculations. 

When the AQI cost model was 

completed, we were able to determine 

the actual costs of each of the current 

AQI services, as shown in the table 

below. By matching these costs with the 

workload volumes for each AQI fee 

service, we were also able to calculate 

the unit cost of each output. We were 

also able to determine the more detailed 

costs associated with all classes of 

passengers and treatments. Table 2 

shows the FY 2011 baseline costs by 

service activity that resulted from this 

AQI cost analysis. 

TABLE 2—AQI FY 2011 BASELINE

COSTS

Fee service activity 2011 Actual cost 

Air Passenger ............... $291,434,620 

Cruise Ship Passenger 20,205,868 

Rail Passenger ............. 1,630,302 

Bus Passenger ............. 23,091,799 

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TABLE 2—AQI FY 2011 BASELINE

COSTS—Continued 

Fee service activity 2011 Actual cost 

POV Passenger ............ 129,489,305 

Pedestrian ..................... 34,664,442 

Commercial Aircraft ...... 156,242,180 

Commercial Maritime 

Cargo Vessel ............ 91,152,480 

Commercial Truck ........ 73,529,394 

Commercial Cargo Railcar ............................. 5,150,585 

Private Aircraft .............. 11,371,965 

Private Maritime Vessel 4,940,099 

Treatments .................... 14,324,472 

Military Clearance Operations ......................... 3,964,821 

Total ....................... 861,192,332 

To project costs beyond FY 2011, we 

considered two changes to these 

baseline costs. The first change was any 

initiative which would increase APHIS 

or CBP costs in those years. Both APHIS 

and CBP have implemented various 

initiatives aimed at reducing 

redundancy in data input requirements 

for importers, increasing transparency, 

reducing wait times or expediting 

inspections, and eliminating or 

changing treatment requirements. The 

APHIS initiatives are: 

• A Web-based permit system that 

allows users to submit permit 

applications, track applications, apply 

for renewals and amendments, and 

receive copies of their import/interstate 

movement/transit/release permits. 

• AQI outreach, an effort to provide 

information and education to travelers 

and importers in order to reduce the risk 

of bringing prohibited agricultural items 

into the United States. 

• Critical upgrades to plant 

inspection station equipment that will 

enable us to do plant inspections more 

effectively. 

• A more robust risk assessment 

capacity that will enable APHIS to 

increase its capacity to perform risk 

assessments through increasing the 

quality and reliability of its data. 

• Development of new treatment 

techniques by APHIS scientists that can 

be used on agricultural products coming 

into the United States. These methods 

can save cost and time as well as reduce 

the risk of invasive pests entering the 

country. 

The CBP initiatives are: 

• Border security supplemental, 

which is related to a FY 2010 law 

intended to bolster border security, 

specifically along the U.S./Mexican 

border, and represents the AQI cost 

associated with the law. The initiative 

funding supports Federal agents, judges, 

courts, and other various agencies. 

• Increase in the journeyman grade 

for CBP Officers, CBP Agriculture 

Specialists, and Border Patrol Agents to 

account for increasing scope of 

responsibilities of officers and agents 

and to bring parity across Federal 

agencies. The AQI fee review 

incorporated journeyman upgrade costs 

specifically related to AQI. 

• National Targeting Center that 

filters advanced information on people 

and products to identify threats and 

risks and allows CBP to target higher 

risk trade and travelers for detailed 

inspection prior to their arrival at a U.S. 

port of entry. 

• Address increased activity at ports 

of entry by hiring additional personnel. 

The data for these initiatives came 

from APHIS and CBP budget offices and 

is shown in Table 3. 

TABLE 3—APHIS AND CBP INITIATIVES

Future initiatives 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 

APHIS 

Web-based permits system ................................................. $1,200,000 $1,204,680 $1,226,364 $1,237,279 $1,248,291

AQI outreach ........................................................................ 5,000,000 5,019,500 5,109,851 5,155,329 5,201,211 

Plant inspection station equipment ...................................... 23,600 23,692 24,118 24,333 24,550 

Risk assessment capacity ................................................... 120,000 120,468 122,636 123,728 124,829 

Treatment development ....................................................... 180,000 180,702 183,955 185,592 187,244 

CBP 

Border security supplemental .............................................. 5,676,640 5,676,640 5,773,143 5,802,009 5,831,019 

Journeyman increase ........................................................... 38,550,379 38,550,379 39,205,735 39,401,764 39,598,773 

National Targeting Center .................................................... 6,895,000 6,919,133 7,042,985 7,102,850 7,163,225 

Port of entry staff expansion ................................................ 7,752,437 7,752,437 7,884,228 7,923,649 7,963,267 

Totals ............................................................................ 65,398,056 65,447,630 66,573,016 66,956,533 67,342,408 

The second change that we 

considered in calculating future costs 

was projected cost growth. Table 4 

shows the growth rates used to project 

future cost increases. These growth rates 

represent guidance provided by OMB 

for use in developing budgets and other 

forecasts of future costs. They are 

broken out by payroll and non-payroll 

costs, and we applied them accordingly 

to the baseline costs and initiatives. 

TABLE 4—GROWTH RATES

Fiscal year Payroll 

(percent) 

Non-payroll 

(percent) 

2012 .......... 0.0 1.3 

2013 .......... 0.0 1.6 

2014 .......... 1.7 2.1 

2015 .......... 0.5 2.1 

2016 .......... 0.5 2.1 

Based on these growth rates, we 

projected the costs shown in Table 5 for 

FYs 2014 through 2016. 

TABLE 5—PROJECTED COSTS FYS 2014 THROUGH 2016 

Fee service activity 2014 2015 2016 

Air passenger ............................................................................................................................... $322,591,452 $324,996,118 $327,426,378 

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TABLE 5—PROJECTED COSTS FYS 2014 THROUGH 2016—Continued 

Fee service activity 2014 2015 2016 

Sea passenger ............................................................................................................................. 22,421,487 22,589,194 22,758,727 

Rail passenger ............................................................................................................................. 1,805,242 1,818,103 1,831,085 

Bus passenger ............................................................................................................................. 25,573,198 25,758,827 25,946,311 

POV passenger ........................................................................................................................... 143,333,256 144,384,916 145,447,319 

Pedestrian .................................................................................................................................... 38,357,661 38,635,543 38,916,167 

Commercial aircraft ...................................................................................................................... 170,836,038 172,855,461 174,912,526 

Commercial maritime ................................................................................................................... 99,783,440 100,995,859 102,232,305 

Commercial truck ......................................................................................................................... 81,018,003 81,789,820 82,573,152 

Commercial cargo railcar ............................................................................................................. 5,679,995 5,732,572 5,785,904 

Private aircraft .............................................................................................................................. 12,602,768 12,690,860 12,779,754 

Private maritime vessel ............................................................................................................... 5,486,025 5,526,987 5,568,398 

Treatments ................................................................................................................................... 15,086,074 15,421,466 15,765,008 

Military clearance ......................................................................................................................... 4,331,642 4,371,639 4,412,236 

Total ...................................................................................................................................... 948,906,281 957,567,365 966,355,270 

Volume Projections 

To develop potential fee scenarios, we 

also projected workload growth and 

resulting workload volumes for each 

fiscal year from 2013 to 2016. We were 

able to identify FY 2011 and 2012 actual 

workload from data previously captured 

by APHIS and CBP. To forecast 

expected changes in imports and tourist 

traffic across the nation’s borders, we 

researched a variety of data sources and 

used the following: 

• We used projections from the 

International Air Transport Association 

Industry Forecast Summary Report to 

project air passengers and air cargo. 

• We used projections from a market 

research site, Cruise Market Watch, to 

project sea passengers. 

• We used a U.S. Department of 

Transportation report that forecast the 

number of border crossings by mode of 

traffic at selected ports of entry and 

extrapolated to get projections for 

pedestrians and POV and bus 

passengers. 

• We used a USDA report on 

Agricultural Sector Aggregate Indicators 

to project maritime cargo, truck cargo, 

rail cargo, mail packages, commodity 

import permits, and treatments. 

• We did not forecast any changes for 

rail passengers, private aircraft, or 

private sea vessels because a change rate 

for these conveyances cannot be tied to 

any import data or other independent 

variable. 

Table 6 shows the resulting volumes 

for the various fee service activities. 

TABLE 6—WORKLOAD PROJECTIONS, FYS 2013 THROUGH 2016 

Fee 2011 Actual 

count 

2012 Actual 

count 

Expected 

changes 

(annual) 

2013 2014 2015 2016 

Air passenger ................... 78,901,506 77,255,476 3.60% 80,036,673 82,917,993 85,903,041 88,995,551 

Sea passenger ................. 12,931,271 13,532,465 3.15 13,958,738 14,398,438 14,851,989 15,319,826 

Rail passenger ................. 276,722 276,855 — 276,855 276,855 276,855 276,855 

Bus passenger ................. 5,222,786 5,318,382 ¥1.69 5,228,501 5,140,140 5,053,271 4,967,871 

POV passenger ................ 169,834,015 175,428,545 0.76 176,761,802 178,105,192 179,458,791 180,822,678 

Pedestrian ........................ 40,609,235 41,375,736 ¥3.49 39,931,723 38,538,106 37,193,126 35,895,086 

Commercial aircraft .......... 700,644 719,251 3.60 745,144 771,969 799,760 828,551 

Commercial maritime 

cargo vessel ................. 101,794 113,727 3.15 117,309 121,005 124,816 128,748 

Commercial truck ............. 10,348,791 10,664,770 3.83 11,073,231 11,497,335 11,937,683 12,394,897 

Commercial cargo railcar 2,912,210 3,230,167 3.83 3,353,882 3,482,336 3,615,710 3,754,191 

Private aircraft .................. 121,221 116,240 — 116,240 116,240 116,240 116,240 

Private maritime vessel .... 80,529 80,949 — 80,949 80,949 80,949 80,949 

Treatments ....................... 29,713 38,517 5.36 40,582 42,757 45,048 47,463 

Fee Computation 

With the total costs and the workload 

projections, we were able to project fee 

requirements for each potential fee 

service activity. However, in addition to 

the fee revenue required to cover 

current and projected AQI service costs, 

we need to generate revenue to 

replenish the AQI account reserve. The 

reserve components were established 

simply by rounding up the raw fee 

calculations (projected unit cost) for 

each fee. All projected unit costs less 

than $10 were rounded up to the next 

$1, and all unit costs greater than $200 

were rounded up to the next $25. No 

proposed fees fall between $10 and 

$200. This approach provides a 

proportionate rounding for all fees. We 

then calculated the estimated number of 

days that the reserve could support 

costs on a noncumulative basis. We 

estimate that by the end of FY 2016 the 

AQI reserve will have approximately a 

90 day reserve, which is consistent with 

our established AQI fund reserve policy. 

Proposed Fee Amounts 

APHIS is proposing significant 

changes to the AQI user fee structure 

and the fee rates. As previously 

mentioned, we employed activity based 

costing (ABC) as our methodology to 

determine the cost of AQI services, and 

this information, along with other 

factors, was used to define an 

appropriate fee structure and fee rates. 

The ABC methodology is a derivative of 

the managerial cost accounting, which 

is recommended by OMB and 

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Government Accountability Office 

guidance on government fee setting. 

Previously, APHIS relied on an 

estimation methodology to determine 

the fee rates, and we believe that the 

estimation methodology did not provide 

enough information to properly 

establish the correct fee structure and 

fee rates. We also believe that the use of 

the ABC methodology provides 

significantly greater accuracy and 

transparency in fee setting. The use of 

ABC has enabled APHIS to more 

accurately identify the true costs of 

providing each of the AQI services. 

The costs incurred by both APHIS and 

CBP have been analyzed using the ABC 

methodology. APHIS was able to 

determine activity costs for each AQI 

service by collecting related financial 

and workload data for APHIS and CBP, 

and using this information to properly 

assign AQI program costs to each 

activity. The AQI program costs include 

program delivery activities such as 

inspections, inspection targeting 

analysis, staff training, plant and pest 

identification, and risk assessments. The 

majority of activity costs are for salary 

and benefits, but they also include costs 

such as the training of CBP Agriculture 

Specialists, CBP Officers, training and 

care of CBP Agriculture Specialist 

Canine Officers and canines, 

replacement or new equipment, 

utilities, rent, replacement or new 

vehicles, and office supplies; and 

imputed costs that APHIS and CBP are 

responsible for recovering such as 

workman’s compensation, health, 

retirement, and life insurance benefits. 

Using the data and methodology 

discussed above, we calculated the 

proposed fees shown in table 7. Each fee 

service activity is explained in greater 

detail in the paragraphs that follow. If 

these proposed fees become effective, 

we would continue to monitor the costs 

of AQI services, our collections, and the 

level of the reserve and would 

undertake rulemaking to adjust the fees 

if we determined that costs were not 

being appropriately recovered or the 

reserve levels were on a path to be 

either greater or less than our 

established AQI fund 90-day reserve 

policy. 

TABLE 7—PROPOSED FEES

Fee service activity Current Proposed 

Air passenger ............................................................................................................................................................ $5 ................. $4 

Commercial aircraft ................................................................................................................................................... 70.75 ............ 225 

Commercial maritime cargo vessel ........................................................................................................................... 496 ............... 825 

Commercial truck ...................................................................................................................................................... 5.25 .............. 8 

Commercial truck transponder .................................................................................................................................. 105 ............... 320 

Commercial cargo railcar .......................................................................................................................................... 7.75 .............. 2 

Sea passenger .......................................................................................................................................................... no fee ........... 2 

Treatments ................................................................................................................................................................ no fee ........... 375 

Air passenger. Millions of travelers 

pass through U.S. airports daily. 

Inspecting air passengers includes prearrival analysis of incoming passengers 

and screening arriving air passengers for 

agricultural products by CBP 

Agriculture Specialists and CBP 

Officers; inspection of passenger 

baggage using CBP agriculture canines 

and specialized non-intrusive 

inspection equipment; inspecting the 

interior of the passenger aircraft; 

monitoring the storage and removal of 

regulated international garbage from the 

aircraft to ensure consistency with all 

regulatory requirements; safeguarding 

and appropriately disposing of any 

seized or abandoned prohibited 

agricultural products; and identifying 

pests found on prohibited agricultural 

products brought into the country by air 

passengers. The ABC data indicated that 

the current fee was going to generate 

revenues in excess of what will be 

required to support anticipated costs. As 

a result, we are proposing a 20 percent 

decrease in this fee (from $5 to $4) to 

better align the fee with the cost of 

activities related to air passengers. 

Commercial aircraft. We also inspect 

international commercial aircraft 

arriving at airports in the customs 

territory of the United States. Inspecting 

commercial aircraft includes reviewing 

manifests and documentation 

accompanying incoming cargo; targeting 

higher risk cargo for inspection or 

clearance; inspecting various types of 

agricultural and agricultural-related 

commodities, international mail, 

expedited courier packages, containers, 

compliant wood packaging material, 

and packing materials to screen for the 

presence of plant pests and 

contaminants, compliance with 

regulations, and determining entry 

status; inspecting the aircraft hold or 

exterior for contaminants, pests, or 

invasive species; monitoring the storage 

and removal of regulated international 

garbage from the aircraft to ensure 

consistency with all regulatory 

requirements; identifying pests found 

during inspection; and safeguarding 

shipments pending PPQ determination 

for treatment or final disposition. The 

ABC data indicated that the current fee 

being charged does not reflect the actual 

costs incurred in the performance of 

those activities and would result in a 

significant shortfall in what will be 

required to cover the anticipated costs 

of this activity. Accordingly, we are 

proposing a 218 percent increase in this 

fee (from $70.75 to $225) to more 

accurately align the fee with the actual 

cost of activities related to commercial 

aircraft inspection described above as 

those costs were identified using our 

ABC methodology. 

Commercial maritime cargo vessel. 

We inspect commercial vessels of 100 

net tons or more arriving at ports of 

entry into the customs territory of the 

United States. Inspecting commercial 

maritime cargo vessels involves 

reviewing manifests and documentation 

accompanying incoming cargo; targeting 

higher risk cargo for inspection or 

clearance; inspecting various types of 

agricultural and agricultural-related 

commodities, containers, compliant 

wood packaging material, and packing 

materials to screen for the presence of 

plant pests and contaminants, 

compliance with regulations, and 

determining entry status; inspecting the 

vessel to ensure that contaminants, 

pests, or invasive pests are not present 

or are properly safeguarded; inspecting 

the ship’s stores to ensure that 

prohibited items are not present; 

monitoring the storage and removal of 

regulated international garbage from the 

vessel to ensure consistency with all 

regulatory requirements; identifying 

pests found during inspection; and 

safeguarding shipments pending PPQ 

determination for treatment or final 

disposition. The current regulations cap 

the number of arrivals for which a single 

vessel would be charged at 15 per 

calendar year, i.e., a vessel is not 

charged for its 16th or subsequent 

arrival in any 1 year. The ABC data 

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indicated that the limitation on 

collections imposed by the cap, as well 

as the amount of the current fee, was 

going to lead to a shortfall in what will 

be required to support anticipated costs. 

As a result, we are proposing to remove 

the 15-arrival cap and increase the fee 

by 71 percent (from $496 to $825) to 

align the fee with the cost of activities 

related to commercial maritime cargo 

vessels. 

Commercial truck. We inspect 

commercial trucks arriving at land ports 

in the customs territory of the United 

States from Mexico and Canada. 

Inspecting trucks involves reviewing 

manifests and documentation 

accompanying incoming cargo; targeting 

higher risk cargo for inspection; 

inspecting various types of agricultural 

and agricultural-related commodities, 

compliant wood packaging material, 

and packing materials to screen for the 

presence of plant pests and 

contaminants, compliance with 

regulations, and determining entry 

status; inspecting the truck and 

conveyance for contaminants, pests, or 

invasive species; identifying pests found 

during inspection; and safeguarding 

shipments pending final determination 

for treatment or final disposition. The 

ABC data indicated that the current fee 

was going to result in a shortfall in what 

will be required to support anticipated 

costs. As a result, we are proposing a 52 

percent increase in this fee (from $5.25 

to $8) to align the fee with the cost of 

activities related to commercial trucks. 

Commercial truck transponder. We 

estimate that the use of transponders 

corresponds to a 10 minute reduction in 

the border crossing time for trucks. The 

proposed fee will maintain an incentive 

for trucks to continue the use of 

transponders while recovering a greater 

portion of the Government’s cost to 

provide inspection services. Based on 

data about how many times a 

commercial truck with a responder 

came into the country, we propose to 

increase the truck transponder fee from 

20 to 40 times the individual truck fee. 

We are proposing this change based on 

our analysis indicating that trucks with 

transponders cross an average of 106 

times per year. Increasing the truck 

transponder fee to 40 times the 

individual truck fee, along with the 

increase in the commercial truck fee, 

results in an increase of 205 percent 

(from $105 to $320) for the transponder 

fee. 

Commercial cargo railcar. We inspect 

loaded commercial railroad cars arriving 

at land ports in the customs territory of 

the United States from Mexico and 

Canada. Inspecting railcars involves 

reviewing manifests and documentation 

accompanying incoming cargo; targeting 

higher risk cargo for inspection or 

clearance; inspecting various types of 

agricultural and agricultural-related 

commodities, containers, compliant 

wood packaging material, and packing 

materials to screen for the presence of 

plant pests and contaminants, 

compliance with regulations, and 

determining entry status; inspecting the 

railcars for contaminants, pests or 

invasive species; identifying pests found 

during inspection; monitoring the 

storage and removal of regulated 

international garbage from the railcar to 

ensure consistency with all regulatory 

requirements; and safeguarding 

shipments pending PPQ determination 

for treatment or final disposition. The 

ABC data indicated that the current fee 

was going to generate revenues 

significantly in excess of what will be 

required to support anticipated costs. 

Accordingly, we are proposing a 74 

percent decrease in this fee (from $7.75 

to $2) to align the fee with the cost of 

activities related to commercial cargo 

railcars. 

We also analyzed those fee service 

activities for which there was not 

currently a fee even though significant 

workload and/or costs were being 

generated: 

Sea passenger. Inspecting a cruise 

vessel and its passengers includes prearrival analysis of incoming passengers; 

screening arriving sea passengers for 

agricultural products by CBP 

Agriculture Specialists and CBP 

Officers; inspection of passenger 

baggage using CBP agriculture canines 

and specialized non-intrusive 

inspection equipment; inspection of the 

vessel itself to ensure that contaminants, 

prohibited articles, or invasive pests are 

not present; inspecting the ship’s stores 

to ensure that prohibited items are not 

present or are properly safeguarded; and 

monitoring the storage and removal of 

regulated international garbage from the 

vessel to ensure consistency with all 

existing regulatory requirements. 

(Consistent with our AQI fee authority, 

the costs of inspecting the cruise ships 

themselves would be covered by the 

proposed sea passenger fee rather than 

a separate fee similar to the commercial 

maritime cargo vessel fee, just as the 

international air passenger user fee 

covers the costs associated with 

inspecting the aircraft on which they 

arrived.) We also analyze information 

that allows us to perform targeted 

inspections in order to reduce the risk 

of a dangerous plant, plant pest, 

contaminant, or foreign animal disease 

from entering the United States. This 

information is used in our training and 

in the development of inspection 

guidance and policies. Similar 

information is used extensively by CBP 

to help distinguish levels of risk. We 

believe that this effort helps us to 

provide the highest level of protection at 

the lowest cost. No fees are currently 

collected for this category of passenger. 

Based on the costs associated with 

inspecting these passengers (projected at 

approximately $22.4 million to $22.8 

million in FYs 2014 to 2016, as noted 

in table 5 above) and the ease of 

collection from the direct beneficiary 

(i.e., the passenger) through the sea 

vessel ticket, we are proposing to 

implement a $2 user fee, which is 

sufficient to recover the projected costs 

of this AQI activity. This new fee would 

allow us to recover the costs associated 

with this inspection activity. 

The new sea passenger user fee would 

be added to paragraph (f) of § 354.3, 

which currently contains the provisions 

regarding the airline passenger AQI user 

fee, as the collection and remittance 

procedures for both the sea passenger 

and airline passenger user fees would be 

the same. The current regulations 

provide an exemption from the payment 

of user fees for the crew members on 

duty on an arriving aircraft; we would 

make the same exemption for crew 

members on duty aboard an arriving 

cruise ship. Similarly, the current 

regulations provide that airlines will not 

be charged reimbursable overtime for 

passenger inspection services required 

for any aircraft on which a passenger 

arrived who has paid the international 

passenger AQI user fee for that flight. 

We would provide the same limitation 

on overtime charges for cruise lines. 

Treatments. Treatments are performed 

on some agricultural goods as a 

condition of entry, and others are 

performed when an actionable pest (i.e., 

a plant pest that should not be allowed 

to be introduced into or disseminated 

within the United States) is detected 

during a port-of-entry inspection. The 

objective of these AQI treatments is to 

ensure that agricultural goods and 

commodities entering the United States 

are free from viable plant pests and 

noxious weeds that would pose a risk to 

the health of the U.S. domestic 

agriculture and natural resources. 

Treatment methods include fumigation, 

cold treatment, irradiation, and heat 

treatment. APHIS activities related to 

the application of AQI treatments 

include personnel determining the 

appropriate treatment schedule, 

monitoring the treatment to ensure it is 

conducted as specified so that the 

treatment takes place in the prescribed 

manner, and determining whether the 

treatment was successful. These AQI 

services focus on ensuring the 

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effectiveness of a given treatment 

regardless of its methodology. While 

AQI treatments are usually provided by 

private entities who charge the importer 

for their services, from time to time 

APHIS will provide the treatment, 

especially for propagative materials. We 

also develop new methods of 

treatments. These methods increase the 

effectiveness of treating agricultural 

goods and reduce the risk of dangerous 

pests entering the United States. No fees 

are currently collected for this activity. 

Based on our analysis of the costs 

(projected at approximately $15 million 

to $15.8 million in FYs 2014 to 2016, as 

noted in table 5 above) and the relative 

ease of collection when the treatment is 

ordered, we are proposing a $375 fee for 

each treatment. The AQI treatment fee is 

designed to recover the costs of APHIS 

services for monitoring the treatment to 

ensure it is conducted as specified so 

that the treatment takes place in the 

prescribed manner and determining 

whether the treatment was successful. 

Should a treatment prove unsuccessful 

and have to be reapplied, that 

subsequent AQI treatment would also be 

subject to an AQI treatment fee, as 

APHIS incurs costs by providing AQI 

treatment-related services regardless of 

the success or failure of the treatment. 

Similarly, if there was a particularly 

large consignment that had to be treated 

in two or more lots, each lot would be 

subject to an AQI treatment fee. Finally, 

along those lines, if there were two or 

more small consignments from different 

importers that required the same 

treatment and could be combined and 

treated together at the same time, there 

would be only one AQI treatment fee 

charged, with each importer being 

responsible for a share of that fee. 

The provisions for the payment of 

AQI user fees for conducting and 

monitoring treatments would be added 

to § 354.3 as a new paragraph (h). Most 

treatment services are provided by 

private companies that charge importers 

a fee for their services. Because those 

companies are already invoicing the 

importers whose consignments are 

being treated, we are proposing that the 

treatment companies would also collect 

the AQI user fee and subsequently remit 

the fee to APHIS. This is the same 

model used for the collection of the AQI 

user fees for international airline 

passengers and that we are proposing to 

use for cruise ship passengers. In those 

instances where APHIS itself performs 

the treatment, we would collect the fee 

directly from the importer for whom the 

treatment is being provided. 

Other Fees Considered 

APHIS considered, but is not 

proposing at this time, fees for the 

following AQI services: 

• Rail passenger: No fees are 

currently collected for this category of 

passenger. Because the total cost is less 

than $2 million, and there would be 

additional cost of creating and operating 

fee collections, we are not proposing 

any fees for this category of passenger. 

• Bus passenger: No fees are currently 

collected for this category of passenger, 

even though annual costs are over $25 

million for this service. We considered 

proposing a new bus passenger fee, but 

recognized that this would require 

establishing the infrastructure and 

process for bus companies to collect and 

remit the fees since CBP does not have 

a comparable fee. In addition, the 

barriers for entry into the bus passenger 

industry are much lower compared to 

air and cruise vessel industries. As a 

result, there are more bus companies 

entering and exiting the industry, which 

would make fee collection and 

monitoring difficult. However, we 

intend to gather additional information 

to determine if there are other ways to 

collect this fee in the future, which 

would be addressed through a future 

rulemaking. 

• POV passenger: No fees are 

currently collected for this category of 

passenger, even though annual costs are 

over $160 million. The high cost of 

creating and operating fee collections, 

and considerations about potential 

backups of POVs at the ports of entry, 

led us to recommend that POV 

passengers continue to not be subject to 

an AQI user fee. 

• Pedestrians: No fees are currently 

collected for the inspection of 

pedestrians arriving in the United 

States, even though the annual costs are 

over $38 million for this service. The 

high cost of creating and operating fee 

collections and considerations about 

potential backups of pedestrians at the 

ports of entry led us to recommend that 

arriving pedestrians continue to not be 

subject to an AQI user fee at this time. 

• Private aircraft: No fees are 

currently collected for the inspection of 

private aircraft and their passengers. 

The cost of less than $13 million, and 

the additional cost of creating and 

operating fee collections, led us to 

recommend that private aircraft and 

their passengers continue to not be 

subject to an AQI user fee. 

• Private maritime vessel: No fees are 

currently collected for the inspection of 

private maritime vessels and their 

passengers. The cost of less than $6 

million, and the additional cost of 

creating and operating fee collections, 

led us to recommend that private 

maritime vessel passengers continue to 

not be subject to an AQI user fee. 

• Commodity import permit: No fee is 

currently charged for commodity import 

permits. We considered establishing a 

separate fee, but concerns about the 

impact on importers and relationships 

with trading partners led us to not 

propose this fee. 

• Pest import permit: No fee is 

currently charged for pest import 

permits. We considered establishing a 

separate fee, but we did not want to 

discourage the research associated with 

pest import permits because this 

research benefits United States 

agriculture and ecosystem overall. 

Accordingly, the costs of these AQI 

services will continue to be covered 

through appropriated funding. 

Periodic Updates to User Fees 

The Department is seeking public 

comment on the frequency and 

methodology for updating the AQI user 

fees. Currently there is no established 

schedule for updating the fees, which 

has led to long gaps between updates 

and substantial increases in fees when 

updates are made. The Department is 

particularly interested in comments on 

whether fees should be updated more 

frequently, e.g., every 2 years, and 

whether the updates should be made 

through a rulemaking or some other 

means such as a notice-based process 

that provides an opportunity for public 

comment. We are also interested in 

comments regarding the possibility of 

phasing in the updated fees when there 

may be an economic hardship due to 

factors such as substantial increases due 

to long gaps between updates or, as in 

the case with this proposed rule, a 

comprehensive review to determine the 

current cost of specific AQI services 

indicates that the AQI program is not 

recovering the full cost of its fee 

services. 

Executive Orders 12866 and 13563 and 

Regulatory Flexibility Act 

This proposed rule has been 

determined to be economically 

significant for the purposes of Executive 

Order 12866 and, therefore, has been 

reviewed by OMB. 

We have prepared a regulatory impact 

analysis (RIA) for this rule. The RIA 

provides a cost-benefit analysis, as 

required by Executive Orders 12866 and 

13563, which direct agencies to assess 

all costs and benefits of available 

regulatory alternatives and, if regulation 

is necessary, to select regulatory 

approaches that maximize net benefits 

(including potential economic, 

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22904 Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 80 / Friday, April 25, 2014 / Proposed Rules 

environmental, public health and safety 

effects, and equity). Executive Order 

13563 emphasizes the importance of 

quantifying both costs and benefits, of 

reducing costs, of harmonizing rules, 

and of promoting flexibility. The RIA 

also provides an initial regulatory 

flexibility analysis that examines the 

potential economic effects of this rule 

on small entities, as required by the 

Regulatory Flexibility Act. The RIA is 

summarized below. Copies of the full 

analysis are available by contacting the 

person listed under FOR FURTHER

INFORMATION CONTACT or on the 

Regulations.gov Web site (see 

ADDRESSES above for instructions for 

accessing Regulations.gov). 

APHIS is proposing to amend the user 

fee regulations by adding new fee 

categories and adjusting current fees 

charged for certain agricultural 

quarantine and inspection (AQI) 

services. We are also proposing to alter 

or remove certain fee caps. We have 

determined that revised user fee 

categories and revised user fees are 

necessary to recover the costs of the 

current level of activity, to account for 

actual and projected increases in the 

cost of doing business, and to more 

accurately align fees with the costs 

associated with each fee service. 

AQI fees are mandated to be costbased and paid by the users of the AQI 

services to ensure that recipients bear 

the costs of the services instead of the 

American taxpayer. In our RIA, benefits 

and costs of the proposed changes to the 

AQI user fee schedule are evaluated in 

accordance with Executive Orders 

12866 and 13563. Expected effects for 

small entities are evaluated as required 

by the Regulatory Flexibility Act. 

AQI services benefit U.S. agricultural 

and natural resources by protecting 

them from the inadvertent introduction 

of foreign pests and diseases that may 

enter the country and the threat of 

intentional introduction of pests or 

pathogens as a means of agroterrorism. 

Failure to adjust these fees to account 

for full cost recovery, particularly in the 

present fiscal climate, has the potential 

to cause a decrease in AQI services 

provided. Efforts would be made to 

address the greatest risk and minimize, 

to the extent allowed by available 

resources, significant negative impact 

on U.S. industries. 

The proposed changes in user fees 

would more closely align, by class, the 

cost of AQI services provided and user 

fee revenue received. The proposed fee 

schedule would better reflect the costs 

of AQI services provided commercial 

vessels, commercial trucks, commercial 

railcars, commercial aircraft, and 

international air passengers arriving at 

U.S. ports; newly include fees for 

additional classes of recipients of AQI 

services; remove user fee caps for 

commercial vessels and commercial 

railcars; and increase the fee cap for 

commercial trucks. Fee caps refer to 

limits on the number of times a fee must 

be paid for a specific truck (with 

transponder), vessel, or railcar in a 

calendar year. The current and proposed 

AQI user fee rates are shown in table 8. 

TABLE 8—CURRENT AND PROPOSED AQI USER FEE RATES

[Dollars] 

User fee class Current Proposed 

Air passenger ............................................................................................................................................................ $5 ................. $4 

Commercial aircraft ................................................................................................................................................... 70.75 ............ 225 

Commercial cargo vessel .......................................................................................................................................... 496 ............... 825 

Commercial truck ...................................................................................................................................................... 5.25 .............. 8 

Commercial truck with transponder (one) annual payment) ..................................................................................... 105 ............... 320 

Commercial cargo railcar .......................................................................................................................................... 7.75 .............. 2 

Sea passenger .......................................................................................................................................................... no fee ........... 2 

Treatment .................................................................................................................................................................. no fee ........... 375 

APHIS used activity-based costing to 

determine the proposed rate 

adjustments for classes that currently 

pay user fees and the proposed rates for 

newly charged classes. The two classes 

that would be newly charged user fees 

under the proposed rule are 

international sea (cruise) passengers and 

recipients of AQI treatment services. 

Currently, the cost of AQI services 

received by these entities is borne by 

other user fee classes and/or taxpayers 

through appropriated funding. 

Elimination of the user fee caps for 

commercial railcars and commercial 

vessels would more closely align the 

user fee revenue received with the cost 

of providing AQI services for rail and 

vessel cargo. We propose to retain the 

cap for commercial trucks because of 

the increased efficiency gained through 

the use of transponders at border 

inspections. The cap for commercial 

trucks would be increased, however, 

and these businesses would pay in fees 

a larger share of the cost of the AQI 

services they receive. 

Under the proposed fee structure, it is 

expected that AQI user fee revenue for 

fiscal year (FY) 2014 would be about 

$700.1 million, as compared to about 

$573.1 million under the current fee 

schedule, an increase of $127 million 

(table 9), of which $94.5 million is due 

to the change in fees and fee structure 

and $32.5 million is due to workload 

changes as valued at the proposed fee 

rates. Reliance on appropriated funds to 

finance certain AQI services is expected 

to be reduced by $46.8 million, 

assuming that the total cost of AQI 

services, $948.9 million, would be the 

same with or without adoption of the 

proposed fee schedule, since the level of 

AQI services provided would not 

change with the fee collections under 

the proposed rule available to APHIS 

and CBP. A projected AQI program 

deficit of $54.5 million under the 

current fee schedule would not be 

incurred. Net revenue of the AQI 

program under the proposed fee 

schedule is expected to total about $25.7 

million, which would be used to 

maintain the AQI program’s reserve 

fund. The reserve fund ensures that AQI 

program operations can continue 

without interruption when service 

volumes fluctuate due to economic 

conditions or other circumstances and 

CBP and APHIS are able to adjust their 

activity to account for the changed 

economic conditions. 

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1All values in the RIA are nominal, that is, they 

include projected inflation. 

TABLE 9—EXPECTED AQI USER FEE REVENUE, APPROPRIATED AQI FUNDING UNDER THE CURRENT AND PROPOSED

USER FEE SCHEDULES, AND COST OF AQI SERVICES, FY 2014 

[Million dollars] 

Current fee 

schedule 

Proposed fee 

schedule Change 

AQI revenue: 

User fees .............................................................................................................................. $573.1 $700.1 $127.0 

Appropriated funding ............................................................................................................ 321.3 274.5 ¥46.8 

AQI total revenue ......................................................................................................................... 894.4 974.6 80.2 

AQI total cost ............................................................................................................................... 948.9 948.9 0 

AQI revenue minus cost .............................................................................................................. ¥54.5 25.7 80.2 

Tables showing similar expected AQI 

revenue effects of the proposed fee 

schedule for FYs 2015–2017 are 

presented in the body of the RIA. 

Respectively for these 3 years, in 

comparison to projections under the 

current fee schedule, AQI user fee 

revenue is expected to be larger by 

$130.7 million, $134.5 million, and 

$138.4 million; appropriated funding of 

AQI services is expected to be smaller 

by $37.6 million, $78.2 million, and 

$78.6 million; and net revenue of $39.0 

million, $39.1 million, and $60.3 

million is expected to be available to 

maintain the AQI reserve fund.1

APHIS considered a number of 

alternatives for revising the AQI user 

fees. Some of the alternatives, such as 

increasing all current fees by the same 

percentage, were rejected because they 

clearly would not meet the objective of 

making the fees paid by users in the 

various fee classes more commensurate 

with the costs of the AQI services 

provided for each class. Other 

alternatives were rejected because the 

transaction costs of creating and 

operating fee collection systems for 

certain classes, such as bus passengers, 

private vehicles, and pedestrians, would 

be overly burdensome. 

APHIS then focused on three 

remaining alternatives composed of 

different combinations of paying 

classes. The first or preferred alternative 

is the proposed rule, with user fee 

classes as shown in table 8. The second 

alternative differs from the first by not 

including user fees for recipients of AQI 

treatment services. Under the third 

alternative, recipients of commodity 

import permits and pest import permits 

would pay user fees, in addition to the 

classes that would pay fees under the 

proposed rule. 

Under all three alternatives, 

international sea (cruise) passengers 

would pay a user fee for services they 

receive that are currently funded by 

other AQI service recipients and/or 

through appropriated funding. In 

addition, the preferred alternative 

would newly include payment of fees 

by users of AQI treatment services. 

Under alternative 2, the cost of 

providing AQI treatment services would 

continue to be covered by user fees paid 

by other classes. For this reason, 

Alternative 2 was rejected because AQI 

costs and revenues would be less 

commensurable by class than under the 

preferred alternative. 

Alternative 3 would include user fees 

for recipients of commodity import 

permits and pest import permits, classes 

not charged fees under the preferred 

alternative. In these instances, APHIS 

found that there are overriding 

concerns. Charging a user fee for 

commodity import permits could be 

counterproductive in terms of our 

relations with trading partners; negative 

reactions by other countries could 

potentially affect U.S. export markets. 

Pest import permits are normally 

requested for research purposes. 

Charging a fee for pest import permits, 

which activity-based costing indicates 

would need to be set at more than 

$2,000, could have the unintended 

consequence of discouraging research 

that directly benefits U.S. agriculture. 

For these reasons, APHIS decided 

against the selection of alternative 3. 

In table 10, we compare the 

cumulative expected revenue changes 

over 4 years for the alternatives. In all 

cases, the baseline for comparison is 

continuation of the current AQI user fee 

schedule. AQI services performed and 

the cost of providing those services 

would be the same under each 

alternative. All three alternatives would 

ensure that the costs of providing AQI 

services are covered and the reserve 

fund is maintained. Relative to the other 

alternatives, the preferred alternative 

would result in the smallest increase in 

user fee receipts and, less noteworthy, 

the largest decrease in appropriated 

funding. 

TABLE 10—CHANGES IN EXPECTED AQI USER FEE REVENUE, APPROPRIATED AQI FUNDING, AND NET REVENUE UNDER

THE THREE ALTERNATIVE USER FEE SCHEDULES, SUMMED OVER FYS 2014–2017 

[Million dollars] 

Expected change in: 

Preferred 

alternative 

(proposed rule) 

Alternative 2 Alternative 3 

FYs 2014–2017 

AQI revenue:.

User fees .................................................................................................................. $530.6 $570.2 $584.7 

Appropriated funding ................................................................................................ ¥241.2 ¥236.5 ¥236.5 

AQI total revenue ............................................................................................................. 289.5 333.7 348.3 

AQI total cost ................................................................................................................... 0 0 0 

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22906 Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 80 / Friday, April 25, 2014 / Proposed Rules 

2Short-run impacts of the proposed fee changes 

are estimated to represent the following percentage 

changes from current output, by affected industry: 

Trucking industry, ¥0.006 percent; rail industry, 

0.035 percent; vessel cargo industry, ¥0.005 

percent; cruise ship industry, 0.003 percent; and air 

cargo and passenger industry, ¥0.102 percent. 

TABLE 10—CHANGES IN EXPECTED AQI USER FEE REVENUE, APPROPRIATED AQI FUNDING, AND NET REVENUE UNDER

THE THREE ALTERNATIVE USER FEE SCHEDULES, SUMMED OVER FYS 2014–2017—Continued 

[Million dollars] 

Expected change in: 

Preferred 

alternative 

(proposed rule) 

Alternative 2 Alternative 3 

AQI revenue minus cost .................................................................................................. 289.5 333.7 348.3 

Note: Columns may not sum due to rounding. 

Economic effects under each of the 

three alternatives would derive from the 

increase or reduction in costs borne by 

affected importers and international 

passengers because of the changes in 

AQI user fees and concurrent reduced 

reliance on appropriated funding of AQI 

user fees. Impacts would depend on the 

magnitude of the changes, and for 

importers, on the ability of suppliers to 

pass along or absorb the costs, and for 

inbound international passengers, on 

the ability of airlines and vessels to do 

likewise. In theory, higher user fees 

increase the cost of imports and the 

supplier may have incentive to send 

fewer goods to the United States or 

international passengers may have less 

incentive to travel to the United States. 

Lower user fees, in theory, create the 

opposite incentives. 

The proposed changes in user fees are 

very small in comparison to the overall 

value of the commodities imported or 

the price of an international ticket, and 

therefore are expected to have negligible 

impact on imports or the number of 

international passengers. Estimated 

changes in user fee revenue relative to 

the output of the affected sectors 

represent, in total, a decline of about 

two-hundredths of one percent, and 

range from a decline of about sixthousandths of one percent in the 

trucking industry to a decline of about 

one-tenth of one percent in the airline 

industry.2 We cannot determine what 

would be the effect of the projected 

reductions in appropriated funding of 

AQI services, but observe that the 

reductions may counterbalance the 

negligible impacts of the user fee 

increases to some extent. 

Output and employment impacts for 

FY 2014 under the three alternatives, 

shown in table 11, were modeled for 

APHIS by a contracted consultancy. The 

model results indicate that U.S. output 

and employment would decline under 

all three alternatives, with the smallest 

declines expected under the preferred 

alternative. Modeled output and 

employment effects for FYs 2015–2017, 

as well as output effects by class for FY 

2014, are similarly shown in the body 

of the RIA. We expect the economic 

effects of the proposed user fee revisions 

for several of the classes, if they occur 

at all, to be extremely small. 

TABLE 11—MODELED SHORT-RUN DIRECT EFFECTS FOR U.S. OUTPUT AND EMPLOYMENT OF THE THREE AQI USER FEE

ALTERNATIVES, FY 2014 

Change in output 

(million dollars) 

Change in 

employment 

(jobs) 

Preferred alternative (proposed rule) .............................................................................................. ¥$94 ¥1,090 

Alternative 2 ..................................................................................................................................... ¥122 ¥1,301 

Alternative 3 ..................................................................................................................................... ¥126 ¥1,400 

The fee increases themselves and the 

newly charged fees for cruise passengers 

and for monitoring and conducting 

treatments are not costs to the economy 

as a whole, but rather transfer payments. 

Transfer payments are monetary 

payments from one group to another 

that do not affect total resources 

available to society. While individual 

importers or passengers may experience 

financial burden from an increase in 

user fees (or relief when a fee is 

reduced), the AQI services are already 

being provided and therefore they are 

already counted as government costs. A 

fee rate adjustment to support full cost 

recovery is consistent with the intent of 

the relevant statues and regulations. 

The increase in user fee funding of 

AQI services and closer alignment, by 

class, of user fee revenues and costs 

would be the principal outcomes of the 

proposed rule. For the 4 years FYs 

2014–2017, user fee funding of AQI 

services under the proposed rule is 

projected to be $530.6 million more and 

appropriated funding of AQI services is 

projected to be $241.2 million less than 

would occur with continuation of the 

current fee schedule. 

Increased reliance on user fee funding 

means that APHIS would more fully 

meet its statutory mandate to prescribe 

and collect cost-based fees for providing 

AQI services, including maintaining a 

reasonable reserve. It also means that 

appropriated funds that would be used 

to pay for AQI services under the 

existing user fee schedule may be 

available for other Federal uses. We are 

unable to determine how those 

appropriated funds that would no 

longer be used to pay for AQI services 

under the proposed rule may be 

otherwise used. We expect that the 

proposed increase in user fee funding 

and the decrease in appropriated 

funding would have small distributional 

effects that may be largely offsetting. 

Firms most likely to be impacted by 

this rule are transportation businesses 

within the truck, rail, sea, and air cargo 

sectors that import goods into the 

United States. While the Small Business 

Administration has set guidelines for 

the definition of small businesses 

within each of those sectors, the size 

data do not distinguish between 

transportation firms that operate 

internationally and those firms that only 

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operate within the United States. 

However, the effects of the proposed 

rule on firms within the transportation 

sector are expected to be limited, 

regardless of firm size. In addition, at 

least some portion of increased user fees 

may be passed on to consumers. 

We invite public comment on the 

proposed rule, including comments on 

the expected impacts for small entities 

and how the proposed rule may be 

modified to reduce the burden for small 

entities consistent with the rule’s 

objectives. Any comment suggesting 

changes to the proposed rule should be 

accompanied by supporting evidence 

and an explanation of why the changes 

should be considered and supporting 

evidence. 

Executive Order 12988 

This proposed rule has been reviewed 

under Executive Order 12988, Civil 

Justice Reform. If this proposed rule is 

adopted: (1) All State and local laws and 

regulations that are inconsistent with 

this rule will be preempted; (2) no 

retroactive effect will be given to this 

rule; and (3) administrative proceedings 

will not be required before parties may 

file suit in court challenging this rule. 

Paperwork Reduction Act 

This rule contains no new 

information collection or recordkeeping 

requirements under the Paperwork 

Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501 

et seq.). 

List of Subjects in 7 CFR Part 354 

Animal diseases, Exports, 

Government employees, Imports, Plant 

diseases and pests, Quarantine, 

Reporting and recordkeeping 

requirements, Travel and transportation 

expenses. 

Accordingly, we are proposing to 

amend 7 CFR part 354 as follows: 

PART 354—OVERTIME SERVICES 

RELATING TO IMPORTS AND 

EXPORTS; AND USER FEES 

■ 1. The authority citation for part 354 

continues to read as follows: 

Authority: 7 U.S.C. 7701–7772, 7781–7786, 

and 8301–8317; 21 U.S.C. 136 and 136a; 49 

U.S.C. 80503; 7 CFR 2.22, 2.80, and 371.3. 

■ 2. Section 354.3 is amended as 

follows: 

■ a. By revising the tables in paragraphs 

(b)(1), (c)(1), (d)(1), and (e)(1). 

■ b. In paragraph (b)(1), by removing the 

words ‘‘, not to exceed 15 payments in 

a calendar year (i.e., no additional fee 

will be charged for a 16th or subsequent 

arrival in a calendar year),’’. 

■ c. In paragraph (c)(3)(i), by removing 

the words ‘‘20 times’’ and adding the 

words ‘‘40 times’’ in their place. 

■ d. By revising paragraphs (f)(1), 

(f)(2)(i), (f)(8), and adding paragraph (h). 

The revisions and additions read as 

follows: 

§ 354.3 User fees for certain international 

services. 

* * * * * 

(b) Fee for inspection of commercial 

vessels of 100 net tons or more. (1) 

* * * 

Effective dates Amount 

Beginning [effective date of final 

rule] ........................................... $825 

* * * * * 

(c) Fee for inspection of commercial 

trucks. (1) * * * 

Effective dates Amount 

Beginning [effective date of final 

rule] ........................................... $8 

* * * * * 

(d) Fee for inspection of commercial 

railroad cars. (1) * * * 

Effective dates Amount 

Beginning [effective date of final 

rule] ........................................... $2 

* * * * * 

(e) Fee for inspection of commercial 

aircraft. (1) * * * 

Effective dates Amount 

Beginning [effective date of final 

rule] ........................................... $225 

* * * * * 

(f) Fee for inspection of international 

passengers. (1) Except as specified in 

paragraph (f)(2) of this section, each 

passenger aboard a commercial aircraft 

or cruise ship who is subject to 

inspection under part 330 of this 

chapter or 9 CFR, chapter I, subchapter 

D, upon arrival from a place outside of 

the customs territory of the United 

States, must pay an AQI user fee. The 

AQI user fee for each arrival is shown 

in the following table: 

Effective dates 1 Passenger type Amount 

Beginning [effective date of final rule] .................................................................... Commercial aircraft ................................................ $4 

Beginning [effective date of final rule] .................................................................... Cruise ship ............................................................. 2 

1Persons who issue international airline and cruise line tickets or travel documents are responsible for collecting the AQI international airline 

passenger user fee and the international cruise ship passenger user fee from ticket purchasers. Issuers must collect the fee applicable at the 

time tickets are sold. In the event that ticket sellers do not collect the AQI user fee when tickets are sold, the air carrier or cruise line must collect 

the user fee that is applicable at the time of departure from the passenger upon departure. 

(2) * * * 

(i) Crew members who are on duty 

aboard a cruise ship; 

* * * * * 

(8) Limitation on charges. Airlines 

and cruise lines will not be charged 

reimbursable overtime for passenger 

inspection services required for any 

aircraft or cruise ship on which a 

passenger arrived who has paid the 

international passenger AQI user fee for 

that flight or cruise. 

* * * * * 

(h) Fee for conducting and monitoring 

treatments. (1) Each importer of a 

consignment of articles that require 

treatment upon arrival from a place 

outside of the customs territory of the 

United States, either as a preassigned 

condition of entry or as a remedial 

measure ordered following the 

inspection of the consignment, must pay 

an AQI user fee. The AQI user fee is 

charged on a per-treatment basis, i.e., if 

two or more consignments are treated 

together, only a single fee will be 

charged, and if a single consignment is 

split or must be retreated, a fee will be 

charged for each separate treatment 

conducted. The AQI user fee for each 

treatment is shown in the following 

table: 

Effective dates Amount 

Beginning [effective date of final 

rule] ........................................... $375 

(2) Treatment provider. (i) Private 

entities that provide AQI treatment 

services to importers are responsible for 

collecting the AQI treatment user fee 

from the importer for whom the service 

is provided. Treatment providers must 

collect the AQI treatment fee applicable 

at the time the treatment is applied. 

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22908 Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 80 / Friday, April 25, 2014 / Proposed Rules 

(ii) When AQI treatment services are 

provided by APHIS, APHIS will collect 

the AQI treatment fee applicable at the 

time the treatment is applied from the 

person receiving the services. 

Remittances must be made by check or 

money order, payable in United States 

dollars, through a United States bank, to 

‘‘The Animal and Plant Health 

Inspection Service.’’ 

(3) Collection of fees. (i) In cases 

where APHIS is not providing the AQI 

treatment and collecting the associated 

fee, AQI user fees collected from 

importers pursuant to paragraph (h) of 

this section shall be held in trust for the 

United States by the person collecting 

such fees, by any person holding such 

fees, or by the person who is ultimately 

responsible for remittance of such fees 

to APHIS. AQI user fees collected from 

importers shall be accounted for 

separately and shall be regarded as trust 

funds held by the person possessing 

such fees as agents, for the beneficial 

interest of the United States. All such 

user fees held by any person shall be 

property in which the person holds only 

a possessory interest and not an 

equitable interest. As compensation for 

collecting, handling, and remitting the 

AQI treatment user fees, the person 

holding such user fees shall be entitled 

to any interest or other investment 

return earned on the user fees between 

the time of collection and the time the 

user fees are due to be remitted to 

APHIS under this section. Nothing in 

this section shall affect APHIS’ right to 

collect interest from the person holding 

such user fees for late remittance. 

(4) Remittance and statement 

procedures. (i) The treatment provider 

that collects the AQI treatment user fee 

must remit the fee to [address to be 

added in final rule]. 

(ii) AQI treatment user fees must be 

remitted to [address to be added in final 

rule] for receipt no later than 31 days 

after the close of the calendar quarter in 

which the AQI user fees were collected. 

Late payments will be subject to 

interest, penalty, and handling charges 

as provided in the Debt Collection Act 

of 1982, as amended by the Debt 

Collection Improvement Act of 1996 (31 

U.S.C. 3717). 

(iii) The remitter must mail with the 

remittance a written statement to 

[address to be added in final rule]. The 

statement must include the following 

information: 

(A) Name and address of the person 

remitting payment; 

(B) Taxpayer identification number of 

the person remitting payment; 

(C) Calendar quarter covered by the 

payment; and 

(D) Amount collected and remitted. 

(iv) Remittances must be made by 

check or money order, payable in 

United States dollars, through a United 

States bank, to ‘‘The Animal and Plant 

Health Inspection Service.’’ 

* * * * * 

Done in Washington, DC, this 21st day of 

April 2014. 

Gary Woodward, 

Deputy Under Secretary for Marketing and 

Regulatory Programs. 

[FR Doc. 2014–09466 Filed 4–24–14; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3410–34–P 

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Federal Aviation Administration 

14 CFR Part 39 

[Docket No. FAA–2014–0256; Directorate 

Identifier 2013–NM–214–AD] 

RIN 2120–AA64 

Airworthiness Directives; the Boeing 

Company Airplanes 

AGENCY: Federal Aviation 

Administration (FAA), DOT. 

ACTION: Notice of proposed rulemaking 

(NPRM). 

SUMMARY: We propose to adopt a new 

airworthiness directive (AD) for certain 

The Boeing Company Model 777 

airplanes. This proposed AD was 

prompted by reports of dual pitch rate 

sensor (PRS) failures, resulting in 

autopilot disconnects. This proposed 

AD would require an inspection to 

determine the PRS part number and 

replacement if necessary. We are 

proposing this AD to prevent a dual PRS 

failure that could cause an automatic 

disengagement of the autopilot and 

autoland, which may prevent continued 

safe flight and landing if disengagement 

occurs at low altitude and the flight 

crew is unable to safely assume control 

and execute a go-around or manual 

landing. 

DATES: We must receive comments on 

this proposed AD by June 9, 2014. 

ADDRESSES: You may send comments, 

using the procedures found in 14 CFR 

11.43 and 11.45, by any of the following 

methods: 

• Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to 

http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the 

instructions for submitting comments. 

• Fax: 202–493–2251. 

• Mail: U.S. Department of 

Transportation, Docket Operations, M– 

30, West Building Ground Floor, Room 

W12–140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE., 

Washington, DC 20590. 

• Hand Delivery: Deliver to Mail 

address above between 9 a.m. and 5 

p.m., Monday through Friday, except 

Federal holidays. 

For service information identified in 

this proposed AD, contact Boeing 

Commercial Airplanes, Attention: Data 

& Services Management, P.O. Box 3707, 

MC 2H–65, Seattle, WA 98124–2207; 

telephone 206–544–5000, extension 1; 

fax 206–766–5680; Internet https://

www.myboeingfleet.com. You may view 

this referenced service information at 

the FAA, Transport Airplane 

Directorate, 1601 Lind Avenue SW., 

Renton, WA. For information on the 

availability of this material at the FAA, 

call 425–227–1221. 

Examining the AD Docket 

You may examine the AD docket on 

the Internet at http://

www.regulations.gov by searching for 

and locating Docket No. FAA–2014– 

0256; or in person at the Docket 

Management Facility between 9 a.m. 

and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, 

except Federal holidays. The AD docket 

contains this proposed AD, the 

regulatory evaluation, any comments 

received, and other information. The 

street address for the Docket Office 

(phone: 800–647–5527) is in the 

ADDRESSES section. Comments will be 

available in the AD docket shortly after 

receipt. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Marie Hogestad, Aerospace Engineer, 

Systems and Equipment Branch, ANM– 

130S, FAA, Seattle Aircraft Certification 

Office, 1601 Lind Avenue SW., Renton, 

WA 98057–3356; phone: 425–917–6418; 

fax: 425–917–6590; email: 

marie.hogestad@faa.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Comments Invited 

We invite you to send any written 

relevant data, views, or arguments about 

this proposal. Send your comments to 

an address listed under the ADDRESSES

section. Include ‘‘Docket No. FAA– 

2014–0256; Directorate Identifier 2013– 

NM–214–AD’’ at the beginning of your 

comments. We specifically invite 

comments on the overall regulatory, 

economic, environmental, and energy 

aspects of this proposed AD. We will 

consider all comments received by the 

closing date and may amend this 

proposed AD because of those 

comments. 

We will post all comments we 

receive, without change, to http://

www.regulations.gov, including any 

personal information you provide. We 

will also post a report summarizing each 

substantive verbal contact we receive 

about this proposed AD. 

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