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contains documents other than rules or

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Notices Federal Register

48609 

Vol. 72, No. 164 

Friday, August 24, 2007 

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

Cooperative State Research, 

Education, and Extension Service 

Food Safety and Inspection Service 

Implementation of the Veterinary 

Medicine Loan Repayment Program 

Authorized by the National Veterinary 

Medical Service Act 

AGENCY: Cooperative State Research, 

Education, and Extension Service and 

Food Safety and Inspection Service, 

USDA. 

ACTION: Notice of use of funds. 

SUMMARY: USDA’s Cooperative State 

Research, Education, and Extension 

Service (CSREES) and Food Safety and 

Inspection Service (FSIS) jointly 

announce their implementation of the 

Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment 

Program authorized in 2003 by the 

National Veterinary Medical Service Act 

(NVMSA) (7 U.S.C. 3151a) and first 

funded in fiscal year (FY) 2006. To 

enable the first phase of this program, 

and in keeping with the existing Federal 

Student Loan Repayment Authority, 

CSREES has made funds appropriated to 

carry out the NVMSA available to FSIS 

to facilitate their recruitment of food 

animal veterinarians for designated 

hard-to-fill positions in food safety and 

supply, especially in rural communities, 

through the addition of loan repayment 

incentives to qualifying service 

agreements. FSIS, in turn, has posted 

information about positions eligible to 

receive loan repayments on the careers 

page of its Web site at http:// 

www.fsis.usda.gov/careers/Student_

Loan_Repayments_VMO/index.asp. 

DATES: Effective August 24, 2007, FSIS 

is accepting applications for positions 

eligible to receive NVMSA loan 

repayments. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For 

information about FSIS NVMSA loan 

repayment opportunities: Ronald K. 

Jones, Phone: 202–720–9521 or 

Ronald.Jones@fsis.usda.gov. For 

information about overall 

implementation of NVMSA: Gary B. 

Sherman, Phone: 202–401–4952 or 

Gary.Sherman@csrees.usda.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In 

January, 2003, the NVMSA passed into 

law. It established a new Veterinary 

Medicine Loan Repayment program 

authorizing the Secretary to carry out a 

program of entering into agreements 

with veterinarians under which they 

provide veterinary services in 

veterinarian shortage situations. In 

determining veterinarian shortage 

situations the Act authorizes the 

Secretary to consider: (1) Urban or rural 

areas that the Secretary determines have 

a shortage of veterinarians; (2) areas of 

veterinary practice that the Secretary 

determines have a shortage of 

veterinarians, such as public health, 

epidemiology, and food safety; (3) areas 

of veterinary need in the Federal 

Government; and (4) other factors the 

Secretary considers to be relevant. 

In November 2005, the Agriculture, 

Rural Development, Food and Drug 

Administration, and Related Agencies 

Appropriations Act, 2006 (Pub. L. 109– 

97) appropriated $500,000 for CSREES 

to implement the Veterinary Medicine 

Loan Repayment program and 

represented the first time funds had 

been expressly appropriated for this 

program. In February 2007, the Revised 

Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 

2007 (Pub. L. 110–5) appropriated an 

additional $495,000 for CSREES for the 

program. 

Beginning in the fall of 2005, CSREES 

hosted information sharing meetings on 

NVMSA and created a working group to 

explore implementation strategies that 

took into consideration the relatively 

modest appropriation for the loan 

repayment program. The working group 

developed a plan to lead a program that 

meets the intent of the authorizing 

legislation, is congruent with the 

mission and capabilities of the Agency, 

and draws on the expertise of other 

agencies, as appropriate. The plan 

received the support of the Secretary of 

Agriculture, and, on March 19, 2007, the 

authority to implement the Veterinary 

Medicine Loan Repayment program was 

delegated to CSREES which allowed the 

agency to proceed with implementing 

the first phase of the program (7 CFR 

Part 2). 

As a first step toward implementing 

the authorizing legislation this FY and 

in keeping with the already-existing 

Federal Student Loan Repayment 

Authority (5 U.S.C. 5379), in May 2007, 

CSREES made $750,000 in FY 2006 and 

2007 NVMSA funds available to 

facilitate FSIS’ recruitment of food 

animal veterinarians for designated 

hard-to-fill positions in food safety and 

supply, especially in rural communities. 

In addition to existing hiring incentives, 

and according to the above repayment 

authority and service agreements 

between FSIS and eligible recruits, FSIS 

intends to use these funds to offer 25 

veterinarians payments of $10,000 per 

year over 3 years to repay their 

educational debt in exchange for 

practicing in areas of veterinarian 

shortage or need. A current listing of 

shortage or need areas and other timely 

information about NVMSA loan 

repayments to Federal veterinarians are 

available on the careers page of the FSIS 

Web site at http://www.fsis.usda.gov/ 

careers/Student_Loan_Repayments

_VMO/index.asp. 

Anticipating the possibility of future 

budgetary growth and intending to 

extend this program to non-federal 

positions, CSREES plans to publish in 

the Federal Register a Request for 

Information from stakeholders to gather 

input on the best way(s) to define 

veterinarian shortage situations within 

the limits of the authorizing legislation 

and cost-effectively administer a largerscale loan repayment program for nonFederal veterinarians who serve in these 

situations. 

Done at Washington, DC this 20th day of 

August, 2007. 

Colien Hefferan, 

Administrator, Cooperative State Research, 

Education, and Extension Service. 

Alfred V. Almanza, 

Administrator, Food Safety and Inspection 

Service. 

[FR Doc. 07–4138 Filed 8–23–07; 8:45 am] 

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