Opinion ID: 868147
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Regulation of Plant Pests

Text: The PPA’s purpose is to prevent the spread of parasitic, diseased, and invasive plants and organisms, and it does so through the regulation of “plant pests” and “noxious weeds.” See 7 U.S.C. § 7712. The PPA was enacted in 2000 and combined APHIS’s prior regulation of plant pests and noxious weeds into a single statute. Previously, plant pests and noxious weeds were regulated by different statutes: The Federal Plant Pest Act of 1957 regulated plant pests while the Federal Noxious Weed Act of 1974 regulated noxious weeds. The PPA made few substantive changes to these statutes. The PPA’s definition of “plant pest” is materially the same as the 1957 Federal Plant Pest Act’s definition of plant pest. Compare Federal Plant Pest Act, § 103(c), 71 Stat. 31, 32 (1957), with 7 U.S.C. § 7702(14). This case turns on the language of the PPA that defines plant pests. APHIS has no jurisdiction to regulate a plant or animal unless the organism is a “plant pest” within the 12 CENTER FOR FOOD SAFETY V . VILSACK meaning of the statute. See 7 U.S.C. § 7702(14); 7 C.F.R. § 340.2 n.4 (“An[] organism belonging to any taxa [that 7 C.F.R. § 340.2 lists as a plant pest] is only considered to be a plant pest if the organism ‘can . . . injure, or cause disease, or damage in any plants or parts thereof. . . .’”). The plaintiffs’ principal contention is that RRA is a plant pest under the PPA. They therefore contend that APHIS’s conclusion that RRA was not a plant pest was arbitrary and capricious and violative of the PPA and APA. The PPA defines a plant pest to be: [A]ny living stage of any of the following that can directly or indirectly injure, cause damage to, or cause disease in any plant or plant product: (A) A protozoan (B) A nonhuman animal (C) A parasitic plant (D) A bacterium (E) A fungus (F) A virus or viroid (G) An infectious agent or other pathogen (H) Any article similar to or allied with any of the articles specified in the preceding subparagraphs. 7 U.S.C. § 7702(14). The PPA states that organisms regulated as “plant pests” must be organisms that cause physical harm to plants through injury, damage, or disease. Neither the statute nor the CENTER FOR FOOD SAFETY V . VILSACK 13 regulations indicate that a genetically engineered plant like RRA, which does not itself physically damage plants, can be a plant pest. The regulations echo the statute and define “plant pest” in 7 C.F.R. § 340.1 as “organisms . . . which can directly or indirectly cause diseases or damage.” APHIS regulations do not ignore the introduction of organisms or products altered or produced through genetic engineering, however. See 7 C.F.R. § 340.0 n.1. This is because genetically engineered plants are often created using an organism that can itself be a plant pest under APHIS’s regulations. Indeed, RRA was created by inserting a glyphosate-resistant gene into the genetic structure of the conventional alfalfa plant using a plant pest. The glyphosateresistant gene was transferred to the conventional alfalfa plant using a bacterium—Agrobacterium—that APHIS regulations classify as a plant pest. See 7 C.F.R. § 340.2. The regulations therefore provide that a genetically modified organism is regulated as a plant pest if it is created using an organism that is itself a plant pest. Id. § 340.1 (defining a regulated article under APHIS’s plant pest regulations as “[a]ny organism which has been altered or produced through genetic engineering, if the donor organism . . . or vector or vector agent belongs to any genera or taxa designated in § 340.2 and meets the definition of plant pest”). APHIS regulates such a genetically engineered organism, referred to by the parties as a “presumptive plant pest,” until the agency concludes on the basis of scientific evidence that the modified plant is not a “plant pest.” See id. § 340.6. To discontinue regulating a presumptive plant pest, the regulations spell out that any party may petition APHIS using the petitioning procedures described in 7 C.F.R § 340.6. When such a petition is filed, the agency determines whether 14 CENTER FOR FOOD SAFETY V . VILSACK a presumptive plant pest is an actual plant pest within the meaning of the term in the PPA by evaluating data that the petitioning party has included in its petition. Id. § 340.6(c). Such evidence is generally provided by the company that engineered the plant, for the regulations require information that is most easily supplied by such a party. The regulation requires information about the presumptive plant pest’s biology and any experiments that were conducted on the plant. Id. The agency also considers data from field tests in which APHIS permits introduction of the presumptive plant pest into the environment on a limited basis to study how it affects other plants. Id. § 340.6(c)(5). On the basis of the information submitted, APHIS examines whether the genetically modified plant presents a greater risk of plant harm than the nonmodified plant. See id. § 340.6(c)(4) (requiring that a party petitioning “[d]escribe known and potential differences from the unmodified recipient organism that would substantiate that the regulated article is unlikely to pose a greater plant pest risk than the unmodified organism from which it was derived”). If APHIS concludes that the presumptive plant pest does not exhibit any risk of plant pest harm, APHIS must deregulate it since the agency does not have jurisdiction to regulate organisms that are not plant pests.