Inspection and Certification of Establishments, Fishery Products, and Other Marine Ingredients

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 260</CFR> <DEPDOC>[241206-0315] </DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BH37</RIN> <SUBJECT>Inspection and Certification of Establishments, Fishery Products, and Other Marine Ingredients</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS or Agency), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The NMFS Office of International Affairs, Trade, and Commerce is revising its current implementing regulations to improve the uniformity and reliability of seafood inspection services by adopting recognized best practices for inspection. NMFS has not significantly revised or updated the existing regulations since first issuing them in 1971, though it has modified many operating procedures since implementation of the current regulations. NMFS anticipates that these revisions will benefit the seafood industry by streamlining seafood inspection services and providing improved, more accurate inspection results. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective January 15, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Public comments and materials received and used in the preparation of this final rule are available online at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> in docket number NOAA-NMFS-2024-0061. In case of problems accessing these documents, please use the contact listed here (see <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> ). <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Melissa Beaudry, Senior Consumer Safety Officer, Seafood Inspection Program, National Marine Fisheries Service Office of International Affairs, Trade, and Commerce by email at <E T="03">Melissa.Beaudry@noaa.gov</E> or by phone at 301-427-8308. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED"> SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: </HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> Under the authority of the Agricultural Marketing Act (AMA) of 1946 (7 U.S.C. 1621 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ), and in accordance with the Reorganization Plan Number 4 of 1970 (84 Stat. 2090), NOAA administers a voluntary Seafood Inspection Program (SIP or Program) which offers inspection and grading services for seafood and other marine products, as well as audit and consultative services to domestic and international processors, importers, and international competent food safety authorities. SIP also authorizes the use of certain marks and shields to processors meeting specific safety, quality, and other program requirements. The existing regulations codified at 50 CFR part 260 have not been significantly revised or updated since NMFS first issued them in 1971, 36 FR 21037 (November 3, 1971), and currently do not reflect the changes in industry practices or the expanding role of SIP since that time. NMFS published a notice of proposed rulemaking (89 FR 31690, April 25, 2024) and requested comments for 30 days. SIP received six public comments during the 30-day comment period. We reviewed and considered all comments received in development of this final rule. All substantive comments received on the proposed rule are addressed in this final rule in the Comments and Responses section. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments and Responses</HD> We published the proposed rule in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on April 25, 2024 (89 FR 31690), with a 30-day comment period. During the 30-day comment period, we received six comment submissions. The comments received were from stakeholders and interested parties on focused areas of the Seafood Inspection Program. NMFS appreciates the thoughtful comments representing a diverse set of views and has considered them thoroughly. The comments generally expressed support of the action by the NMFS Office of International Affairs, Trade, and Commerce to revise its current implementing regulations to improve the uniformity and reliability of seafood inspection services by adopting recognized best practices for inspection. There was general support by commenters for the intent to modernize and move language from regulation to the online SIP Manual. There was also general support for simplifying the administrative, inspection, and certification procedures, updating and consolidating grade standards wherever possible, and SIP's effort to improve the uniformity and reliability of seafood inspections services. Our responses to all comments that are pertinent to this action are described below. <E T="03">Comment 1:</E> Some commentators recommended that periods of public comment be longer than 30 days, and that NMFS should give all operational alterations, including ones such as this proposed rule, at least nine weeks of industry consideration. There was also a request for industry-facing seminars/informational sessions, as well as consideration for seasonal timing impacts and that all change actions allow for industry dialogue and participation going forward. <E T="03">Response:</E> A 30-day comment period is generally considered by courts to be sufficient to allow for meaningful public participation pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act. Longer comment periods may be necessary where a rule is technically complex or lengthy. However, as the proposed rule codified NMFS's current practices and did not make any changes to NMFS's operation, a longer comment period was not necessary. NMFS does agree that before implementing any changes to policy that will affect how industry operates or responds, they will notify industry and engage in dialogue to ensure all parties understand the changes and have sufficient time to implement any changes required. <E T="03">Comment 2:</E> One commenter asked NMFS to focus on Gulf shrimp and raise tariffs against Thai shrimp. <E T="03">Response:</E> The authority to raise tariffs against any country or product is outside the scope and regulatory authority of the NMFS SIP. <E T="03">Comment 3:</E> One commenter asked whether NMFS conferred with FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) regarding definitions of “fish”, “fishery product”, “inspection service”, “product”, “wholesome.” Similarly, another commenter recommended examination of the final definitions for clarity, as well as the inclusion of sourcing for each new definition implemented in the event industry needs additional guidance. <E T="03">Response:</E> NMFS confirms that the FDA reviewed and provided feedback on the proposed rule prior to publication. The definitions used in the proposed rule are also in alignment with the definitions in current regulations, both under 50 CFR part 260 and 21 CFR parts 123 and 117. In the proposed rule, the definition for “fish” was revised from “. . . other than birds or mammals, and all mollusks, . . .” to “. . . other than birds or mammals, and <E T="03">including</E> all mollusks, . . .” to help clarify that all mollusks are defined as fish, which has been a source of confusion since the HACCP regulations in 21 CFR part 123 were implemented. The definition of fish was also expanded to include “other non-food uses.” These definitions remain unchanged in the final rule. NMFS disagrees with the need to source definitions, as the terms defined here pertain specifically to use within this regulation and source definitions to the use of these terms in other contexts would not provide accurate guidance to industry. <E T="03">Comment 4:</E> One commenter noted that some definitions refer to “animal” consumption (fish, inspection services) and others do not include “animal consumption” (fishery product, product, wholesome). <E T="03">Response:</E> The inclusion of “animal” or “animal consumption” in definitions varies based on the end use of the product. The definitions for “fish” and “inspection services” identify that the end use of the product could be for consumption other than as human food. NMFS inspects and certifies a variety of non-human food fishery products, whether they be for animal feed, use in making animal food, or other industrial uses. The terms “fishery product” and “wholesome” refer specifically to the end use being for human consumption. The definition for “product” does not include the word “animal”, but conveys that end use with the phrase “whether or not destined for human consumption”. <E T="03">Comment 5:</E> Several commenters asked how NMFS will notify industry of changes to the online manual. For example, one commenter suggested highlighting or striking out changes, or listing date(s) of revisions on each title page for transparency. Another commenter suggested that SIP establish a method of providing a summary of any modifications to the NMFS Fishery Products Inspection Manual (SIP Manual or Manual) so stakeholders are aware of and can locate the changes. A third commenter recommended a regular update period for the Manual, wherein industry may expect to review potential new Manual language annually or biannually, rather than needing to react to NMFS actions on short timelines when they are communicated. Another commenter recommended that amendments to the Manual or other policy changes be marked and displayed in ways that make it easy for users to see what is changing and how. <E T="03">Response:</E> NMFS agrees that changes to the online SIP Manual should be communicated to the public in a timely manner and in a transparent way. However, NMFS declines to adopt the suggestion to strike out or highlight changes in the Manual as this could create confusion and make the Manual more difficult to navigate. Additionally, restricting updates to only once or twice a year would make the online format less flexible, undermining NMFS' goal for the Manual to remain current and up to date. Therefore, NMFS will continue to make updates whe ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 89k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━