Updates to the Popcorn Promotion, Research, and Consumer Information Order

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE <SUBAGY>Agricultural Marketing Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>7 CFR Part 1215</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Doc. No. AMS-SC-24-0038]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Updates to the Popcorn Promotion, Research, and Consumer Information Order</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Agricultural Marketing Service, USDA. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This proposal invites comments on updates to the Popcorn Promotion, Research, and Consumer Information Order (Order). This proposal would increase the mandatory assessment rate from 5 cents per hundredweight of popcorn to 6 cents to reflect the present rate which was administratively increased in 2001 and has been charged of processors since. Additionally, subpart C would be added to the Order prescribing late payment and interest charges on past due assessments. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received by July 10, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Interested persons are invited to submit written comments concerning this proposed rule. Comments may be mailed to the Docket Clerk, Market Development Division, Specialty Crops Program, AMS, USDA, 1400 Independence Avenue SW, STOP 0237, Washington, DC 20250-0237; Fax: (202) 720-8938; or submitted electronically by Email: <E T="03">SM.USDA.MRP.AMS.MDDComment@usda.gov;</E> or via the internet at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Comments should reference the document number and the date and page number of this issue of the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . All comments will be made available for public inspection in the Office of the Docket Clerk during regular business hours or can be viewed at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Comments submitted in response to this proposed rule will be included in the rulemaking record and will be made available to the public. Please be advised that the identity of the individuals or entities submitting the comments will be made public. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> George Webster, Marketing Specialist, Market Development Division, Specialty Crops Program, Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), 1400 Independence Avenue SW, Room 1406-S, Stop 0244, Washington, DC 20250-0244; Telephone: (202) 720-8085; or Email: <E T="03">George.Webster@usda.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This proposed rule affecting the Order (7 CFR part 1215) is authorized by the Popcorn Promotion, Research, and Consumer Information Act (Act) (7 U.S.C. 7481-7491). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Executive Orders 12866 and 13563</HD> USDA is issuing this proposed rule in conformance with Executive Orders 12866 and 13563. Executive Orders 12866 and 13563 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, environmental, public health and safety effects, distributive impacts, and equity). Executive Order 13563 emphasizes the importance of quantifying both costs and benefits, reducing costs, harmonizing rules, and promoting flexibility. This proposed action falls within a category of regulatory actions that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) exempted from Executive Order 12866, and therefore, has not been reviewed. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Executive Order 13175</HD> This action has been reviewed in accordance with the requirements of Executive Order 13175, Consultation and Coordination with Indian Tribal Governments. AMS has assessed the impact of this proposed rule on Indian Tribes and determined that this rule would not have Tribal implications that require consultation under Executive Order 13175. AMS hosts a quarterly teleconference with Tribal leaders where matters of mutual interest regarding the marketing of agricultural products are discussed. Information about the proposed changes to the regulations will be shared during an upcoming quarterly call, and Tribal leaders will be informed about the proposed revisions to the regulation and the opportunity to submit comments. AMS will work with the USDA Office of Tribal Relations to ensure meaningful consultation is provided as needed with regard to these proposed changes to the Order. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Executive Order 12988</HD> This proposal has been reviewed under Executive Order 12988—Civil Justice Reform. It is not intended to have retroactive effect. Section 524 of the Act (7 U.S.C. 7423) provides that it shall not affect or preempt any other Federal or State law authorizing promotion or research relating to an agricultural commodity. Under section 519 of the Act (7 U.S.C. 7418), a person subject to an order may file a written petition with USDA stating that an order, any provision of an order, or any obligation imposed in connection with an order, is not established in accordance with the law, and request a modification of an order or an exemption from an order. Any petition filed challenging an order, any provision of an order, or any obligation imposed in connection with an order, shall be filed within two years after the effective date of an order, provision, or obligation subject to challenge in the petition. The petitioner will have the opportunity for a hearing on the petition. Thereafter, USDA will issue a ruling on the petition. The Act provides that the district court of the United States for any district in which the petitioner resides or conducts business shall have the jurisdiction to review a final ruling on the petition if the petitioner files a complaint for that purpose not later than 20 days after the date of the entry of USDA's final ruling. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> Under the Order, the Popcorn Board (Board), with USDA oversight, administers a nationally coordinated program of research, promotion, and consumer information designed to maintain and expand markets for U.S. popcorn. The program is financed by assessments on processors of more than four million pounds of popcorn annually. The Board, which is composed of five popcorn processors, unanimously recommended these proposed changes during a meeting on August 28, 2024. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Assessment Rate Increase</HD> Currently section 1215.51(c) of the Order states that the rate of assessment shall be 5 cents per hundredweight of popcorn. This rate was administratively increased by the Board in 2001 to 6 cents per hundredweight of popcorn and has been charged of processors since. This proposal would update the assessment rate stated in the Order to accurately reflect the change that took place in 2001. This update would help eliminate any confusion amongst the industry on what the current mandatory assessment rate is. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Interest Charges on Past Due Assessments</HD> Section 575(j) of the Act (7 U.S.C. 7484(j)) states that “The order shall contain such other terms and conditions, consistent with this subtitle, as are necessary to effectuate this subtitle, including regulations relating to the assessment of late payment charges.” Section 1215.51(e) of the Order states that “Each person responsible for remitting assessments under paragraphs (a) and (b) of this section shall remit the amounts due from assessments to the Board on a quarterly basis no later than the last day of the month following the last month in the previous quarter in which the popcorn was marketed, in such manner as prescribed by the Board.” Section 1215.51(f) states that “The Board shall impose a late payment charge on any person who fails to remit to the Board the total amount for which the person is liable on or before the payment due date established under this section. The amount of the late payment charge shall be prescribed in rules and regulations as approved by the Secretary.” Section 1215.51(g) states that “The Board shall impose an additional charge on any person subject to a late payment charge, in the form of interest on the outstanding portion of any amount for which the person is liable. The rate of interest shall be prescribed in rules and regulations as approved by the Secretary.” Currently, the Board outlines the late payment and interest fees charged on past due assessments from processors of popcorn in their Operational Policies and Procedures document; however, these fees are not detailed in the Order. This proposal would codify the Board's ability to collect late payment and interest charges on past due assessments by creating a new section in the Order outlining these fees. Under this proposal, a one-time late payment charge of $250 would be imposed on any processor who fails to pay any assessments owed within 30 calendar days of the date they are due. This one-time late payment charge would increase to $500 after 90 days of delinquency. These late payment charge amounts were chosen by the Board after reviewing Order language of other research and promotion programs of similar size and annual assessment collections. Additionally, 1.25 percent per month interest on any outstanding balance, including any late payment and accrued interest would be added to any accounts for which payment has not been received within 30 calendar days of when the assessments are due. This monthly interest charge was chosen by the Board to match the current language in their Operational Policies and Procedures document. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Initial Regulatory Flexibility Act</HD> Pursuant to requirements set forth in the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) (5 U.S.C. 601 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ), AMS has considered the economic impact of this proposed action on small entities that would be affected by this rule, if finalized. Accordingly, AMS has prepared this initial regulatory flexibility analysis. The purpose of the RFA is to fit regulatory action to ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 20k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━