Watermelon Research and Promotion Plan; Realignment

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE <SUBAGY>Agricultural Marketing Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>7 CFR Part 1210</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Doc. No. AMS-SC-25-0008]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Watermelon Research and Promotion Plan; Realignment</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Agricultural Marketing Service, USDA. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This proposed rule invites comments on realigning the representation on the National Watermelon Promotion Board (Board) prescribed in the Watermelon Research and Promotion Plan (Plan) by adjusting several production districts and reducing the number of importers on the Board. This action would contribute to effective administration of the program. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received by October 20, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Interested persons are invited to submit written comments concerning this proposed rule. You may send comments on this proposed rule to the Federal eRulemaking Portal at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/.</E> You can access this proposed rule and instructions for submitting public comments by searching for the rule title. Comments may also be mailed to the Docket Clerk, 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 20250-0237; or submitted electronically by email: <E T="03">SM.USDA.MRP.AMS.MDDComment@usda.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 comments are posted as submitted without change and the identity of the individuals or entities submitting the comments will be public. Do not submit confidential business information, or otherwise proprietary, sensitive or protected information. AMS will not post or consider comments that contain profanity, vulgarity, threats, or other inappropriate language or like content. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Alexandra Caryl, Branch Chief, Mid-Atlantic Region Branch, Market Development Division, Specialty Crop Program, AMS, USDA, STOP 0244, 1400 Independence Avenue SW, Room 1406-S, Washington, DC 20250-0244; Telephone: (202) 720-8805; or Email: <E T="03">Alexandra.Caryl@usda.gov,</E> or William Hodges, Marketing Specialist, Mid-Atlantic Region Branch, Market Development Division, Specialty Crops Program, AMS, USDA, STOP 0244, 1400 Independence Avenue SW, Room 1406-S, Washington, DC 20250-0244; Telephone: (443) 571-8456; or Email: <E T="03">William.Hodges2@usda.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This proposed rule affecting the Watermelon Research and Promotion Plan (7 CFR part 1210) (Plan) is authorized by the Watermelon Research and Promotion Act (7 U.S.C. 4901-4916) (Act). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Executive Orders 12866 and 13563</HD> USDA is issuing this proposed rule in conformance with Executive Orders 12866, as amended by Executive Order 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 rule is not a significant regulatory action within the meaning of Executive Order 12866. Accordingly, this action has not been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget under section 6 of the Executive Order 12866. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Executive Order 13175</HD> This action was reviewed in accordance with the requirements of Executive Order 13175, Consultation and Coordination with Indian Tribal Governments, which requires agencies to consider whether their rulemaking actions will have Tribal implications. AMS determined that this proposed rule is unlikely to have substantial direct effects on one or more Indian Tribes, or the relationship between the Federal Government and Indian Tribes, or on the distribution of power and responsibilities between the Federal Government and Indian Tribes. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Executive Order 12988</HD> This proposed rule was reviewed under Executive Order 12988, Civil Justice Reform. The Act 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 1650 of the Act (7 U.S.C. 4909), a person may file a written petition with the Secretary of Agriculture (Secretary) if they believe that the Plan, any provision of the Plan, or any obligation imposed in connection with the Plan, is not in accordance with the law. In any petition, the person may request a modification of the Plan or an exemption from the Plan. The petitioner will have the opportunity for a hearing on the petition. Afterwards, an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) will issue a decision. If the petitioner disagrees with the ALJ's ruling, the petitioner has 30 days to appeal to the Judicial Officer, who will issue a ruling on behalf of the Secretary. If the petitioner disagrees with the Secretary's ruling, the petitioner may file, within 20 days, an appeal in the U.S. District Court for the district where the petitioner resides or conducts business. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> This proposal invites comments on realigning the Board's representation and procedures under the Plan. The Board administers the Plan with oversight by USDA. The Plan is a nationally coordinated program of research, development, advertising, and promotion designed to strengthen watermelon's position in the marketplace and to establish, maintain, and expand markets for watermelons. The program is financed by assessments on producers growing 10 acres or more of watermelons, handlers of watermelons, and importers of 150,000 pounds of watermelons or more per year. The Plan specifies that handlers are responsible for collecting and submitting both producer and handler assessments to the Board, reporting their handling of watermelons, and maintaining records necessary to verify their reporting(s). Importers are responsible for paying assessments to the Board on watermelons imported into the United States through U.S. Customs and Border Protection (Customs). This proposal invites comments on realigning the Board by adjusting several production districts under the Plan for producer and handler representation on the Board and proportionally reducing the number of importer seats on the Board from nine to seven. This is intended to more equally represent the average annual percentage of assessments paid by importers. These changes were recommended by the Board after a review of the production volume and assessments paid in each production district, as well as the assessments paid by importers. The Plan requires that such a review be conducted at least every five years. These changes would help facilitate program operations, and the full Board unanimously voted to recommend these changes to the Secretary at their meeting on October 15, 2024, in Atlanta, Georgia. After consideration of all relevant material presented, including the information and recommendations submitted by the Committee and other available information, AMS has determined that this rule is consistent with and will effectuate the declared policy of the Act. Section 1210.320(a) of the Plan specifies that the Board shall be comprised of producers, handlers, importers, and one public representative appointed by the Secretary. Pursuant to § 1210.320(b), the Plan originally divided the United States into seven districts of comparable production volumes of watermelons, and each district was allocated two producer members and two handler members. Section 1210.320(d) specifies that importer representation on the Board shall be proportionate to the percentage of assessments paid by importers to the Board, except that at least one representative of importers shall serve on the Board. The current Board is comprised of 30 members: 10 producers (two from each district), 10 handlers (two from each district), nine importers, and one public member. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Review of United States Districts</HD> Section 1210.320(c) of the Plan requires the Board, at least every five years, to review the districts to determine whether realignment is necessary. In conducting the review, the Board must consider: (1) The most recent three years of USDA production reports or Board assessment reports if USDA production reports are unavailable; (2) shifts and trends in quantities of watermelon produced, and (3) other relevant factors. As a result of the review, the Board may recommend to USDA that the districts be realigned. Pursuant to § 1210.501 of the Plan, the five current districts are as follows: <E T="03">District 1</E> —The State of Florida; <E T="03">District 2</E> —The State of Georgia; <E T="03">District 3</E> —The States of Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas; <E T="03">District 4</E> —The States of Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, V ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 30k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━