Oranges, Grapefruit, Tangerines, and Pummelos Grown in Florida; Increased Assessment Rate

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE <SUBAGY>Agricultural Marketing Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>7 CFR Part 905</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Doc. No. AMS-SC-24-0071]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Oranges, Grapefruit, Tangerines, and Pummelos Grown in Florida; Increased Assessment Rate</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 would implement a recommendation from the Citrus Administrative Committee (Committee) to increase the assessment rate established for the 2024-2025 and subsequent fiscal periods from $0.02 to $0.025 per <FR>4/5</FR> -bushel carton or equivalent for oranges, grapefruit, tangerines and pummelos grown in Florida. The proposed assessment rate would remain in effect indefinitely unless modified, suspended, or terminated. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received by October 31, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Interested persons are invited to submit written comments concerning this proposed rule. Comments can be sent to the Docket Clerk, Market Development Division, Specialty Crops Program, AMS, USDA, 1400 Independence Avenue SW, STOP 0237, Washington, DC 20250-0237. Comments can also be sent to the Docket Clerk electronically by email: <E T="03">MarketingOrderComment@usda.gov</E> or via the internet: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Comments should reference the document number, the date, and the page number of this issue of the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . Comments submitted in response to this proposed rule will be included in the record, will be made available to the public, and can be viewed at: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Please be advised that the identity of the individuals or entities submitting the comments will be made public on the internet at the address provided above. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jennie M. Varela, Marketing Specialist, or Christian D. Nissen, Chief, Southeast Region Branch, Market Development Division, Specialty Crops Program, AMS, USDA; telephone: (863) 324-3375, fax: (863) 291-8614, or email: <E T="03">Jennie.Varela@usda.gov</E> or <E T="03">Christian.Nissen@usda.gov.</E> Small businesses may request information on complying with this regulation by contacting Antoinette Carter, Market Development Division, Specialty Crops Program, AMS, USDA, 1400 Independence Avenue SW, STOP 0237, Washington, DC 20250-0237; telephone: (202) 720-8085, or email: <E T="03">Antoinette.Carter@usda.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This action, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 553, proposes to amend regulations issued to carry out a marketing order as defined in 7 CFR 900.2(j). This proposed rule is issued under Marketing Order No. 905, as amended (7 CFR part 905), regulating the handling of oranges, grapefruit, tangerines, and pummelos grown in Florida. Part 905 (referred to as “the Order”) is effective under the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937, as amended (7 U.S.C. 601-674), hereinafter referred to as the “Act.” The Committee locally administers the Order and is comprised of growers of fresh citrus operating within the area of production, and one public member. The Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) is issuing this proposed rule in conformance with Executive Order 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 action falls within a category of regulatory actions that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) exempted from Executive Order 12866 review. This proposed rule has been reviewed under Executive Order 13175, “Consultation and Coordination with Indian Tribal Governments,” which requires Federal agencies to consider whether their rulemaking actions would have Tribal implications. AMS has determined that this proposed rule is unlikely to have substantial direct effects on one or more Indian Tribes, on the relationship between the Federal Government and Indian Tribes, or on the distribution of power and responsibilities between the Federal Government and Indian Tribes. This proposed rule has been reviewed under Executive Order 12988, “Civil Justice Reform.” Under the Order now in effect, Florida citrus handlers are subject to assessments. Funds to administer the Order are derived from such assessments. It is intended that the proposed assessment rate would be applicable to all assessable Florida citrus for the 2024-2025 fiscal period, and continue until amended, suspended, or terminated. The Act provides that administrative proceedings must be exhausted before parties may file suit in court. Under section 608c(15)(A) of the Act, any handler subject to an order may file with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) a petition stating that the order, any provision of the order, or any obligation imposed in connection with the order is not in accordance with law and request a modification of the order or to be exempted therefrom. Such handler is afforded the opportunity for a hearing on the petition. After the hearing, USDA would rule on the petition. The Act provides that the district court of the United States in any district in which the handler is an inhabitant, or has his or her principal place of business, has jurisdiction to review USDA's ruling on the petition, provided an action is filed not later than 20 days after the date of the entry of the ruling. This proposed rule would increase the assessment rate for Florida citrus handled under the Order from $0.02 to $0.025 per <FR>4/5</FR> -bushel carton or equivalent, for the 2024-2025 and subsequent fiscal periods. Sections 905.40 and 905.41 of the Order authorize the Committee, with the approval of AMS, to formulate an annual budget of expenses and collect assessments from handlers to administer the program. The members of the Committee are familiar with the Committee's needs and with the costs of goods and services in their local area and, thus, can formulate an appropriate budget and assessment rate. The assessment rate is formulated and discussed in a public meeting, and all directly affected persons have an opportunity to participate and provide input. For the 2023-2024 and subsequent fiscal periods, the Committee recommended, and AMS approved, an assessment rate of $0.02 per <FR>4/5</FR> -bushel carton of citrus or equivalent. That rate continues in effect from fiscal period to fiscal period until modified, suspended, or terminated by AMS upon recommendation and information submitted by the Committee or other information available to AMS. The Committee met on September 23, 2024, and unanimously recommended 2024-2025 fiscal period expenditures of $119,624 and an increased assessment rate of $0.025 per <FR>4/5</FR> -bushel carton of citrus or equivalent handled for the 2024-2025 fiscal period and subsequent fiscal periods. In comparison, budgeted expenditures for the 2023-2024 fiscal year were $124,624. The proposed assessment rate of $0.025 is $0.005 higher than the rate currently in effect. The Committee recommended increasing the assessment rate to reduce the burden on its financial reserve, which had been strained during the previous two seasons after unexpected, decreased shipment volumes. Following Hurricanes Helene and Milton, the Committee met again on November 14, 2024, and reaffirmed its recommendation for an assessment rate increase to help respond to damage incurred by both weather events. The Committee estimates shipments of approximately 4,500,000 <FR>4/5</FR> -bushel cartons of citrus or equivalent for the 2024-2025 fiscal period, which is 1,145,904 fewer cartons than was handled for the 2023-2024 fiscal period. The major expenditures recommended by the Committee for the 2024-2025 fiscal period include management, auditing, and compliance travel expenses—the same as budgeted for the 2023-2024 fiscal period. The Committee derived the recommended assessment rate by considering anticipated expenses, an estimated 4,500,000 <FR>4/5</FR> -bushel cartons or equivalent of assessable Florida citrus, and the amount of funds available in the authorized reserve. At the current assessment rate of $0.02, the expected 4,500,000 <FR>4/5</FR> -bushel cartons or equivalent of the assessable Florida citrus would generate $90,000 in assessment revenue (4,500,000 cartons multiplied by the $0.02 assessment rate), which would require the use of $29,624 of reserves to cover the anticipated expenditures of $119,624 for the 2024-2025 fiscal period. By increasing the assessment rate by $0.005 to $0.025, assessment revenue would generate $112,500 (4,500,000 cartons multiplied by the $0.025 assessment rate) for the 2024-2025 fiscal period and would only require $7,124 in reserves to cover expenditures. Income derived from handler assessments, along with reserve funds and interest income, would be sufficient to meet the Committee's recommended budgeted expenditures of $119,624 for the 2024-2025 fiscal period. Funds available in the reserve (approximately $146,000) are expected to be kept within the maximum permitted by the Order (approximately two fiscal periods' expenses as authorized in § 905.42). The proposed assessment rate would continue in effect indefinitely unless modified, suspended, or terminated by AMS upon recommendation and information submitted by the Committee or o ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━