Cotton Board Rules and Regulations: Adjusting Supplemental Assessment on Imports (2025 Amendments)

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE <SUBAGY>Agricultural Marketing Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>7 CFR Part 1205</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Doc. No. AMS-CN-25-0018]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Cotton Board Rules and Regulations: Adjusting Supplemental Assessment on Imports (2025 Amendments)</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Agricultural Marketing Service, Department of Agriculture (USDA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) is amending the Cotton Board Rules and Regulations, decreasing the value assigned to imported cotton for the purposes of calculating supplemental assessments collected for use by the Cotton Research and Promotion Program. This amendment is required each year to ensure that assessments collected on imported cotton and the cotton content of imported products will be the same as those paid on domestically produced cotton. In addition, AMS is updating the Import Assessment Table to account for changes since the last assessment adjustment in 2024. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This direct final rule is effective March 1, 2026, without further action or notice, unless a significant adverse comment is received by January 30, 2026. If a significant adverse comment is received, AMS will publish a timely withdrawal of the amendment in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Interested persons are invited to submit written comments concerning this direct final rule. Comments may be submitted by mail or hand delivery to Cotton Research and Promotion, Cotton and Tobacco Program, AMS, USDA, 3275 Appling Road, Memphis, Tennessee 38133 or via the internet at: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> All 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 submitted in response to this direct final rule will be included in the record and 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> Sue Coleman, Acting Branch Chief, Research and Promotion, Cotton and Tobacco Program, AMS, USDA, 3275 Appling Road, Memphis, Tennessee 38133; telephone (901) 384-3000; facsimile (901) 384-3033; or email at <E T="03">CottonRP@usda.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">A. Background</HD> Amendments to the Cotton Research and Promotion Act (7 U.S.C. 2101-2118) (Act) were enacted by Congress under subtitle G of title XIX of the Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990 (Pub. L. 101-624, 104 Stat. 3909; November 28, 1990). These amendments contained two provisions that authorized changes in the funding procedures for the Cotton Research and Promotion Program. These provisions provided for: (1) the assessment of imported cotton and cotton products; and (2) termination of refunds to cotton producers. (Prior to the 1990 amendments to the Act, producers could request assessment refunds.) As amended, the Cotton Research and Promotion Order (7 CFR part 1205) (Order) was approved by producers and importers voting in a referendum held July 17-26, 1991, and the amended Order was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on December 10, 1991 (56 FR 64470). A proposed rule implementing the amended Order was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on December 17, 1991 (56 FR 65450). Implementing rules were published on July 1 and 2, 1992 (57 FR 29181) and (57 FR 29431), respectively. This direct final rule amends the value assigned to imported cotton in the Cotton Board Rules and Regulations (7 CFR 1205.510(b)(2)) that is used to determine the Cotton Research and Promotion assessment on imported cotton and cotton products. The total value of assessment levied on cotton imports is the sum of two parts. The first part of the assessment is based on the weight of cotton imported—levied at a rate of $1 per bale of cotton, which is equivalent to 500 pounds, or $1 per 226.8 kilograms of cotton. The second part of the import assessment (referred to as the supplemental assessment) is based on the value of imported cotton lint or the cotton contained in imported cotton products—levied at a rate of five-tenths of one percent of the value of domestically produced cotton. Section 1205.510(b)(2) of the Cotton Board Rules and Regulations provides for assigning the calendar year weighted average price received by U.S. farmers for Upland cotton to represent the value of imported cotton. This is so that the assessment on domestically produced cotton and the assessment on imported cotton and the cotton content of imported products is the same. The source for the average price statistic is <E T="03">Agricultural Prices,</E> a publication of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) of the Department of Agriculture. Use of the weighted average price figure in the calculation of supplemental assessments on imported cotton and the cotton content of imported products will yield an assessment that is the same as assessments paid on domestically produced cotton. The current value of imported cotton as published in 2024 in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (89 FR 75445) for the purpose of calculating assessments on imported cotton is $0.013247 per kilogram. Using the average weighted price received by U.S. farmers for Upland cotton for the calendar year 2024, this direct final rule amends the new value of imported cotton to $0.012388 per kilogram to reflect the price received by U.S. farmers for Upland cotton during 2024. An example of the complete assessment formula and how the figures are obtained is as follows:  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Results are rounded for ease of presentation. Totals may not sum due to rounding. </FTNT> One bale is equal to 500 pounds. One kilogram (kg) equals 2.2046 pounds. One pound equals 0.453597 kilograms. <HD SOURCE="HD2">One Dollar per Bale Assessment Converted to Kilograms</HD> A 500-pound bale equals 226.8 kg. (500 × 0.453597). $1 per bale assessment equals $0.002000 per pound or 0.2000 cents per pound (1/500) or $0.004409 per kg or 0.4409 cents per kg. (1/226.8). <HD SOURCE="HD2"> Supplemental Assessment of <FR>5/10</FR> of One Percent of the Value of the Cotton Converted to Kilograms </HD> The 2024 calendar year weighted average price received by producers for Upland cotton is $0.724 per pound or $1.596 per kg. (0.724 × 2.2046). Five tenths of one percent of the average price equals $0.007979 per kg. (1.596 × 0.005). <HD SOURCE="HD2">Total Assessment</HD> The total assessment per kilogram of raw cotton is obtained by adding the $1 per bale equivalent assessment of $0.004409 per kg and the supplemental assessment $0.007979 per kg, which equals $0.012388 per kg. The current assessment on imported cotton is $0.013247 per kilogram of imported cotton. The revised assessment in this direct final rule is $0.012388, a decrease of $0.000858 per kilogram. This reflects the decrease in the average weighted price of Upland cotton received by U.S. farmers during the period January through December 2024. The Import Assessment Table in 7 CFR 1205.510(b)(3) indicates the total assessment rate ($ per kilogram) due for each Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) number that is subject to assessment. In this direct final rule, AMS is amending the Import Assessment Table to revise the total assessment rates in light of the change to the supplemental assessment rate. This table must be revised each year to reflect the change to the supplemental assessment rate, and any changes to the HTS numbers and respective conversion factors. AMS believes that these amendments are necessary to ensure that assessments collected on imported cotton and the cotton content of imported products are the same as those paid on domestically produced cotton. Accordingly, changes reflected in this rule should be adopted and implemented as soon as possible since it is required by regulation. As described in this <E T="04">Federal Register</E> document, the amendment to the value used to determine the Cotton Research and Promotion Program importer assessment will be updated to reflect the assessment already paid by U.S. farmers. For the reasons mentioned above, AMS finds that publishing a proposed rule and seeking public comment is unnecessary because the change is required annually by regulation in 7 CFR 1205.510. Also, this direct-final rulemaking furthers the objectives of Executive Order 13563, which requires that the regulatory process “promote predictability and reduce uncertainty” and “identify and use the best, most innovative, and least burdensome tools for achieving regulatory ends.” AMS has used the direct rule rulemaking process since 2013 and has not received any adverse comments; however, if AMS receives significant adverse comments during the comment period, it will publish, in a timely manner, a document in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> withdrawing this direct final rule. AMS will then address public comments in a subsequent proposed rule and final rule based on the proposed rule. <HD SOURCE="HD1">B. Rulemaking Analyses</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Executive Order 13175</HD> This direct final 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 rule is unlikely to have substantial direct effects on one or more India ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 230k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━