New U.S. Law to Require Reporting of all Trees and Tree Products (Including Species & Genus)

(GHY International)

A new law will go into effect on December 15 and will have far-reaching consequences for international trade and will require an enormous amount of resources for CBP to implement.

Sec. 8204 of the Farm Bill broadens the definition of "plant" under the Lacey Act to include trees and products that come from trees, and requires additional reporting (detailed below) for imports of these products. CPB is working with USDA to determine what products will be subject to this new law. Exclusions include common food crops and common cultivars (yet to be fully defined; it is not clear if cotton will be exempted). Outside of these and some other specific exclusions identified in Sec. 8204, CBP says the new law does not provide them with much wiggle room.

What products will be subject to this law?

The question at hand is: what products will be covered by this new law? The answer will almost certainly surprise you (hint: it’s just about everything).

Here is a small part of a very long list of items (aside from obvious examples such as furniture, paper and wood flooring that are likely to be covered by this law:

• Wine with corks;
• Pots and pans with wooden handles;
• Musical instruments, such as violins;
• Pharmaceutical products;
• Textiles;
• Lipstick (made in part from wax from carob tree);
• Dried soup (that contains cellulose, which is a major component of wood);
• Hairspray (that is made in part from tree resins); and
• Anything that comes with an instruction booklet (even if the product itself contains no wood or wood by-product).

Example of how far reaching this could be: Country Time lemonade that is contained in a plastic bottle, with a plastic cap and covered with a plastic wrapper contains, among other things, glycerol ester of wood rosin. Glycerol ester of wood rosin is a common food additive and is prepared from resin acids of wood rosin harvested from the stumps of the longleaf pine. It would be covered by this law.

Reporting Requirements:

Sec. 8204 requires that import declarations state the scientific name of any plant (including genus and species) used to produce the plant product and the country of origin of the plant. If the genus and species is not known, then the declaration must contain the name of every species of plant that may have been used to produce the plant product; and if the country from which the plant was taken and used to produce the imported plant product is unknown, the name of every country from which the plant may have been taken must be stated. Packaging material that supports, protects, or carries another item is exempted, unless the packaging material itself is the item being imported.

Sec. 8204 makes commerce in products made from illegally harvested or traded plants and plant products, including wood, a federal crime and is going to be enforced by the US Department of Justice. CBP has managed to get Congress to agree to a phased-in implementation schedule, but Congress has not approved the actual schedule.

Lobbying efforts to minimize impact to trade community:

Efforts are getting underway to lobby Congress to make changes to Sec. 8204, or at the very least, delay implementation