AGENCY:

Office of the Secretary, USDA.

ACTION:

Notification.

SUMMARY:

The United States Department of Agriculture is announcing the completion of certain interim rules that published in the Federal Register more than 3 years ago. USDA is taking this action because the published interim rules have been fully implemented and no further rulemaking publication is required.

DATES:

The interim rules are completed as of September 10, 2019.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Michael Poe, Telephone Number: (202) 720-3323.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

To promote transparency in regulatory planning, the Administration, beginning with the Spring 2017 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, published for the first time an “inactive” list of agency regulatory actions that were under review but not included in the Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. Such “inactive” actions allow agencies to take additional time to review a regulatory or deregulatory action and to preserve the regulatory identification number (RIN) and title for possible future use. After further review, and to clean out a backlog of older, obsolete RINs, USDA is taking this action to reduce its regulatory backlog and focus its resources on higher priority actions. The Department's actions are part of an overall regulatory reform strategy to reduce regulatory burden on the public and to ensure that future Unified Agendas of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions provided the public accurate information about rulemakings the Department intends to undertake. USDA reviewed its pending regulatory actions listed as “inactive.” This review focused on interim rules that published in the Federal Register more than 3 years ago, and for which no final rule has been issued. The agency identified 20 such regulatory actions.

Although not required to do so by the Administrative Procedure Act or by regulations of the Office of the Federal Register, the agency believes the public interest is best served by announcing in the Federal Register that it has fully implemented these 20 items. Therefore, for the reasons set forth above, USDA announces that it has fully completed the 20 rulemaking initiatives which were published in the Federal Register on the dates indicated in the table below and that no further rulemaking publication is required.