FSIS Seeking Comments on Salmonella Petition

On January 18, 2020, Marler Clark LLP, on behalf of several individuals and consumer advocacy organizations, petitioned FSIS to issue an interpretive rule to declare 31 Salmonella serotypes as adulterants under the Federal Meat Inspection Act (21 U.S.C. 601 et seq.) and the Poultry Products Inspection Act (21 U.S.C. 451 et seq.). The petition requests that FSIS take this action on all 31 serotypes jointly or, if the agency concludes that one or more serotypes do not merit such treatment, on each serotype individually. The Salmonella serotypes identified in the petition have been associated with human illness outbreaks and product recalls.

FSIS is seeking comments on this petition and interested persons may submit comments online via the Federal eRulemaking Portal at https://www.regulations.gov/docket?D=FSIS-2020-0007 ; by mail, including CD-ROMs, to Docket Clerk, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service, 1400 Independence Avenue SW, Mailstop 3782, Room 6065, Washington, DC 20250-3700; or by hand or courier delivery to 1400 Independence Ave, SW, Room 6065, Washington, DC 20250-3700. All comments must include the agency name and identification number FSIS-2020-0007.

Comments on this petition will be made available for public inspection and posted without change, including any personal information, at https://www.regulations.gov/docket?D=FSIS-2020-0007 . Comments should be submitted by March 23, 2020.

Reminder: FSIS Will Add the People’s Republic of China to Public Health Information System

As stated in the January 3rd Constituent Update, on January 27, 2020, FSIS will add the People’s Republic of China to the Public Health Information System (PHIS) Export Component as Phase 3 of the country rollout. PHIS will be available and required, starting at 12:01 a.m. ET on January 27, for export applications to the People’s Republic of China.

As a reminder, each establishment in PHIS is required to have an establishment administrator listed in the establishment profile on the contacts page; each establishment is responsible for managing establishment access, including approving and removing privileges.  The establishment administrator is first added by the FSIS In-Plant Program Personnel (IPP).  All roles in PHIS must be roles recognized by PHIS; for example, if you want to submit an export application, your role must be export applicant or broker – export coordinator or docket clerk roles are not allowed to conduct business in PHIS.  Information regarding these processes is available in the user guide, “PHIS Industry User Guide November 2019”, which is available on the FSIS website.

Additionally, all parties that want to and/or are required to conduct business in PHIS (via export) are required to have obtained an identity verified eAuthentication account from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. You can register online and find the steps to complete the eAuth process at: https://www.eauth.usda.gov. Electronic authorization is required for both the Industry Test Environment (ITE) and production environment.

PHIS export can be submitted to PHISTechnicalQA@fsis.usda.gov .

FSIS encourages all users who are not familiar with PHIS Export Component to use the ITE opportunity to test their export application process.

Export Requirements Updates

The Library of Export Requirements has been updated for products for the following country:

• South Africa

Complete information can be found at http://www.fsis.usda.gov/inspection/import-export.