Officials from the USDA’s APHIS have promised the Oregon Association of Nurseries (OAN) that the planned implementation of a new Federal Order pertaining to P. ramorum will be delayed, perhaps by three weeks or more, according to Jeff Stone, OAN's government relations director.
The Federal Order would require nurseries in three states – Oregon, Washington and California – to notify receiving states in writing, and provide specific information, anytime they ship nursery stock that can serve as a host for P. ramorum. The Federal Order, announced at the end of May, had been scheduled to take effect June 21.
Stone has worked with Louie Perry, OAN federal contract lobbyist, to “state concerns loud and clear to federal officials, and to coordinate a response with the other two affected states.”
The Federal Order came without an appropriate process, appears to have no scientific basis, and contradicts stakeholder consensus that the existing federal rules regarding P. ramorum were effective, Stone said. He also noted that the new federal approach is highly similar to the rules South Carolina recently attempted to impose, before a lawsuit by OAN and the California Association of Nurseries and Garden Centers forced that state to back down.
Small and medium-sized nurseries will have the most difficulty adapting their practices to comply with the new order. They face an unacceptable choice of either sharing sensitive and proprietary information on documents sent to other states in compliance with the regulation, manually redacting that information on forms, or rewriting software so the information isn't displayed.
Stone said the USDA-promised delay is a positive step, but not the OAN's ultimate goal. "The goal is to make sure that if USDA takes further action to control the spread of P. ramorum, it is done in a transparent manner," he said. "Moreover, we want to be sure that the action is fair to all 50 states and actually prevents the spread of P. ramorum as opposed to simply erecting further barriers to trade that will not achieve that goal."