APHIS Finalizes Canada Inspection Fees
Created by HButler on 3/10/2010 8:28:42 AM
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service on Tuesday made final an interim rule to collect inspection fees for ships, trucks, trains and vessels arriving from Canada.
Traders on the northern border protested when APHIS announced the interim rule in 2006. Canada previously had been exempted from the inspection fees imposed on other countries. APHIS delayed enforcement, but began collecting the fees from commercial vehicles in June 2007.
APHIS said that the fee was necessary to cover the costs of inspections. The agency also reported an increase in the number of banned products it found that had been produced in Canada or transshipped through Canada from another country of origin.
For fiscal 2009, which ended Sept. 30, the fees were $5.25 per truck per crossing, $7.75 per railcar, $70.75 per arriving aircraft and $494 per vessel per crossing up to 15 payments a year.
- R.G. Edmonson, The Journal of Commerce.
