October 23, 2009
The Honorable Cindy Smith
Administrator
United States Department of Agriculture
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
1400 Independence Avenue, S W
Washington, DC 20250
Dear Madam Administrator:
In advance of the October 27 Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) public meeting to discuss the agriculture quarantine and inspection (AQI) user fee increases, we request that the following questions and concerns be addressed at the meeting:
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Describe in detail and provide cost data supporting the APHIS determination for increasing the air passenger fee on an emergency basis to $5.50 per passenger and $78 per aircraft, as outlined in the Interim Rule.
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Please provide evidence that demonstrates APHIS control over expenditures for fees collected from both air passengers and air carriers and which ensures that excess user fees collected in any given year are spent on the class of persons or entity from which they are collected.
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Can APHIS make available results of any accounting for AQI user fees by class of persons or entities and/or any audits of AQI user fees?
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Does APHIS account for its own AQI costs by class of persons or entities? How does APHIS determine which class of persons or entity drives costs for categories such as inspector training or manual preparation, which may be difficult to segregate by user?
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Please explain whether U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and APHIS respective shares of inspection costs are the same for every inspected person and entity. That is, as APHIS retains 37 percent of total AQI user fee receipts (not including Canadian receipts), are 37 percent of air passenger inspection costs driven by APHIS support functions, 37 percent of rail car inspection costs driven by APHIS expenses, 37 percent for trucks, etc? Are, for example, APHIS support costs for rail cars (which have a lower AQI user fee than aircraft) a fraction of APHIS support costs for aircraft inspections?
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Similarly, are CBP costs of inspecting each entity equal to 63 percent of the fees collected from each entity?
As indicated in my October 19 letter to Secretary Vilsack, the first public meeting on October 15 did not provide any new information as to why the Interim Rule was issued on an emergency basis. In addition, the meeting did not provide any useful data to demonstrate that the fees are commensurate with the costs of agricultural quarantine and inspection services. Simply stating that "the recent downturn in the U.S. economy has negatively impacted travel volumes, and, as a result, our user fee collections" is not justification for an Interim Rule.
We hope that the meeting on October 27 will be more useful in explaining the agency's rationale, rather than a "listening session" for APHIS officials.