The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) issued two final rules that affect fees for official inspection and weighing services performed under the U.S. Grain Standards Act (USGSA).
The final rules allow USDA’s Federal Grain Inspection Service (FGIS) to revise its user fee formulas under the USGSA to establish a set of formulas to calculate hourly and unit fees and finalize the fees introduced in July 2024. The revised formulas and fees will allow FGIS to fully recover service costs and maintain an operating reserve of three to six months.
An interim rule, published June 6, 2024, adjusted hourly and unit fees and allowed new formulas to be established, making it possible for FGIS to increase its fees and begin sufficiently recovering costs for providing inspection and weighing services.
A proposed rule, published Oct. 8, 2024, addressed the underlying issues of existing fee formulas, which contributed to low fees and the inability to recover costs for providing service.
The interim rule had a 30-day comment period, and the proposed rule had a 45-day comment period. AMS reviewed all submitted comments and is publishing both as final rules without change. The rule finalizing fees was published in the Federal Register and effective Dec. 27, 2024. The rule finalizing fee formulas was published in the Federal Register Jan. 6, 2025, and will be effective Feb. 5, 2025.While closely related, these two actions are being published separately to close out their respective rulemaking dockets.
The rules will allow FGIS to sufficiently recover costs for providing service, maintain appropriate operating reserves and address gaps from previous formulas that did not consider additional and next year’s projection costs. The rules also align FGIS hourly fee formulas with those currently used by other AMS user fee programs.
The national and local tonnage fees will no longer be subject to operating reserve adjustments. The supervision tonnage fee formula will remain unchanged.
For additional information, contact Anthony.T.Goodeman@usda.gov.or call at (202)720-0291.
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