The Consumer Product Safety Commission is seeking comments by August 8, 2011 on a petition asking the CPSC to impose regulatory safeguards for the glass fronts of gas vented fireplaces.

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has issued a final rule, effective June 27, 2011, which establishes a new category of regulated articles in the imported nursery stock (or plants for planting) regulations. This new category will list taxa of plants for planting whose importation is “Not Authorized Pending Pest Risk Analysis” (NAPPRA). This new category will allow APHIS to take prompt action on evidence that the importation of a taxon of plants for planting poses a risk while continuing to allow for public participation in the process.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has announced that it is terminating all of the remaining 100% duty rates imposed on certain products of European Union countries as a result of the EU’s failure to comply with the 1999 World Trade Organization rulings in the EU-U.S beef hormones dispute. The USTR states that it is taking this action due to a 2010 court ruling, even though the 100% duty rates had been set to expire in August 2012 under an agreement reached with the EU.

The Food and Drug Administration has issued a Federal Register notice with additional details on its already announced June 6, 2011 public meeting on inspections and compliance under the Food Safety Modernization Act. The meeting will provide a brief overview but mostly seek public comment on the following new FDA authorities: increased inspections, greater flexibility to administratively detain food, ability to suspend facility registrations, mandatory recalls, etc.

The Food and Drug Administration is seeking comments and information about preventive controls and other practices used by facilities to identify and address hazards associated with specific types of food and specific processes. The information FDA receives will inform its development of guidance required by the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) on preventive controls for facilities that manufacture, process, pack, or hold human food or animal food/feed.

Down payments from winners of FM construction permits in a recently completed auction, where 108 were sold for a net of $8.53 million (CD May 13 p19), are due at the FCC June 7, the agency said Tuesday on Auction 91. The 66 winning bidders must make final payments June 21, and file a Form 301 application by June 30, a public notice said.

Effective May 22, 2011, the Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service issued a Federal Order revising the import requirements for commercial and noncommercial shipments of imported hardwood and softwood firewood from Canada and spruce logs from the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, to require that these shipments be heat-treated to ensure that certain plant pests are not introduced into the U.S.

The protection of intellectual property is strongly linked to international trade, said Stan McCoy, assistant IP trade representative for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. “American intellectual property is an American export,” just as much food, software and computers, and “there’s a huge appetite for it around the world,” he said at an Institute for Policy Innovation event. IP is critical to “the kind of innovation we need to build a 21st century clean energy economy,” McCoy said, and IP theft pollutes the “ecosystem of creativity and innovation.” A trade policy is necessary to find ways to advance the protection of that ecosystem and to stop the pollution, he said. The USTR’s Special 301 reports are being used “to issue an open invitation to any trading partner on our Special 301 watch list to negotiate an action plan that could, if successful, provide a road map for their removal from the relevant list.” The office is working with New Zealand and other countries to negotiate the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, “which will set a new standard internationally for the enforcement of IP rights,” he added. Effective free trade agreements and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are essential, said Mike Moore, New Zealand’s ambassador to the U.S. A TPP agreement should include the elimination of tariffs on goods and globalization of trade and services, he said. “We need rules to allow the next generation of Google, Yahoo, eBay … to develop and flourish.”

Broker Power is providing readers with some of the top stories for May 9-13, 2011 in case they were missed last week.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a final rule, effective June 13, 2011, which makes minor amendments to its bicycle regulations to reflect new technologies, designs, and features in bicycles. The rule clarifies that certain provisions or testing requirements do not apply to specific bicycles or bicycle parts. It also clarifies several ambiguous and confusing provisions, corrects typographical errors, and removes an outdated reference.