News
| The September Sirex Woodwasp “Town Hall” Meeting Cancelled by USDA APHIS | 2008-08-29 |
The following notification was sent by Lynn Evans-Goldner (National Program Director for the Sirex woodwasp) on August 21, alerting the regional organizers that the September meetings would NOT take place and includes their rationale behind the decision by USDA APHIS: “I am writing to inform you that the series of APHIS Sirex Program meetings that were planned for September 2008 will not take place. Three meetings were planned: (1) New England Sirex Town Hall Meeting (Concord, NH) jointly sponsored by the North East State Forestry Association, (2) Mid-Atlantic Sirex Town Hall Meeting (Syracuse, NY), and (3) Sirex Research Review Meeting (Syracuse, NY). A draft agenda that was prepared for the New England Town Hall Meeting is attached, for your information.
I have funding for the meetings and the value of the meetings is recognized. So what is the issue? Federal spending on meetings and conference attendance is under intense scrutiny at the highest levels. We are being encouraged to take full advantage of videoconferences, teleconferences, and webinars in lieu of agency sponsored off-site events. The Sirex Program is not being singled out by the recent new agency travel/training/meeting directives. Other programs have had to or are in the process of modifying their travel/training/meeting requests. My thanks to all of you that agreed to facilitate, present, serve as a panel member, and/or helped organize the meetings. I plan to explore other options to communicate information about Sirex noctilio and program activities to stakeholders and impacted industries.” Regards, Lynn Evans-Goldner Sirex noctilio National Program Coordinator Emergency and Domestic Programs USDA-APHIS-PPQ In response to this last-minute cancellation, the state and regional groups involved with organizing the meeting (including NELMA) immediately contacted their state congressional representatives to educate them on this critical issue and to stress the importance of having a timely and constructive meeting between the industry and USDA decision-makers. We firmly believe that a video- or tele-conference format will greatly reduce industry participation and not be nearly as effective as the originally-planned “town hall” type meeting.
We understand that APHIS national staff has recently been approached with multiple congressional inquiries regarding the cancellation of the “town hall” meetings. Their current response is that the meetings have not been cancelled; only “postponed” until after the interim rule is in effect. Based on this response, the industry groups have gone back to their congressional contacts with further concerns on the meeting delay, as USDA APHIS needs to collaborate with the industry to identify workable solutions before any interim or final rule is put into effect.
In addition, the certification and documentation needs for finished pine products shipped to states that have implemented “external quarantines” such as North Carolina, must be addressed as soon as possible.
NELMA will update the membership with further details as they become known. Our goal obviously is to get the "town hall" meetings back on track and scheduled as soon as possible. We encourge the industry to contact their congressional representatives to reinforce the importance of having APHIS reschedule the industry meeting prior to any interim rule implementation. As written, the economic impact of the proposed regulations on industry could be profound!
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