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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 157 / Wednesday, August 18, 2021 / Notices
specific mitigations.3 The host list states that this is because LBAM survival on citrus is low compared with non-citrus hosts. The PRA also found that there was low larval survival on oranges, that oranges are a suboptimal host, that fruit fall prematurely if infested, and that damage symptoms are easily seen and culled. For these reasons we concluded that under normal population conditions and strict adherence to good harvest and packing procedures, LBAM
is unlikely to follow the pathway of commercial fruit.
The combination of low field prevalence and packing procedures make it highly unlikely that a foundation LBAM population could be moved out of the registered place of production after conventional production and harvesting practices.
The CIED determined that these considerations are also applicable to citrus fruit from Australia, and thus merit removal of the additional declaration requirement for LBAM.
Furthermore, interception data from 1984 to 2018 shows only one interception of LBAM in citrus fruit from Australia, and 90 interceptions of Tortricidae the next highest taxa in citrus fruit from Australia. The most recent interceptions were in 2005. In the event of Tortricidae interceptions in citrus fruit from Australia, APHIS can require additional mitigations for LBAM. We are making no changes in response to this comment.

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Pest Free Areas One commenter stated that the option of allowing citrus fruit to originate from an area that is free of Queensland fruit fly Bactrocera tryoni, Mediterranean fruit fly Ceratitis capitata, also known as Medfly, and/or Lesser Queensland fruit fly Bactrocera neohumeralis may be problematic. The commenter expressed concern that this could allow fruit to enter an area evaluated in the PRA which may have been deemed a pest free area PFA for only one of the listed fruit flies. The commenter further stated that the approved production area should certify that all three fruit flies are not present at time of export or be subject to the most appropriate cold treatment schedule.
We agree that if an area is not a pest free area for all three species of fruit flies, citrus must be subject to phytosanitary treatment for the relevant species of fruit fly, and this is the 3 The host list can be viewed on the APHIS
website at https www.aphis.usda.gov/
plant_health/plant_pest_info/lba_moth/downloads/
exempted_host_list.pdf.

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mitigation structure that we proposed in the CIED with regard to pest free areas.
Treatments Two commenters noted that the treatment evaluation document assessed the effectiveness of schedules T107d 2 and T107d3 on Lesser Queensland fruit fly and concluded that they would provide sufficient control. One of the commenters stated that this conclusion was based on a small-scale, comparative study of the relative cold tolerances of eggs and early instar larvae of Queensland fruit fly, Lesser Queensland fruit fly, and Jarvis fruit fly Bactrocera jarvisi in mandarin. The commenter stated that additional larger-scale studies on alternative citrus hosts should be conducted to provide more significant findings which could further or diminish support of the addition of Lesser Queensland fruit fly to T107d 2 and T107d3.
The other commenter raised the same point but added that without scientific evidence confirming the referred efficacy, T107d2 and T107d3 must not be accepted as a phytosanitary treatment for Lesser Queensland fruit fly.
Jarvis fruit fly and Lesser Queensland fruit fly both have narrow coastal distributions in Northeastern Australia.
Jarvis fruit fly is also found in the tropical area of Northern Australia. Both species only inhabit areas that are subtropical and tropical in climate. This supports the Australian research that these species are not more cold-tolerant than Queensland fruit fly. Citrus is also not the preferred host of either fruit fly.
In contrast, the mandarin fruit that the Australian scientists used to test cold tolerance for Lesser Queensland fruit fly is an optimal host and would be the preferred host to test cold tolerance of this species. The small-scale comparative study conducted by the Australian Department of Agriculture and Water Resources to determine the relative cold tolerance of Queensland fruit fly, Lesser Queensland fruit fly, and Jarvis fruit fly supplemented the large scale studies that supported our recommendations to approve the T107
d2 and T107d3 treatment schedules.
We note that small-scale comparative studies of this kind compare two points or a small number of points to see if they are significantly different. In the case of the fruit fly study, they were not.
We are making no changes in response to these comments.
The Government of Australia requested the addition of several treatment options for fruit flies. These treatments are already in the USDA
Treatment Manual. Specifically, they
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requested adding T107a1, T107a2, and T107a3, which are approved for use as stand-alone cold disinfestation against Medfly for citrus fruit. They also requested adding schedule T105 at a dose of 100Gy for fruit flies, as listed in table 522 in the USDA Treatment Manual.4
These additional treatments, which appear in the USDA Treatment Manual, may be used for citrus fruit that originates in an area where the only fruit flies present are those for which these treatments are approved. We note that the schedule T105 treatment is approved at a dose of 100Gy for Jarvis fruit fly, Lesser Queensland fruit fly, and Medfly. There is an option for a dose of 150Gy for all other fruit flies in the family Tephritidae not listed in table 522. Guidelines for the approval of additional treatments can be found in 7
CFR 305.3.
The Government of Australia further stated that standard commercial production practices implemented by the Australian citrus industry, such as disease management strategies used to control citrus black spot disease CBS
in the field and packinghouses in Australia and complemented by phytosanitary inspection, would appropriately manage the risks posed by the fungus. The Government of Australia noted that over the history of inspection of citrus exports from these production areas, CBS has not been a problem, and stated that Australia considers that any additional import requirements would exceed reasonable requirements to manage the risk.
The phytosanitary measures we proposed to address the risk of CBS in citrus fruit from Australia are the same measures we require of domestic producers to ship citrus interstate within the United States. We are making no changes in response to this comment.
Therefore, in accordance with the regulations in 319.564c2ii, we are announcing our decision to authorize the importation into the continental United States of Citrus sinensis L. Osbeck orange, C. limonia Osbeck Rangpur, C. meyeri Yu. Tanaka lemon, C. aurantiifolia Christm.
Swingle Key lime, C. latifolia Yu.
Tanaka Tanaka lime, C. paradisi Macfad. grapefruit, C. reticulata Blanco mandarin, and their hybrids from three additional areas of Australia the inland region of Queensland, the regions that compose Western Australia, and the shires of Bourke and Narromine 4 The USDA Treatment Manual can be viewed on the APHIS website at https www.aphis.usda.gov/
import_export/plants/manuals/ports/downloads/
treatment.pdf.

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