Voglio sapere a riguardo di…

68536

Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 230 / Friday, December 3, 2021 / Rules and Regulations
creation and 1 hour for training estimates, relative to the current plans maintained and training conducted by the entity, are reasonable.
One commenter stated that costs are unlikely to drop to zero after the first year.
We are not assuming that there will be no reoccurring annual costs after the first year of the implementation of the rule. We believe that the costs after the first year of developing and implementing contingency plans will decrease for existing entities as they would have already incurred the initial development and implementation costs.
The commenter also stated that, while they agree that capital costs will vary between entities, these costs will not be minimal.
The proposed rule did not prescribe any capital investments that entities must make. The entities vary by size and type and will have different requirements in terms of equipment.
While some entities may incur costs to purchase equipment, others may already have equipment as a part of their business operations. We also note that the same commenter stated that the entities it represents had already assumed those costs apart from this rule as a cost of doing business.
Environmental Analysis One commenter questioned why an environmental analysis was prepared, since they expected contingency plans to have only a positive impact on the environment.
APHIS conducted an environmental assessment based on the Council on Environmental Qualitys CEQs newly revised implementing procedures. The National Environmental Policy Act NEPA reviews all potential impacts, not just those with negative implications 40 CFR 1508.1g1.
Other Comments A commenter asked that contingency plan regulations for marine mammals in 9 CFR 3.101b be eliminated.
This is outside of this rules scope.
A commenter stated that there was a lack of a clear definition for the term breeding female as used in AWA
regulations.
This is also outside of this rules scope.
jspears on DSK121TN23PROD with RULES1

Miscellaneous Finally, in reviewing the proposed rule with an eye toward implementation, we noticed that the explanations of training deadlines in 2.38l3 and 2.134c were ambiguous and did not clearly reflect APHIS intent in drafting the proposed
VerDate Sep<11>2014

17:37 Dec 02, 2021

Jkt 256001

rule. We intended to state that if an employee was hired before or up to 30
days after a facility has its plan in place, that employee would have to be trained within 60 days of the plan being in place, whereas, if an employee was hired after that date, the facility would have 30 days to train the employee.
However, the proposed rule could be read to suggest that employees hired at least 30 days before the plan is put in place must be trained by the time the plan is put in place, which would require training in the provisions of the plan before the plan itself was finalized.
Requiring training in a plan that is not yet finalized and in place could be logistically problematic for regulated entities and, again, was not APHIS
intent. We have revised the paragraphs accordingly to make our intent clearer.
Therefore, for the reasons given in the proposed rule and in this document, we are adopting the proposed rule as a final rule, with the changes discussed in this document.
Executive Order 12866 and Regulatory Flexibility Act This final rule has been determined to be not significant for the purposes of Executive Order 12866 and, therefore, has not been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget.
In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 604, we have performed a final regulatory flexibility analysis, which is summarized below, regarding the economic effects of this rule on small entities. Copies of the full analysis are available on the Regulations.gov website see footnote 3 in this document for a link to Regulations.gov or by contacting the person listed under FOR FURTHER
INFORMATION CONTACT.
We are amending the AWA
regulations to implement contingency plans for the handling of animals during emergencies. In December 2012, the USDAs APHIS published a final rule requiring all dealers, exhibitors, intermediate handlers, carriers, research facilities, and other entities regulated under the AWA to take steps to be better prepared for potential emergencies and disasters situations which could reasonably be anticipated and expected to be detrimental to the good health and well-being of the animals in the regulated entitys possession. In July 2013, USDA issued a stay of the Contingency Plan Regulation in order to undertake a review of its requirements.
In June of 2021, we published a proposed rule to lift the stay on the December 2012 rulemaking along with other minor administrative changes.
This final rule will codify the provisions
PO 00000

Frm 00004

Fmt 4700

Sfmt 4700

of the proposed rule and lift the stay on the 2012 final rule.
While it is difficult to quantify the benefits of contingency planning, they are numerous. First, contingency planning can prevent loss of animal life and any resulting undisposed carcasses that pose a threat to public health.
Second, loss of valuable research resources and income can be mitigated with contingency planning. Third, having a contingency plan can reduce the time of recovery from disasters and thus provide cost savings to the affected businesses and organizations and allow for business continuity. Finally, required contingency planning will reassure the general public that facilities have measures in place to ensure the welfare of the animals in times of catastrophic and common emergencies.
APHIS AC program will be providing a fillable form that can be used to develop and document the contingency plan; however, entities that have contingency plans in place may use those. For example, we believe that U.S.
Public Health Service-funded research facilities and AZA zoos and aquariums have already developed contingency plans; they will not need to adopt the template. The template is intended to aid entities currently without a written contingency plan, and we estimate it will take on average 12 hours per entity to complete the plan, which includes the time to collect and document the required information. We anticipate that the use of this form will improve compliance and expedite the time for annual review by regulated entities of the plan. APHIS also estimates it will take, on average, 1 hour to train employees on the operations of the plan, which consists of familiarizing employees with their roles and responsibilities as outlined in the plan.
We estimated lower and upper range estimates of costs for licensees and registrants to develop contingency plans in the first year. As noted above, we assume an average of 1 to 2 hours is required to prepare and implement a contingency plan using the form and 1
hour for employee training in the first year. We multiplied this time by the average industry-specific wage rate of the entities. Our estimate of the total one-time cost to develop the contingency plans across all affected entity categories ranges from about $185,000 to about $370,000 and $185,000 for employee training, as well as possible capital costs, which will differ from entity to entity and which we accordingly are not able to estimate in aggregate. These estimates may be high, given our inclusion of entities that may currently have comparable
E:FRFM03DER1.SGM

03DER1