BORDER PESTS

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has again delayed rules that would require all trucks crossing the border to be inspected and to pay a fee to help pay for inspections. It should use the additional time to search for less burdensome ways, other than inspecting every truck, to prevent diseased fruit and invasive plants from entering the United States.

In announcing the delay on the truck rules recently, the department said it was doing so to allow additional time to talk with the Canadian government about “risks, inspections, and costs associated with land-border traffic entering the United States from Canada.” Such discussions should have taken place before the rules were proposed. They were supposed to go into effect in November and the airline requirements are still slated to take affect March 1.

Commercial traffic from Canada has long been exempt from U.S. rules requiring inspections of and fees from commercial conveyances and international air passengers entering this country because Canadian agricultural exports traditionally are grown in Canada and do not harbor pests or plants of concern to the United States. Because more produce from around the world is now going to Canada, the department said it would eliminate the Canadian exemptions beginning last November.

All commercial conveyances crossing from Canada to the United States, regardless of what they were carrying, would have been subject to inspection. All would have paid a fee, and airline passengers coming into the United States from Canada were to be charged $5.

The department said repeatedly in the 18-page notice of the new rule that it needs to raise more money to cover the cost of the existing and new inspections. If the department needs more money to conduct legitimate inspections, it should use the delay to persuade Congress to appropriate the funds or develop a plan to have shippers that pose real risks cover the costs.

Sen. Susan Collins, the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has urged the department to consider assessing fees only on agricultural shipments and to work with programs that already provide border security.

Both are good suggestions.

The Canadian government strongly objects to the rules. One of the few cases the Department of Agriculture uses to justify the rule is the 2004 interception of Spanish oranges and Dutch peppers labeled as products of Canada. The Canadian embassy says it was never made aware of this problem, but would have worked with the United States to enforce laws against such re-labeling.

The delay gives the Agriculture Department time to look for alternatives rather than moving ahead with an unnecessarily burdensome and broad rule.