On September 4, 2025, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published the Trump Administration's Spring 2025 Unified Agenda. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Unified Agenda includes the following Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) rulemakings:
- Regaining Lost Efficiencies for Products of Biotechnology: According to the Unified Agenda item, this interim rule will create exemptions from USDA's regulations for plants and microbes that are already subject to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation and products USDA previously reviewed and deregulated and provide a permitting exemption for certain modified organisms that are commonly used in laboratory development of products of biotechnology. The item notes that "[o]ther changes are also contemplated." APHIS intends to issue the final rule in March 2026 with comments due in May 2026.
- National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard; Update of the List of Bioengineered Foods: As reported in our April 4, 2024, blog item, consistent with 7 C.F.R. Section 66.7, the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) published a request for information (RFI) soliciting comments on new bioengineered (BE) crops that have potentially reached the market, including dry edible beans, wheat, cowpea, golden rice, purple tomato, and plums. According to the Unified Agenda item, comment analysis and research would determine which BE foods would be appropriate to add to the List of Bioengineered Foods (List) in the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard. APHIS intends to publish a notice of proposed rulemaking in April 2026.
- National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard; Text Message Disclosures: As reported in our April 23, 2024, blog item, in response to a September 2022 U.S. District Court of Northern California order remanding 7 C.F.R. Sections 66.106 and 66.108 to AMS without vacatur for further consideration, AMS published an RFI in April 2024. In accordance with the court's ruling, AMS intends to publish a proposed rule in December 2025 that would amend the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard to remove the standalone text message disclosure option found at 7 C.F.R. Section 66.108 and to add language to the electronic or digital disclosure option found at 7 C.F.R. Section 66.106, requiring an accompanying BE symbol or on-package text as defined in Sections 66.104 and 66.102 when an electronic or digital link disclosure is made. APHIS plans to publish a final rule in April 2026.
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