The Lacey Act uses the violation of an underlying federal, state, or foreign law to ‘trigger’ a violation of Lacey itself. Including plants under the Act’s provisions will prohibit the commerce of wood and wood products that were taken or sold in violation of any law meant to address illegal logging or species conservation. The new legislation makes it a violation of U.S. law "to import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire, or purchase" any plant that has been "taken, possessed, transported or sold" in violation of foreign law and would require USDA and other agencies to enforce foreign and state laws regarding the illegal taking of plants (primarily trees and their products), by requiring an import declaration for any plants, conduct a review of the declaration requirements and report to Congress.
As of Dec. 15 importers of any plant or plant product, including wood and wood products, must comply with a sweeping new requirement to bring their goods into the U.S. The Farm Bill enacted on July 15 includes a provision requiring a basic declaration would need to accompany every shipment of plants or plant products, including the species, country of origin, quantity and measure, and value. These requirements are modeled after existing regulations for wildlife imports currently regulated by the Lacey Act, and resemble declarations for many other imported goods.
The scope of this new requirement is extraordinarily broad, as it applies to “any wild member of the plant kingdom, including roots, seeds, parts, and products thereof.” Although the scope has not been precisely defined, based on the language of the law it appears that covered products will include furniture (of wood, particle board, etc.), textile and apparel products of rayon, cookware with wooden handles, items of clothing with wooden buttons, paper, toothpicks and many others.John S. Connor, will continue to monitor the developments regarding this new law and continue to update our customers with the latest information from CBP, USDA and other govenment sources.