As of midnight Oct. 1, 2013, the United States government has shut down all non-essential functions due to the budget impasse in Congress. The impact on dairy export regulatory procedures appears to be minimal, as noted below:

1. AMS Dairy Grading is identified as essential. AMS is expected to issue health certificates during the shutdown as they would during normal operations. As a reminder, for shipments to and through the European Union, exporters are encouraged to apply for certificates far ahead of shipments to ensure that the certificate is issued prior to the date the vessel sails and obtain an amendment to add container and seal numbers when they are available. eTDE and eDocs remain operational with technical support as needed.
2. APHIS has identified fee-for-service for continued operation, so regional vets should still be issuing health certificates. Exporters are encouraged to confirm with their local APHIS offices whether there will be any local reductions in staff and whether any service disruption is expected.
3. FDA will continue "limited activities" in programs that are funded through industry user fees and will continue "select vital activities" such as handling high-risk recalls of tainted food or drugs. With regard to export, the FDA list of plants approved to export to the European Union was updated in late September and the new plants are showing a validity date of Oct. 3. Since this list is updated quarterly, we are not expecting a significant impact during the government shutdown. The FDA list of exporters interested in shipping to Chile was last updated on July 1, 2013, so the quarterly update is due to be published. However, we have not been informed of the timeframe for the next update.

Exporters may contact Matt McKnight (mmcknight@usdec.org), Mitch Bowling (mbowling@usdec.org) or Sandra Benson sbenson@usdec.org) with questions.