Plants for planting

This working group will evaluate data availability and quality for an assessment of the costs and benefits of implementing changes to USDA Plants for Planting regulations to prevent the unintentional importation of invasive pests carried on plants into the United States.. Three scenarios will be considered: 1) status quo, in which the U.S. mainly relies on a black list system and port of entry inspections; 2) status quo plus a new category of “grey listed” plants called NAPPRA (Not Authorized for Importation Pending Pest Risk Analysis); and 3) which adds a systems approach for clean stock production to the other two mitigations. To do this, the working group will apply lessons learned as well as an econometric model developed by an associated working group (http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/projects/12289), to better understand how changes in phytosanitary regulation lead to changes in trade flows and pest introductions. In addition the group will undertake an analysis to determine what portion of introduced forest pests likely entered via the nursery stock pathway.