This is a pretty good analysis of the problem but the problem is actually quite recent. I have, for years, imported plants from abroad under the USDA green/yellow label system and the mail, often large cartons, was always forwarded to my address from the inspection stations. Ever since the small seed quantity import system began, that has not been the case. However, I have heard that other parts of the country (I'm in the LA inspection station's area) are treated differently. Plant imports were accompanied by a Phyto certificate but the plants were, nevertheless, all unwrapped and inspected. Often with scrambled labels. Richard Wagner Vista, CA -----Original Message----- From: pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Lee Poulsen Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 11:01 AM To: Pacific Bulb Society Subject: Re: [pbs] Importing seeds and bulbs I'm pretty sure this is due to the USDA wanting to guarantee that all plant-material-containing mail gets routed to an inspection station as soon as it enters the country. The proper way for this to be done (and I believe the way it is done in all other countries that manage to divert all mail requiring some kind of inspection--such as Australia), is for some government agent (Customs?, Postal Service?, USDA?) to pull out all mail containing plant material as it comes into the country and divert it to an inspection station. This would be all the easier in the U.S. case because they could immediately pull out all mail with the green and yellow sticker on it before having to find any unlabeled plant mail. Since this is not happening in the U.S. (most likely due to both a very high volume of incoming international mail and not having the budget to pay for the manpower that would be required to go through all of it properly), the easier solution--from the APHIS/PPQ perspective--is to simply require all plant mail to be sent directly to the inspection station (i.e., require that it be addressed on the outside of the package to the inspection station and NOT to the final destination). And this is where the problem comes in. In the Treaty of Berne which created the Universal Postal Union back in the late 1800s, (and which the U.S. and virtually every other country and territory is a signatory of,) one of the very problems that it was intended to solve was the problem with how to pay the postage all along the way that a piece of mail travels in getting from the sender to the recipient. Apparently prior to the treaty, it was often necessary to affix postage for every country through which that piece of mail passed onto the mail beforehand. Under the treaty, every country agrees to deliver international mail to the final destination addressed on the outside of the package or envelope, and the *only* postage required is the initial amount paid by the sender. What does this mean? If the address of the final destination (the recipient) is placed on the outside of the package along with the green and yellow sticker, regardless of what the USDA/APHIS/PPQ wants, the U.S. is obligated to deliver the package to that address with no additional postage required. If the recipient's final destination address is not on the outside, then the final destination according to the treaty becomes the inspection station address on the green and yellow label, and the Postal Service has completed its obligation based on the original postage that was paid. To deliver it beyond the inspection station is now a new delivery. Hence the postal service is within its rights to demand additional postage since its treaty obligations have been satisfied. I wish the two agencies would just sign a Memorandum of Understanding where the Postal Service would agree that when using the green and yellow stickers, the "final destination" would be considered to be the recipient and not the inspection station. --Lee