The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service released a response to
the regulatory status review for sweet orange modified to impart resistance
to citrus greening through reduced production of two host targets of
Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus effector proteins.



The response letter signed by Bernadette Juarez, APHIS Deputy Administrator
for Biotechnology Regulatory Services indicated that "APHIS has determined
the sweet orange is unlikely to pose an increased plant pest risk relative
to its comparators. Once APHIS determines that a plant product is unlikely
to pose an increased plant pest risk relative to its comparator, and, thus,
is not a plant pest or a plant that requires regulation because it is
capable of introducing or disseminating a plant pest, APHIS has no authority
to regulate it under 7 CFR part 340."



A similar response was granted to the request for a regulatory status review
of modified maize with resistance to northern corn leaf blight, resistance
to gray leaf spot, resistance to anthracnose stalk rot, and resistance to
southern corn rust.



[www.aphis.usda.gov]