6 U.S.C. § 231 — Transfer of certain agricultural inspection functions of the Department of Agriculture

(a) Transfer of agricultural import and entry inspection functions The Secretary of Homeland Security ("the Secretary") takes over the Secretary of Agriculture's job of inspecting agricultural imports and entries — but only for the specific laws listed in part (b). (b) Covered animal and plant protection laws The transferred duties come from these laws: the Virus-Serum-Toxin Act; section 1 of the 1922 Act known as the Honeybee Act; Title III of the Federal Seed Act; the Plant Protection Act; the Animal Health Protection Act; the Lacey Act Amendments of 1981; and section 11 of the Endangered Species Act of 1973. (c) Exclusion of quarantine activities The word "functions" in this section does not include quarantine work under any of the laws listed in part (b). That work stays with the Department of Agriculture. (d) Effect of transfer (1) The Secretary must use the transferred authority following the Secretary of Agriculture's existing regulations, policies, and procedures for those laws. (2) Whenever the Secretary of Agriculture writes new regulations, policies, or procedures for these transferred functions, the Secretary of Agriculture must coordinate with the Secretary of Homeland Security first. (3) The Secretary, working with the Secretary of Agriculture, can issue directives and guidelines to make sure Homeland Security staff carry out the transferred functions effectively. (e) Transfer agreement (1) Before the transition period (defined in section 541 of this title) ends, the two Secretaries must sign an agreement to carry out this transfer. They can jointly update it later. (2) The agreement must specifically cover: how the Secretary of Agriculture will supervise training of the Secretary's employees who take on these new duties; and how funds will be transferred under part (f). (3) The agreement may also include: letting the Secretary do other animal- and plant-protection work that the Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) normally handles, even if it wasn't formally transferred; and letting the Secretary of Agriculture use Homeland Security employees to carry out APHIS's animal- and plant-protection authority. (f) Periodic transfer of funds to Department of Homeland Security (1) Using fees collected under sections 136 and 136a of title 21, the Secretary of Agriculture must periodically transfer funds to the Secretary — matching the activities the Secretary now performs that those fees were meant to pay for. (2) The share of fees transferred to the Secretary cannot be bigger than the share of the total costs that the Secretary's work actually represents. (g) Transfer of Department of Agriculture employees By the end of the transition period (as section 541 defines it), the Secretary of Agriculture must transfer up to 3,200 full-time-equivalent Department of Agriculture jobs to the Secretary of Homeland Security.