Karnal Bunt; Regulated Areas in Arizona, California, and Texas

We are adopting as a final rule, with one change, an interim rule that amended the Karnal bunt regulations to make changes to the list of areas or fields regulated because of Karnal bunt, a fungal disease of wheat. Specifically, the interim rule added portions of the Buckeye/Pretoria area of Maricopa County, AZ, to the list of regulated areas and removed Throckmorton and Young Counties, TX, portions of Riverside County, CA, and certain areas in La Paz, Maricopa, and Pinal Counties, AZ, from the list of regulated areas based on our determination that those fields or areas meet our criteria for release from regulation. The interim rule was necessary to prevent the spread of Karnal bunt to noninfected areas of the United States and to relieve restrictions on certain areas that are no longer necessary. In the interim rule, we inadvertently removed two areas in Maricopa County, AZ, from the list of regulated areas. We are returning those areas to the list in this final rule.