Accredited Veterinarians; Optional Digital Signature

We are amending the regulations to accept digital signatures from accredited veterinarians as an additional option for official certificates, forms, records, and reports to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Before the publication of this document, we required hand written signatures on all such documents. We believe that accepting digital signatures will benefit accredited veterinarians and the industries they serve by reducing the turnaround time for these documents. This action relieves restrictions that appear to be unnecessary.