Scales; Accurate Weights, Repairs, Adjustments or Replacements After Inspection

The Department of Agriculture's Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) is amending one section of the regulations under the Packers and Stockyards Act (P&S Act) to incorporate by reference the 2009 edition of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Handbook 44, "Specifications, Tolerances, and Other Technical Requirements for Weighing and Measuring Devices," and to require that scales used by stockyard owners, market agencies, dealers, packers, and live poultry dealers to weigh livestock, livestock carcasses, live poultry, or feed for the purposes of purchase, sale, acquisition, payment, or settlement, meet applicable requirements of the 2009 edition of NIST Handbook 44. GIPSA is also amending that section of the regulations to add "swine contractors" to the list of regulated entities to which the section applies.