§55 Fees and charges for cotton classing and related services; criteria; disposition of moneys and samples

Summary

The Secretary of Agriculture must charge fees for cotton services. These include licenses for cotton classifiers (section 53), determinations (section 54), and creating and selling cotton standards and copies (sections 56, 57, and 57a). The fees should, as closely as possible, pay the costs of those services, including administrative and supervisory costs, and should take into account any money made from selling cotton samples. The Secretary can make rules that let cotton samples used for these services become U.S. property and be sold, with the money going to the same account. Those samples are not covered by chapters 1–11 of title 40 or by division C of subtitle I of title 41, except for sections 3302, 3307(e), 3501(b), 3509, 3906, 4710, and 4711. Any fees, late-payment penalties, sale proceeds, and interest earned must go into the current appropriation account that pays the costs of these services. The money stays available without fiscal year limits to pay those expenses and may be invested in insured or fully collateralized interest-bearing accounts or, if the Secretary chooses, in U.S. Government debt instruments through the Secretary of the Treasury. The price set for practical forms that show the official U.S. cotton standards must, as nearly as possible, cover the Department of Agriculture’s actual estimated cost to make and prepare those forms.