Tennessee Pest Plant List and Sale Ban

Tennessee's noxious-weed regime doesn't work like a county weed-board system, it's a Department of Agriculture trade ban. Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0080-06-24-.01 defines "pest plants" as plant species, and parts of them usable for propagation, that are injurious to the agricultural, horticultural, silvicultural, or other interests of the state. Rule 0080-06-24-.02 then lists 13 species across nine genera, Purple Loosestrife, Tropical Soda Apple, Chinese Privet, European (common) Privet, Cogongrass, Amur Honeysuckle, Morrow's Honeysuckle, Bell's Honeysuckle, Multiflora Rose, Autumn Olive, Thorny Olive, Giant Salvinia, and Tropical Spiderwort, and flatly bans propagating, selling, offering for sale, or releasing any of them within the state. The rule staggers the ban by market: Chinese privet, common privet, Amur honeysuckle, Morrow's honeysuckle, Bell's honeysuckle, multiflora rose, and autumn olive hit their retail sale deadline in January 2010 and their wholesale deadline in January 2012, while thorny olive's deadlines run two years later, January 2012 and January 2014.

The rule carries one narrow escape hatch. Under 0080-06-24-.03, the commissioner of agriculture can grant a permit, backed by a compliance agreement, letting a grower, collector, or seller work with a listed pest plant for research and propagative purposes, as long as the plants are safeguarded from ever being sold, offered for sale, or released in Tennessee. Both rules trace their authority to T.C.A. § 43-6-104, the Plant Pest Act's rulemaking section, and § 43-6-106(9), which lists the commissioner's enforcement duties.

Enforcement runs through the department's own civil-penalty schedule rather than a local abatement process. Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0080-01-03-.01, adopted under T.C.A. § 4-3-204, authorizes the Department of Agriculture to assess a civil penalty of up to $500 for each violation of statute, rule, or order it enforces, and the schedule specifically lists Rule 0080-06-24-.02 (the pest plant list) and Rule 0080-06-24-.03 (the permit rule) at that same $0-to-$500 range, alongside the underlying Plant Pest Act sections T.C.A. §§ 43-6-106, 43-6-109, 43-6-110, and 43-6-112.

What's missing is as important as what's there: nothing in this chapter requires a Tennessee landowner to cut, spray, or otherwise remove pest plants already established on private property, and there's no township or county weed board, no notice-and-cure period, and no cost-recovery lien of the kind other states use. The regulation only reaches the nursery trade, propagation, sale, and release, not standing vegetation on someone's land.

Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0080-01-03-.01 lets the Department of Agriculture assess a civil penalty of $0 to $500 for each violation of Rule 0080-06-24-.02 (propagating, selling, or releasing a listed pest plant) or Rule 0080-06-24-.03 (breaching a research permit's compliance agreement), under authority of T.C.A. § 4-3-204, through a licensing proceeding under the Uniform Administrative Procedures Act. The same $500 cap applies to violations of the underlying Plant Pest Act provisions, T.C.A. §§ 43-6-106, 43-6-109, 43-6-110, and 43-6-112. There is no cutting order, township abatement, or property lien in this chapter.