CBP Targeting September for Next Two CEEs, Will Seek Participants Soon

CBP set a target of September for getting the next two Centers for Excellence and Expertise (CEEs) operational, said Tom Overacker, project manager of the CEEs at CBP, speaking at the Import Compliance and Enforcement Conference in Washington June 21. Overacker said CBP will seek volunteers for the CEEs “soon” in a Federal Register notice.

(There are currently two CEEs, one for Electronics in Long Beach, Calif., and one for Pharmaceuticals in New York City. CBP announced plans for two more CEEs, an Automotive and Aerospace center in Detroit and a Petroleum, Natural Gas and Minerals center in Houston, on May 10, but locations of five others scheduled to be completed by the end of FY 2013 are yet to be finalized.)

Volunteer importers that are Importer Self Assessment (ISA) and Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) certified will have priority, he said. Initially, CBP reached out and invited ISA, C-TPAT members, he said. CBP will incrementally grow the pool of participants, he said.

(CBP recently said it would soon seek to allow center directors to use authority that is given to port directors to drive uniformity and facilitation and institute efficiencies in import processing. The Federal Register notices on the CEEs will come out on a center-by-center basis, starting with the New York and Long Beach, Calif., centers.)

(See ITT’s Online Archives 12052327 for summary of recent COAC discussion of the CEEs.)

Which location a business files at will largely depend on their industry, independent of the product being imported, said Overacker. For instance, an automobile electronics company, closely aligned with the auto industry imports huge amounts of electronics, would likely submit their information at the Detroit Automotive CEE, he said. For products outside the center’s expertise, they can seek input from elsewhere, he said.

National import specialists will act as matrix members to centers, he said. The specialists would provide support as needed to centers but would be independent, he said. CBP may look to redesign this structure but there’s no decision yet, he said.

CBP has said the CEE approach to trade processing will reduce transaction costs for the trade community, facilitate legitimate trade through risk segmentation, increase agency expertise and deliver greater transparency and uniformity of action within a given industry.