CBP Details Recommendations Approved at Aug. 7 COAC Meeting

October 1, 2013 by Mike Feazel|Customs

CBP made available a full report on the Aug. 7 meeting of the CBP Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations (COAC). Among the subcommittee recommendations at the meeting were:

Export Subcommittee:

That CBP, working with COAC, develop a combined Government approach to risk, process, guidance and correction by establishing a One US Government for Exports Work Group.
That CBP and COAC create an Export Process Working Group (EPWG) to focus on prioritizing acknowledged opportunities for improvement, review the C-TPAT for exporter criteria in close alignment with the Trusted Trader COAC Subcommittee, and to focus on designing a future state export process that will serve to implement the developed One USG master principles for exports.
That CBP create an Export Visibility, Amendments, and Controls Work Group to focus on delivering specific recommendations to promote supply chain visibility, USG transparency, and compliance. The subcommittee said it envisions these recommendations being realized via an automated single “system” applying best practices for internal assessment and controls monitoring.
That CBP engage with the trade to share the export education packages with CBP export and outbound roles in addition to other groups and forums. It also recommended that CBP continue their dialogue with Census, BIS, and DDTC on the opportunities for improvement and continue to work with the trade on solutions.

COAC Global Supply Chain Subcommittee

That CBP draft ACAS-specific data element definitions that are more expansive than the equivalent Air AMS data element, promote the earliest possible transmission of data for targeting, and match as closely as possible the working definitions that have been used and proven effective during the pilot period.
That CBP develop an efficient and well-crafted ACAS compliance regime with an account-based management approach, including the establishment of a carrier account manager structure for advance cargo data, analogous to that which exists for the advance passenger information system, that allows the full picture of a participant and its compliance level to be taken into account in the determination of appropriate compliance measures.
That ACAS focus on the quickest possible identification and remediation of compliance failures, rather than devoting limited resources on both the industry and government side to the imposition of transaction-based monetary penalties and subsequent time-consuming mitigation process,
That ACAS target negligently or intentionally non-compliant parties, particularly those found to be engaging in fraud, and employs broad discretion in the determination to assess liquidated damages against generally compliant parties demonstrating robust efforts to meet ACAS requirements.
That the filing regime be designed to achieve ACAS’s objectives of enhancing air cargo security by obtaining the earliest possible data submission, while simultaneously avoiding unnecessary negative impacts on air carrier operations, the air cargo business model, and the movement of legitimate goods

Trade Modernization Subcommittee:

That there be a continuing education component to the customers broker license of a minimum of 40 hours of continuing education over a 36 month reporting period. It recommended that a minimum of 32 hours of the continuing education be accredited, and that a maximum of 8 hours of education may come from nonaccredited sources.
That the reporting of the continuing education should be tied into the triennial reporting of the licensed customs broker. The consolidated reporting will remove a separate reporting requirement, and the timing will make compliance easier for brokers.
That reporting of the license holder and the continuing education be done together in ACE.

Automated Commercial Environment Working Group Recommendation:

That CBP continue the ongoing dialogue and provide timely information to the trade community in order to ensure a successful transition from ACS to ACE. It recommended that CBP announce definitive transition dates for this conversion and that the determination of these dates provide for a period of 18 months from the release of the technical application documentation.