CEEs Expansion Expected to Create New Logistical Questions, Say CBP Officials

CBP will face a number of new logistical challenges as it works to transition three Centers of Excellence and Expertise (CEEs) to handle several entry processes for entire industries, said industry and agency officials that spoke at the 2014 Trade Symposium. The first three CEEs to make the shift -- those handling electronics, petroleum and pharmaceutical industries (see 14030613) -- will be tasked with processing the entries of tens of thousands of companies when they previously handled under a hundred, said CBP officials during a panel on the CEEs.

CBP hopes to begin adding other CEEs and industries after 12-18 months, said Deputy Commissioner Tom Winkowski while speaking to reporters after the symposium. “I want to get as many up as possible, but we want to do this right,” he said. “We don’t want to take the approach of in 18 months I want all ten of them up. We may find that perhaps it's not as complicated as we anticipated.” Winkowski wants to make sure the first three are done right and will have enough consultation from stakeholders so that the other seven can be more easily transitioned, he said.

CBP will need to be “extremely mindful of enhanced communication” as it moves forward on the CEEs, said Elena Ryan, director of the CEEs Transition Team. “How is the broker going to know that these transactions are being processed in the center?,” she asked. “How is an importer going to know that they are being processed in the Center? Who do we reach out to if there are questions, concerns? Those kinds of things will be extremely important on this accelerated rollout.”

Among the open questions for the expanded CEEs, which have been limited to companies that are Customs-Trade Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) or Importer Self-Assessment certified, is how the CEEs will treat non-trusted trader companies that will soon be on board, said Ryan. Going from working with 33 companies on a daily basis to around 25,000 to 30,000 companies involved with pharmaceutical imports will mean “we can’t give everybody the same level of service we are giving to the trusted partners and we really must delineate how we want to segment the risk within the industry,” said Leon Hayward, director of the pharmaceuticals CEE.

The trusted trader program at the CEEs may become similar to the trusted traveler program, the CBP program that allows approved individuals to skip U.S. customs lines when traveling internationally, said Hayward. Trusted travelers typically need only to quickly provide some information at a CBP kiosk, while the other passengers are “coming in on the same airplane, but we don’t know as much about them” and have to “work their way through the process,” he said. “That will be sort of how we treat folks that aren’t in the trusted trader,” he said. Once cargo reaches a port CBP will need to have a team “dedicated to the trusted traders” and “moving their data through the process as quickly as we can so we can close out the entry summary,” he said.

One area that could use improvement within the CEEs and make for additional benefits is post entry amendments (PEAs), said Matt Varner, director of Trade Operations of Nike, which participates in the apparel CEE. “Given the volume of trade and given how quickly we innovate new products” sometimes “facts change and more information becomes available and we realize we made a mistake,” said Varner. The PEA process can be time consuming for the importer and customs, so there’s opportunity to streamline further, he said. Drawback is another area that could be improved in the CEEs, he said.

Better engagement with other regulating agencies is another area the CEEs could be more helpful, said James Shaw, senior manager of trade controls at Pfizer. CBP Director of Field Operations for San Francisco and Portland Brian Humphrey agreed that more coordination among agencies would be useful. The need for better cooperation was apparent during the government shutdown, during which CBP was open but unable to move some cargo because other agencies were closed (see 13101002), he said.