New CEE Participants will Continue to Deal with Ports on Cross-Industry Imports

The ports will continue to handle the post-release work for imports that fall outside the purview of one of the Centers of Excellence and Expertise that are now handling such work for entire industries, said Laura Webb, assistant center director for the Petroleum CEE. Webb and other CEE officials discussed the program during an April 7 conference call hosted by the American Bar Association Customs Law Committee. CBP recently said the three CEEs -- electronics in Los Angeles, pharmaceuticals and chemicals in New York, and petroleum and minerals in Houston -- would soon begin to handle some duties previously done at the port level for entire industries (see 1501210021).

Asked about the post-release handling for an importer that brings in both chemicals and machinery, Webb said CBP will need to coordinate the response because the chemicals CEE is handling the entire industry, whereas the machinery CEE isn't yet. "If your post summary issue has to do with a chemical, then you will primarily work with the chemical center," she said. "If your issue is a machinery issue, then you work with the port of entry who would then coordinate it with the machinery center and the chemical center." There's a lot of "internal coordination and communication amongst ourselves between the ports and the centers" and the agency is "pretty good at it now," she said.

It's different for importers that previously volunteered to participate within the CEEs, said Lynn Fallik, director of the petroleum CEE. "If they were already a member of the center, that center would handle everything that they import," she said. For example, the petroleum CEE would handle the post-import work for t-shirts brought in by petroleum importer that is a voluntary CEE participant, said Webb.

Those volunteer participants can also submit all protests with a single point of contact within the CEE, rather than to people at various ports, said Maya Kamar, branch chief at the electronics CEE. The CEEs allow for streamlined processing for the voluntary participants because "we no longer require one protest filed at every port for the same issue for the same importer," she said. "Now you're seeing one protest filing for all the underlying entries no matter where the shipment came from."

There will be a phased approach to moving the port process to the three CEEs, said Webb. For example, importers that are now using a CEE due to the industry-wide rollout should continue to file prior disclosures with the Fines, Penalties and Forfeitures officer, said CBP. At that point, the prior disclosure can be moved internally from the ports to the CEEs and by "the end of the rollout," importers should be able to file the disclosures with the CEE, she said. "We are scheduled to have that phase three" in July, Webb said. Unlike the other CEEs, the electronics CEE chose to rollout in two phases, rather than three, said Kamar.

The CEEs the deal in commodities with frequent counterfeiting problems will have large enforcement branches, said Anthony Orosz, assistant center director for the pharmaceuticals CEE. "We're going to have quite a big enforcement branch with the pharmaceutical center," though the enforcement branch for that CEE is now only "two or three people," he said. The electronics CEE has a "pretty robust" enforcement branch too, he said.