CBP Pursues Short-Term Fixes for House Bill Release With ACE Capability on Back Burner

The addition of house bill release capability to the Automated Commercial Environment would be a “fairly significant piece of programming” and CBP is considering temporary alternatives in the meantime, said CBP Assistant Commissioner Brenda Smith on July 29. CBP is looking for short-term fixes while it considers where development of the capability can be fit in “from a workload perspective,” she said at the Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations (COAC) meeting.

Under the legacy Automated Commercial System, brokers seeking release of less-than-container load shipments from container freight stations (CFS) would give the facility a paper CF 3461, listing the relevant house bill number, to get their cargo released. But with CBP doing away with CF 3461 in ACE, container freight stations are at a loss for what documentation they need to release such shipments. ACE offers no direct solution. Although both master bill and house bill information are available electronically in ACE in the air environment, only the master bill is visible in ACE for ocean.

Unsure of what they need to release LCL shipments, CFS operators are cautious given the liability they face for prematurely releasing cargo. “Until house bill release is in ACE, which it isn’t and isn’t even planned yet, the container freight stations are very unsure of what they should do,” said Merit Tremper of Merit Trade Services, who raised the issue during the meeting. “There have been no direct instructions. Just a vague direction in January that came out,” she said.

For now, CBP is interested in temporary fixes until it can get around to programming ocean house bill capability in ACE. “I would be very interested in what some of the very workable short-term solutions would be,” said Smith. “Can we issue an operational policy that would really mitigate some of this in the maritime environment? That would be a useful discussion from my perspective,” she said. CBP is “looking for short term solutions, but then also looking for us to take a look at the schedule and try to estimate from a workload perspective where we might be able to fit that in,” said Smith.

CBP’s Office of Field Operations is encouraging the trade community to deal with the ocean house bill issue through a “business-business relationship,” with communication between the carrier and the CFS, said Mike Denning, CBP advisor-cargo and conveyance security at OFO. “We will not be issuing paper,” he said. “Obviously we’re moving into an electronic environment of electronic release, and if the carriers wanted to print out a paper copy of that electronic release or some other internal document that the two trade entities decide to communicate with, that’s what we’re encouraging at this point.”

Going forward, getting ocean house bill capability in ACE is of “vital” importance for customs brokers and freight forwarders, said Amy Magnus, co-chair of the COAC One U.S. Government at the Border subcommittee. “We really need to have it,” she said. “More importantly, it does exist in air, it just doesn’t exist in the ocean environment, which makes it even more quirky from our point of view.”

The National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America sent CBP a letter in March asking the agency to implement a house bill unique identifier in ACE that "would allow trade participants to automate and control the release process" for consolidated and non-vessel operating common common carrier (NVOCC) cargo. The Trade Support Network also addressed the issue at a recent meeting. Noting the work that has been done in other venues, Magnus said she hopes the COAC gets involved as well and makes its own recommendations on the issue.

Email ITTNews@warren-news.com for a copy of the NCBFAA letter.