House Appropriators Highlight CBP Personnel Issues, Costume Classification in Legislative Report

The House Appropriations Committee pointed to CBP hiring issues among the reasons behind its recommendation for $112.7 million less than the White House requested in overall CBP operations and support personnel funding as part of its fiscal 2017 Department of Homeland Security spending bill, the committee's draft report on the legislation said (here). The committee pointed to CBP’s past hiring difficulties and lack of Congressional oversight on unbound CBP finances as reasons for the decreased level, which is part of a $395.6 million proposed reduction in CBP operations and support from the Obama administration’s request. The bill would fund CBP operations and support personnel at $443.9 million, or 4 percent of the $11.2 billion level the bill would give CBP in total. The bill's overall CBP funding amount comes in at $458.1 million below the White House’s requested level, but at $158 million more than total fiscal 2016 funding (see 1606080053).

The draft report’s $4.1 billion CBP budget line for “Securing and Expediting Trade and Travel” proposes similar cuts, including an overall $328.5 million reduction from the administration’s budget justification for the account due, in part, “to hiring rates that continue to be well below projections,” and to expectations of multiyear funding next fiscal year. House appropriators also want to add $3.8 million in funding for analytics and expert support for streamlining classified and unclassified data into several targeting systems, including for trade enforcement, according to the draft report.

The committee also weighed in on the agency's treatment of costumes and festive articles. While not mentioned in the actual bill, the committee said it "is aware of continued concerns that CBP may not be applying its rules consistently for classifying textile costumes and related items as festive articles." Some importers "believe that CBP’s current standard for categorizing an item as a festive article under heading 9505 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States -- that it is a textile costume of a flimsy nature and construction, lacking in durability, and generally recognized as not being normal articles of apparel -- is too subjective and leads to disparate treatment of similar imported items for tariff purposes," it said. "The Committee again urges CBP to work with private sector stakeholders to ensure that the classification approach is both fair and objective." The same committee included similar language in the same legislative report last year.

Appropriators recommended that CBP eliminate a limit on the number of reimbursable fee agreements that CBP "may enter into at air ports of entry," and that the agency increase its overtime pay cap from $35,000 to $45,000, in an effort to hire some 2,000 additional officers CBP called for in fiscal 2017, and to retain current officers, the draft report says. House appropriators also expressed concern that CBP’s interpretation of drawback laws is too narrow and that current policy might be unfairly limiting the scope of allowed claims, including for manufacturer or substitution drawback. The legislation would require CBP to report to House appropriators within 60 days of enactment on whether such claims are allowed, and whether drawback is “treated consistently” across all categories of merchandise.

The committee also renewed a call accompanying the fiscal 2016 DHS appropriations legislation for CBP to provide a multiyear investment and management plan for non-intrusive inspection technology alongside its budget requests. “The Committee expects CBP to comply quickly with the requirement for this plan, and to make it publicly available,” the draft report says. Furthermore, the report directs CBP and ICE to brief House and Senate appropriators within 120 days of enactment on how the agencies have enforced the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act’s repeal of the “consumptive demand” exception to the U.S. ban on imports of goods made with forced or child labor.