CBP's Smith, NCBFAA Call for Continued Funding for ACE After December 2016 Deadline

As implementation of core ACE capabilities nears completion, CBP and the trade community “need to keep an eye on” congressional budgets to make sure the resources are in place for improvements after 2016, said Brenda Smith, executive assistant commissioner of CBP’s Office of Trade, at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America Government Affairs Conference on Sept. 12 in Washington. Though completion of core ACE by the Obama administration’s December 2016 deadline is “in the bag,” there is “vast room for improvement,” Smith said. CBP and the trade community need to make sure that ACE is not only the “best of the best” single window in 2016, but continues to be going forward, she said.

ACE core is only what CBP needs to get day-to-day processing done, Smith said. “It isn’t the fancy stuff. It’s not all the things that are going to make our leaves easier.” More simplified processes still need to be put in place, as do reports, tools and information that CBP would like to inform its management of risk and that the trade community can use to inform its business decisions,” Smith said. CBP has also “done a lot of thinking” about a North American single window combining ACE with systems from Canada and Mexico.

CBP “still has a lot of work ahead of us” over the next month and a half as it prepares to meet the Oct. 29 deadline for post-release processes like reconciliation and drawback in ACE, Smith said. But looking further ahead, the agency’s challenge over the next 12 months will be prioritizing the work that remains on ACE, making sure the right stakeholders and subject matter experts “are at the table,” and doing the political work in Congress and at the White House “to make our dream of trade in 2025 or 2050 a reality,” she said.

An NCBFAA position paper distributed at the conference also highlighted the need for funding for ACE to continue after 2016. Many “significant and necessary” functions have been set aside during the development process so that CBP could meet the administration’s “arbitrary” December 2016 deadline, including the ability to file de minimis entries in the Automated Broker Interface, filing of entries larger than 9,999 lines, house bill release and the Automated Invoice Interface (see 1608040030). “These and other features necessary for improving the trade functions at CBP and the regulatory agencies are unfinished,” the NCBFAA said. “Plans to address these and omissions refer to ‘next year’ or are unspecified -- and clearly depending on funding that permits more than merely maintaining an incomplete system,” it said.

ACE has also been “plagued with system outages, failures to perform its necessary functions, and significant added and unacceptable costs to customs brokers,” the position paper said. This unreliability has had its greatest impact on the land borders with Canada and Mexico, it said. "CBP must be pressed to address the instability of ACE/ITDS operations" alongside the "long list of missing functionality," the NCBFAA said. "For its part, Congress must view this big investment as still investment as still a ‘work in progress,’ nearing completion – but with some distance to go."

Email ITTNews@warren-news.com for a copy of the position paper.