CBP Faces Challenges Funding New ACE Capabilities Post-2016, CBP Official Says

CBP faces a challenging budget environment for ACE as it works to find funding for improvements and new functionalities long desired by the trade community, said Cynthia Whittenburg, deputy executive assistant commissioner at CBP’s Office of Trade, at a National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America conference in Washington Sept. 12. Following completion of “core” ACE in December, the “funding profile” will “adjust downward” as CBP will be legally required to use ACE operations and maintenance funding for operations and maintenance, and will not be able to use the funds for building new capabilities, including for partner government agencies (PGAs). “So when you see in our appropriations and funding, 'ACE,' those dollars are going strictly to fixing bugs and keeping the system running,” she said.

Funding for new ACE development will instead have to come from the budget of the CBP program or PGA that wants the new functionality, Whittenburg said. For example, any enhancements to ACE drawback processes after Dec. 31 will have to come from CBP’s drawback program budget. CBP is working with the Office of Management and Budget on a mechanism for PGAs, through the Border Interagency Executive Council (BIEC), to provide CBP with money for development of new PGA capabilities, she said. “That’s our world going forward.”

Whittenburg addressed the conference immediately following presentations from several customs brokers that detailed a lengthy list of ACE concerns. Brokers await several functionalities CBP has deemed “post-core,” including house bill release, an ACE Automated Invoice Interface (AII), Section 321 filing through the Automated Broker Interface (ABI) and filing for many PGAs, said Stuart Schmidt of UPS. Existing PGA requirements have ballooned the amount of data brokers have to obtain from their importer clients, said Myra Reynolds of John S. James. For example, one shipment of auto parts required filing of data elements for eight programs within four agencies, including a disclaim from medical device requirements for a car cover, she said. System outages and messaging issues continue to plague brokers attempting to enter cargo, particularly via land borders, said Amy Magnus of A.N. Deringer.

The completion of “core” ACE is only the “end of the beginning,” Whittenburg said. The legacy Automated Commercial System (ACS) was built incrementally over a period of 20 years starting in the 1980s, she said. ACS was reaching capacity, and getting funding for a clunky, outdated system would have been difficult. From a budgeting standpoint, CBP had to set limits on what it would build in its initial implementation of ACE “in a way that those who fund us can understand,” Whittenburg said. “When we stick the thermometer into the system, it’s done. It might be rare, but it’s done.”

Streamlining PGA requirements is part of the work CBP still has ahead of it, Whittenburg said. Working through the BIEC, CBP will look to harmonizing data elements between agencies, such as manufacturer and product codes. And now that CBP has shown PGAs the potential of getting data electronically, the “next stage of our conversation needs to be about risk management,” she said. Even CBP, with its large staff, cannot examine every shipment, she said. CBP also plans to work on addressing system availability issues, Whittenburg said. Actual ACE availability, including scheduled down time, is around 93%, “accounting for slowdowns and issues related to PGA availability," she said. “It is our goal to get that number much higher, closer to 99%." The problems are frequently related to network issues, and CBP needs to upgrade network switches and servers to address them, she said.