ACE Priorities for 2017 Include Drawback Simplification, Truck Manifest, CBP Official Says

MIAMI – CBP’s ACE priorities will include implementation of existing legislation and urgent fixes to the truck environment after it completes ACE “core” in January and moves into a more difficult “operations and maintenance” funding environment, said Josephine Baiamante of CBP’s ACE Business Office at the Florida Customs Brokers & Forwarders Conference of the Americas on Nov. 14. The agency will also look at ways to work with other Department of Homeland Security agencies through ACE, before turning to a list of other capabilities the trade community has requested.

Chief among the areas of legislation CBP will implement in ACE is drawback simplification, which under recent customs reauthorization legislation will take effect beginning in February 2018 (see 1603010043). Other areas of the customs reauthorization law may also require programming in ACE, including new bonding and information collection requirements for importers and customs brokers (see 1602170074), Baiamante said. Discussions are ongoing with CBP’s policy offices, with a keen eye toward whether CBP has the funding to develop the new functionalities, she said.

Also near the top of CBP’s to-do list is refactoring of truck manifest, which currently runs on a separate platform, making things “a little bit difficult,” Baiamante said. The priorities of CBP’s new commissioner will also loom large as CBP develops its new schedule, as will any efforts to promote “unity of effort” at DHS by working with other DHS agencies via ACE, she said. Baiamante indicated that the new schedule for post-core ACE development will be available to the trade community, just as the current development and deployment schedule is available on the CBP website.

Finally, there are several “emerging” requirements CBP must address, Baiamante said. The trade community has “expressed strongly” its desire for including exchange rate conversions in ACE, and CBP’s policy office has agreed “that’s something we should carry.” The Court of International Trade has also been trying to get CBP to stop sending paper records to the court, and instead send documents electronically, she said.

A CBP official recently said the move to “operations and maintenance” mode for ACE means the agency must now get funding from the CBP programming offices or partner government agencies (PGAs) that request new functionalities starting in January 2017 (see 1609140034). There will be “large pieces of functionality” CBP will have to get funding for, but the agency and the trade community have “generally been successful” at that “when we’ve been able to talk to Congress together,” said Brenda Smith, CBP executive assistant commissioner for trade, during a subsequent conference panel on Nov. 15.