Several Agencies Looking at Collecting PGA Data at Time of FTZ Admission

Several agencies have said they are at least willing to consider accepting partner government agency (PGA) data at the time of admission of goods into a foreign-trade zone, said leadership from the National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones at the NAFTZ Legislative Summit on Feb. 15 in Washington. Once CBP implements its Form 214 application for FTZ admission form in ACE, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration could use the new capability to accept data before entry, they said.

APHIS is looking at accepting a Lacey Act PGA message set once the e214 is deployed, though zone users can already file Lacey Act data in the agency’s Lacey Act Web Governance System (LAWGS) at the time of admission and use a disclaimer at the time of entry, said Sean Murray, a lawyer at Miller & Company. APHIS also acknowledged in December that it may move to the e214 for its “core” animal and plant PGA data, which would be a “big deal for the association,” Murray said. NAFTZ sent a letter to APHIS on Jan. 3 requesting confirmation that the agency will move to PGA filing at admission when the e214 is available, also seeking an interim option like the LAWGS system for Lacey Act entries.

EPA has “indicated verbally” that it will “transition to taking data” at the time of admission once the e214 is in place for entries regulated under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, Murray said. Given that the agency already requires pre-arrival data in the form of Notices of Arrival, the EPA wants to collect data at the time of admission but has to wait until CBP implements the e214 in ACE, he said. EPA has also put in writing that it may consider collecting Toxic Substances Control Act data at the time of admission, in a recent final rule on TSCA filing in ACE (see 1612230030), Murray said.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has also talked about taking data at the time of FTZ admission, said Melissa Irmen, senior vice president-products and strategy at software developer Integration Point. But while initially in favor, NAFTZ now questions whether the move to earlier filing would be productive, given how much work it has taken to figure out filing an entry summary of NHTSA data, she said. NHTSA filing in ACE has been required since May 28, 2015, longer than any other agency.

At a later session of the conference, when asked about making sure that e214 remains a priority during a period of uncertain funding sources, Bill Scopa, acting director of CBP's Interagency Collaboration Division, said “we’ve asked ourselves that question.” The Border Interagency Executive Council is working “through how to prioritize” programming requirements and “who should go first basically when the funding does come in,” he said. “So, if you want to just be persistent in saying how valuable it is to the foreign-trade zones, that always helps, because the criteria” for the priorities list involves trade impact and “statutory initiatives,” he said.

Even for agencies that decide to collect PGA data at the time of admission, it’s not going to happen on the day the e214 is deployed, Irmen said. It won’t be as simple as “flipping a switch,” she said, particularly given concerns about ACE funding. In the meantime, agencies have been forced to accept data at either the time of cargo release or entry summary because those points in the filing process were the only options at the time of the International Trade Data System executive order, said Rebecca Williams, managing director at Rockefeller Group Foreign Trade Zone Services. “That’s why you see us now trying to roll back and make the changes that we’re trying to make,” she said.

If and when agencies do begin requiring PGA data at the time of admission, importers are going to have to re-examine their processes to get the data at the right time, Irmen said. Right now, for example, entry summary data probably comes from importers’ warehouse or manufacturing systems, she said. Once PGA data is required on the e214, that may no longer be possible, she said. Importers will need to collect pre-arrival and manifest data for submission in ACE, Irmen said, possibly requiring a look at admission processing to see if there is a need to switch up how data is collected, she said.