Creating Broker Management CEE Remains Unlikely, DiNucci Says

CBP remains wary of creating a Center of Excellence and Expertise entirely focused on customs brokers, said Rich DiNucci, executive director-cargo and conveyance security at CBP, during the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America annual conference April 4. Despite some early discussion of the possible addition of a CEE to focus on broker management (see 1510210017), CBP isn't inclined to further segment the importing process, DiNucci said. The CEEs will certainly evolve, "but I would say it's much too early to get into that concept now. We'll see where we are three, four years from now."

The idea of the broker CEE is part of a broader discussion of other "subject matter CEEs," such as a drawback CEE, DiNucci said. "I've even had the ocean carriers have come and ask that there be a CEE dedicated to ocean carriers." The agency would like to avoid "slicing and dicing down into specialties in terms of disciplines involved," he said. The hope for the CEEs is to "rebuild the expertise" and that includes all those "players in the supply chain," he said. The agency would also need to figure out a way to be "equitable," since "not everybody is a UPS or a FedEx," he said. There's the potential to "have a smaller broker get lost in that shuffle and that's not something we would want to get involved in either."

CBP is working to produce a document on the "work flows within the CEEs" that is "under review internally," he said. There's been "a lot of success in terms of what they were originally designed to do," which is to "drive some of these enforcement activities." There's been some cases developed along with the Office of Trade on antidumping and countervailing duty enforcement (see 1608030028), he said. Still, "there is a lot, quite frankly, in terms of culture that needs to change internally," he said. There are some high expectations and "some of it has been a little uneven here and there" in terms of meeting those expectations, DiNucci said.

CBP is making an effort to increase the number of import specialists "in the field," DiNucci said. Todd Owen, CBP executive assistant commissioner-Office of Field Operations, "pushed very hard to expedite the hiring" and there's about 70 people that CBP "has begun the process with," DiNucci said. "We're going to be getting a lot of good people" for whom the CEEs will be their "reality" from the beginning, he said. "That's a very good thing," he said.

Asked about some issues with Post Summary Corrections not being processed, DiNucci said one problem is “we’re still in two systems,” ACE and the Automated Commercial System. The agency is “in ACE,” but for financial purposes the old mainframe "is up and operable, which is creating a lot of the problems right now,” he said. Unfortunately, the “only alternative” right now for when a PSC isn’t processed and an entry is liquidated is protest, he said.