NMFS to Allow 'Informed Compliance' Period for New Filing Requirements on High-Risk Seafood

The National Marine Fisheries Service will allow a period of “informed compliance” after compliance with new ACE filing requirements for certain species under the Seafood Import Monitoring Program takes effect Jan. 1, CBP said in a CSMS message. Entries rejected because of missing or incorrect SIMP data that cannot be resolved in a “timely manner” may be refiled under the same entry without the SIMP message set, the agency said. The entries will be released with a warning message as long as all other NMFS filing requirements are met, and the filer will be required to submit the correct SIMP information “as soon as possible.” Entries that are not corrected “in a timely manner” will be “targeted with a full chain of custody audit,” NMFS said.

The Dec. 18 announcement of the initial grace period follows industry calls for a “soft compliance” period amid concerns over trade community readiness (see 1712040022). Though NMFS is “focused on ensuring successful and effective implementation of SIMP,” the agency does not want to “disrupt the flow of trade” and “endanger the importation of legally harvested seafood,” said John Henderschedt, NMFS director-international affairs, during a Dec. 19 webinar hosted by the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America. NMFS “intends to transition to a fully restrict mode as soon as possible, meaning that entries will not get a ‘may proceed’ unless all the SIMP mandatory data is provided, and we will be communicating to the trade community our plans in terms of timing for transitioning to that mode,” Henderschedt said.

NMFS also intends to set up a customer support line available from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. Eastern Time, “covering hours on the East and West coast,” Henderschedt said. The NCBFAA had questioned NMFS’s initial plans for a help desk that closed at 4:30 p.m. Eastern, leaving West Coast importers in the lurch for half the business day. Filers should contact NMFS either on the help line or by email if submissions are rejected and can’t be resolved by the filer, with an explanation of the problem, the CSMS message said.

The new SIMP filing and recordkeeping requirements apply to several species identified by NMFS in its December 2016 final rule as high-risk: abalone, Atlantic cod, Pacific cod, blue crab, red king crab, dolphinfish (Mahi Mahi), grouper, red snapper, sea cucumber, shrimp, sharks, swordfish, and albacore, bigeye, Bluefin, skipjack and yellowfin tuna (see 1612080014). Required data elements include information on the harvester or producer, the species of fish, and where the fish was harvested and landed.

Some types of fish may be subject to the requirements of other NMFS programs, and data elements for those programs must still be filed for release even for entries taking advantage of NMFS’s informed compliance policy for SIMP. For example, imports of frozen bigeye tuna entered after Jan. 1 must still be accompanied by NMFS Form 370 and Highly Migratory Species data, said Dale Jones, International Trade Data System coordinator at NMFS, on the webinar. Importers of canned tuna sitting in warehouses awaiting the opening of the tuna quota on Jan. 2 will have to refile Form 370 data when they enter the tuna for consumption, even if they already filed Form 370 when they entered it into the warehouse, Jones said. A mix-up in programming allowed importers to file Form 370 with their type 21 entries, even though NMFS did not want to collect it at that time, he said.

NMFS also intends eventually for the requirements to cover shrimp and abalone, but stayed compliance until it begins collecting data from domestic producers due to concerns over potential violations of World Trade Organization national treatment rules. Language in a Senate appropriations bill would establish a “much shorter time frame” for requiring compliance for shrimp and abalone, and NMFS is monitoring the legislation “very closely,” Henderschedt said. “We have provided feedback to the administration of the logistical and policy implications of that sort of turnaround,” he said.

NMFS is still working on its policy for low value entries with CBP and the Border Interagency Executive Council, but the agency currently does not recognize any de minimis level so importers should not enter products requiring NMFS data under Section 321, Henderschedt said. That said, CBP’s systems do not have any way of stopping NMFS Section 321 entries from getting through, he said. NMFS is directing importers not to file Section 321 entries regardless of value for any of its four programs, but Section 321 entries could still “slide through’ because CBP, in its rush to implement the new $800 de minimis level in ACE, “couldn’t resolve all the system issues they had,” he said. NMFS is working with CBP to correct the problem, along with another five or six agencies that have the same issue, Henderschedt said. “We’re looking for resolution for Section 321 to come out for all our agencies in the coming year.”