More Details Needed on Future of ACE, CBP Considering Options for Collections, GAO Says

CBP and other involved agencies should finalize an "interagency approach to managing ACE that includes processes for prioritizing enhancements and sharing system costs," the Government Accountability Office said in a March 14 report. CBP is also considering keeping multiple options for how to move forward with the collections function, which has yet to move from the Automated Commercial System to ACE, GAO said. "CBP officials stated that the agency will continue to link the newly deployed post-release capabilities to collections in ACS while deciding how to proceed."

GAO said CBP plans to decide by the end of March whether to: "(1) add a collections capability to ACE, (2) retain collections in ACS, or (3) develop a separate collections system." The decision will also affect the agency's estimate for the costs related to ACE, which it plans to revise by August. CBP last issued an assessment of ACE life-cycle costs in November 2016, in which "CBP reported having spent about $3.5 billion on ACE through fiscal 2015 and estimated that an additional $1.13 billion would be required to complete and maintain the system through its anticipated life (i.e., through 2026)," GAO said.

CBP said in response to the recommendation that the Office of Trade will "continue to work with the Border Interagency Executive Council (BIEC) senior leadership to finalize a cost-sharing plan and prioritization process for all ACE/Single Window enhancements." A "BIEC Principals Single Window Sustainment Decision Memorandum" was signed in December and PGA responses on operations and maintenance definitions and "evaluation criteria used to prioritize" requests for development came in soon after, CBP said. "A draft cost sharing and prioritization process plan" was distributed and discussed during a Jan. 30 BIEC meeting and the "BIEC plan is now being refined and finalized," CBP said. The agency estimated the process would be finished by Oct. 31.

CBP compiled a list of seven enhancements to ACE "suggested by CBP staff or the trade community to be implemented in the near term, most of them in response to legal or technical requirements," it said. As of September, CBP had funding for and was working on enhancements to ACE to allow for electronic data transfers to the Court of International Trade and for truck manifest capabilities, it said. Another ACE priority, which is listed as unfunded, is an increase in data submitted on the CBP Form 5106 as part of the importer risk assessment program required in the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act. Also yet to be funded are changes to allow for partner government agency (PGA) data related to low value shipments "without assessing any duties or fees," it said.

There's another list of 22 unprioritized updates, CBP told GAO. "For example, one enhancement would improve the interface between ACE and various Department of Agriculture subsystems, reducing the need to manually enter data in multiple systems," GAO said. "Another enhancement would integrate the ACE agricultural workspace and CBP’s Automated Targeting System, strengthening targeting for agricultural imports. The list of unprioritized enhancements also includes initiatives to simplify several import processing steps for the trade community, allowing faster processing and associated cost savings." CBP uses an internal list of criteria to consider ACE enhancements, which are added to the "unprioritized initiatives" if accepted, GAO said.

Levels of use among other agencies with access to ACE vary widely, GAO said, using case studies of ACE use at five agencies: the Food and Drug Administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service. "We found significant differences in the agencies’ use of ACE to obtain agency-specific data from importers: While FDA and NHTSA have largely transitioned to using ACE for this purpose, CPSC and APHIS use it to a more limited extent, and FWS continues to obtain data on imported goods largely without using ACE," GAO said.

Twenty-two agencies have signed a memorandum of understanding with CBP that allows them ACE access that "specifies data that the partner agency may access in accordance with its responsibilities and as allowed by statute." Another 27 agencies "may use ACE data for a variety of purposes, including analyzing and reporting on international trade flows," GAO said.