Swanson Says Electronic Export Manifest Nearly Ready to 'Go Operational,' CBP Reviewing Export Penalty Policies

CBP is close to bringing industry on board to "go operational" with electronic manifest for export, said Jim Swanson, director of CBP’s Cargo and Security Controls Division, during the Aug. 21 Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee meeting in Buffalo, New York. Swanson said he has multiple meetings in the coming weeks with companies about using electronic manifest. CBP has been testing it internally for a while, Swanson said.

"Electronic manifest for export is the linchpin to getting further into our export modernization" because "CBP doesn't own export policy," Swanson said. "We don't own export control policy, or even how the processes are reported. The only piece of it that we potentially own are the export manifests, which have been in paper, and we're lucky to get them pre-departure. So there's been some irregular use of that process to do our screening."

The agency is in the process of reviewing all of the comments provided after the agency released the draft business process document for electronic export manifest (see 1907220037), said Brenda Barnes of the COAC Export Modernization Work Group. "Right now, there's a lot of comments coming in and between the comments that were given at the symposium as well as the comments that have been delivered to Jim's office directly, we're going to take that and that's what we're calling the 'meat' to focus forward on this electronic manifest," she said. "And the goal is, once we've got this electronic manifest, we can lead in to the post-departure." The draft business process document is only applicable to the ocean, air and rail modes because "truck is not ready yet," she said.

CBP's previous view of its "mission" up until now has been on "export compliance and somewhat routine compliance," Swanson said. He would like to start to "pull the pieces out that actually cause a lot of the export headaches in terms of compliance by attempting to draft CBP needs into the export reporting that Census and other agencies require." That would allow CBP to focus on the "serious enforcement effort," he said.

CBP is considered the "tip of the spear," but the agency export enforcement has become more of a "blunt instrument," Swanson said. As part of "trying to make it a sharper one," CBP is trying to put together a "meeting of the minds on export penalties and how they're issued and try to identify some of those pain points so that we can craft some very detailed instructions for the field as to where CBP's emphasis is and where CBP should be spending its time. When we exercise our discretion that we have by issuing penalties for these other agencies, we're looking to try to narrow that focus down and go after those things that really impact our ability to do our job and not because they are just technical violations."