Reduced Focus on Minor Violations Will Free Resources to Target Larger Violations, COAC Says

Newly recommended export-related initiatives (see 1912020048), including an effort by CBP to reduce minor “parking ticket” violations, will better allow U.S. enforcement agencies to target serious export violators, Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee members said during a Dec. 4 meeting. CBP’s Export Modernization Working Group hopes fewer minor penalties will clear up enforcement officials to do more large-scale work. “It should help the enforcement side to have time to actually get the bad guys,” said Brenda Barnes, a COAC member and part of the EMWG.

CBP has introduced "discretionary guidelines" for officials to consider before issuing minor violations, said Jim Swanson, director of CBP’s Cargo and Security Controls Division. Parking ticket violations were the “biggest pain point … identified repeatedly” by exporters, Swanson said. He said exporters are unable to avoid the violations. “It was as if the parking signs were moving on people, and they couldn’t control the outcome,” he said. CBP previously announced plans to eliminate minor violations as part of its upcoming rollout of electronic export manifest (see 1909240034).

CBP’s goal is to “at least take out one impediment to export no matter what the international trade situation is,” Swanson said. “At the very least, CBP and the government agencies that regulate exports shouldn’t be the problem. We’re the solution.”

Derek Benner, acting deputy director of ICE, said CBP should ensure all exporters using electronic export manifest know which items require export licenses, which will make it easier for ICE and other enforcement officials to target and prosecute violators. “That evidence is huge for the investigators to show that these people know the process to apply for an export license,” Benner said.

Timothy Skud, the Treasury Department’s deputy assistant secretary for tax, trade and tariff policy, praised the working group’s third recommendation, which suggested that the data elements for Electronic Export Information and Manifest should be “mapped” to define the owners of the data. The mapping would also identify those who are responsible for the data and those who may be doing the filing. “This is exactly the kind of questions you have to ask,” Skud said, “so I applaud you for doing that.”

Swanson said that recommendation and others show that the export manifest processing environment needs “significant” modernization. “We need clarity,” he said. “We need the ability to be able to collect discrete data elements from parties that own that data and then ... integrate the data on the back-end so we can actually do both effective screening and ultimately effective enforcement.”