CBP Working on Proposal to Require 36 Hours of Continuing Education Every 3 Years, Leonard Says

CBP has set a "very aggressive schedule" for moving ahead with a proposal to require 36 hours of continuing education for customs brokers every three-year period, said John Leonard, acting executive assistant commissioner for trade, while speaking remotely to the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America conference May 3. Some factors involved in the timing are out of CBP's control, but "we've got some very highly placed advocates within the Department of Homeland Security that are hopefully going to work their magic with the Office of Management and Budget," he said.

The agency is planning to submit the proposal for review at DHS by June 15, he said. Once DHS approves it, OMB will review the proposal and "hopefully they will deem it not a significant rule, which requires a longer period of review," he said. "We hope to have it on the street prior to the" CBP Trade Symposium during the week of July 22, he said. CBP issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking on continuing education last year (see 2010270038 and 2012300035).

A CBP official said in March that the agency was working to determine whether the benefits would outweigh the costs for such a requirement (see 2103250030)."I don't think that this will be massive expense to the government," he said. "There will be a few small ACE enhancements that will be needed. We'll have to designate some full-time equivalent folks in our Broker Management Branch to tracking this program." But, "in the grand scheme of things, I don't see it as overly cost-prohibitive for either the government or the private sector compared to the benefit they would get out of this."

Asked about the potential economic burden created by the requirements, Leonard said CBP doesn't expect the continuing education to be financially onerous. "There's so much opportunity for free and appropriate education today," he said. CBP holds webinars nearly every week that that could fulfill the requirements, he said. The agency envisions tracking compliance through the triennial reports, he said. Leonard expects that “a certain percentage of all the brokers would be audited, and that keeps you honest, knowing that you are possibly subject to an audit,” he said.

One of the existing providers of continuing education for brokers, the NCBFAA Educational Institute, makes much of its materials widely available, said Federico Zuniga, NEI executive director. The NEI also has reciprocal agreements with trade groups, such as the International Compliance Professionals Association and the American Association of Exporters and Importers, to give them member pricing, he said. "One of fallacies of our program is that it is a money grab from the NCBFAA and the NEI," he said. That is "the furthest thing from the truth" and "we want to have education across the board for the betterment of this community and for the betterment of the data we are giving to CBP."