CBP, Trade Need Consensus to Get Through Short Window for 21CCF Customs Legislation, Ex-Staffer Says

With a short window for passing customs modernization legislation this year and uncertain prospects after that, it’s important that CBP and the trade community “stick the landing” of the 21st Century Customs Framework initiative and present a united front to Congress when a legislative proposal is submitted by CBP later this year, said John Drake, vice president-supply chain policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Speaking during an April 18 panel discussion on 21CCF at the CBP Trade Facilitation and Cargo Security Summit in Boston, Drake said there are only 257 calendar days and 184 working days left in the year, and only 110 will be days in which Congress is in session. The need for Congress to consider other must-pass bills, such as the debt ceiling, budget and National Defense Authorization Act, among others, will take more “days if not weeks of legislative time away,” Drake said.

That means that “whatever moves forward really has to demonstrate that it has the support of the trade community and the administration so that it can have a good shot at getting not just floor time, but also getting the support that it needs to pass not just the Senate, but also the House,” before making it to the president’s desk for signature, he said.

There are reasons to be optimistic, Drake said. The chair and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee have called customs modernization a priority (see 2302160065). Customs modernization also aligns with the recent congressional focus on supply chain issues, including enactment of infrastructure investments in the Jobs Act, the Chips Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, the Ocean Shipping Reform Act and the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, he said.

21CCF “also touches upon a lot of issues that are a big priority for Congress today,” including China, counterfeits, forced labor and e-commerce. There’s “potentially a lot of support to move this thing through,” Drake said. “So, despite the fact that there's only a limited number of legislative days left this year, there's a lot of momentum and a lot of good, good currents.”

“There’s a real opportunity to get something done this year,” Drake said.

On the other hand, if the bill doesn’t pass, prospects moving forward may not be so bright, he said. Although the same Congress will be in session next year, a lot of the legislative calendar will be “eaten up by just the fact that you’ve got a” presidential campaign “that’s underway,” Drake said. “You're going to have fewer legislative days. A lot of that legislative activity is going to be looking at campaign issues.” That makes it harder to pass customs legislation, which doesn't necessarily align itself with the needs of a presidential or congressional campaign and “isn't necessarily viewed as a must-pass bill like funding the government,” Drake said.

If it doesn’t pass this year, “you're probably looking at two to three years at least before this gets done,” Drake said. “It's unclear at that point in time where congressional leadership is going to be on their desire to actually tackle this issue again. So the next couple of months here are going to be very, very important to this,” he said.

The next step for 21CCF will be a final vote on CBP’s legislative proposals at the June 14 COAC meeting, said Garrett Wright, director-trade modernization at CBP’s trade policy and programs office. “That will mark the end of the beginning,” Wright said, speaking during the same panel discussion.

Not everyone will be happy with the result, Drake said. 21CCF “represents building an e-commerce platform on top of” the traditional trade rules, he said. “This is new for a lot of folks.”

“At the end of the day, not everyone’s going to be happy with the product that came out,” he said. “The trade community is very, very vast. There’s a lot of players in this space. And everyone’s going to say that this provision could have been treated differently, or they wanted to see more of an emphasis on one provision” as opposed to another. “You’re already seeing this in the discussions about trade facilitation versus enforcement, and I think these are only going to continue to the conclusion,” Drake said.

That said, “at the end of the day, if the 21CCF package comes to a close and it doesn’t have the consensus it needs,” the Senate Finance and House Way and Means committees are “going to be in position where they're going to be asked by the trade community to relitigate a lot of the various provisions of 21CCF,” Drake said.

Despite the patience and long conversations over “six to seven years” that it took to develop the 21CCF proposal, “if you look at the calendar for getting something done this year, and if we are asking Congress to relitigate and basically rewrite 21CCF from scratch, you're not going to get it done this year,” he said.

“This does not get done unless the trade community gets organized” and “works through the various trade associations that are going to be at the table along with CBP to get this done so that we are communicating with one voice on our top line priorities and working constructively with Congress and with the administration to work through the various concerns and issues -- and there will be many through this process -- so that we can get to a spot where everyone's comfortable,” Drake said.

"At the end of the day, the real benefits of this are important,” Drake said. “I think we all recognize those benefits. But a lot of our stakeholders today also know the current system, and as outdated and arguably imperfect as it is, the trade community is not going to want to move towards a new system unless they understand and unless they buy into the vision that's being propelled through the 21CCF process,” he said.