Brian Feito

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Sept. 12-18:

CBP faces a challenging budget environment for ACE as it works to find funding for improvements and new functionalities long desired by the trade community, said Cynthia Whittenburg, deputy executive assistant commissioner at CBP’s Office of Trade, at a National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America conference in Washington Sept. 12. Following completion of “core” ACE in December, the “funding profile” will “adjust downward” as CBP will be legally required to use ACE operations and maintenance funding for operations and maintenance, and will not be able to use the funds for building new capabilities, including for partner government agencies (PGAs). “So when you see in our appropriations and funding, 'ACE,' those dollars are going strictly to fixing bugs and keeping the system running,” she said.

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Sept. 5-11:

The Fish and Wildlife Service will soon begin allowing ACE filing of data required by the agency under an approach that includes several tariff schedule flags with differing filing requirements, said Sheila Einswaller, a senior wildlife inspector at the agency, during the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America Government Affairs Conference Sept. 12 in Washington. FWS recently announced the beginning its pilot (see 1605040023), but the test is not a “live functioning pilot at this time” as FWS is still working with developers and CBP to get business rules in place. Though the timing of live piloting is still unknown, FWS has completed the exercise of dividing the tariff schedule into four “buckets,” with different data element requirements for each based on how likely it is that FWS data is required for any given 10-digit subheading, she said.

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Aug. 29 - Sept. 4:

The National Marine Fisheries Service is working on screening and targeting criteria to determine what entries subject to new International Fisheries Trade Permit (IFTP) and ACE filing requirements it will select for manual review, said Christopher Rogers, assistant director of the international fisheries division of the NMFS Office of International Affairs and Seafood Inspection, during a Sept. 1 webinar. Given the large number of entries the agency will have to review once ACE filing becomes mandatory for NMFS data on Sept. 20, the agency will rely on the criteria to decide whether to review entries before or after the shipment is released, he said.

Additional data elements required by the Food and Drug Administration for ACE entries are increasing costs and staffing needs for the trade community, companies and trade associations said in comments on FDA’s proposed rule to codify the new requirements (here). FDA’s ACE requirements “represent an economically significant greater burden on the trade community compared to the data required in the previous Automated Commercial System (ACS),” the Express Association of America said (here). One EAA member calculated an increase of 50% in the time required to process an FDA entry in ACE over the time required in ACS, “from 16 to 24 minutes,” the EAA said. “In order to continue to meet the strict delivery deadlines in the express environment for FDA-regulated products, the increased processing time has resulted in a requirement for a 40% increase in staffing for these shipments,” it said.

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Aug. 22-28:

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Aug. 15-21:

Changes coming to the reconciliation program after CBP moves processing to ACE on Oct. 1 will “streamline” reconciliation filing, CBP National Reconciliation Program Manager Ace Kennedy said during a webinar held Aug. 19. Not only will filers be able to submit the entire reconciliation package electronically (see 1608120034), the system will also automatically populate fields for the underlying entry’s original value, duties, taxes and fees, meaning the filer no longer has to transmit that data, said Angelina Leyte of CBP's ACE Business Office. With the application process eliminated, the CBP system will now automatically verify the presence of the reconciliation bond rider required for reconciliation filing, so filers will no longer have to deposit a copy with CBP, Kennedy said. Filing will be opened up to all ports from the original 13, and will be processed by personnel from the Centers of Excellence and Expertise, she said.