U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued an administrative message announcing that several changes will be made to ABI and FDA software, effective April 14, 2004, to improve the process for filing FDA Prior Notices of imported food (PNs), as follows:

According to articles in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Today, CBP's National Targeting Center (NTC), established on October 21, 2001, is the centralized coordination point for all of CBP's anti-terrorism efforts. The NTC provides target-specific information to field offices and is continuously operational. In January 2003, the NTC moved to a new facility in Northern Virginia.

On June 8, 2004, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Bureau of Census (Census) plan to deliver a redesign of the commodity module of the Automated Export System (AES).

According to a State Department Washington File article, on March 24, 2004, the Senate failed to invoke cloture (i.e., end debate) on a bill to repeal the Foreign Sales Corporation/Extraterritorial Income Act (ETI) tax regime. The article notes that after failing to block further amendments to the bill, the Senate Republican leadership announced that they would work on a new strategy for pushing for passage of the bill. (Washington File article dated 03/24/04, available at http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2004&m=March&x=20040324140811ebyessedo0.7140619&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html.)

¹ The ITA states that it has preliminary determined to treat LMC and LIMAC as a single entity for purposes of this AD duty administrative review.

The ITA states that it has collapsed SIBRA, CPFL and Urucum into one entity for purposes of this AD duty administrative review.

The World Customs Organization (WCO) has issued an amending supplement (No. 4, dated August 2003) to the Harmonized System Explanatory Notes (ENs). (Although not binding on U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the ENs are followed by CBP whenever possible.) (This is Part III of a multi-part series of summaries on this amending supplement. See future issues of ITT for additional summaries.)

On March 22, 2004, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced additional security initiatives aimed at further reducing vulnerabilities to transit and rail systems. New initiatives to be undertaken will target three specific areas: threat response support capability, public awareness and participation, and future technological innovations.

The Department of the Interior (Interior) has announced that on March 24, 2004, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted an emergency administrative stay of the U.S. District Court injunction that disconnected most of Interior's computer systems, including that of the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), from the Internet beginning on March 15, 2004.

On March 18, 2004, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced that it had entered into a new partnership with Florida state House and Senate leaders and with the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles to strengthen security for personnel at Florida's seaports.