The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has issued a news release announcing that state officials were asked to begin enforcement of the new hours-of-service rules starting March 4, 2004. Since January 4, 2004, FMCSA and state officials have led an aggressive educational enforcement program designed to teach commercial drivers about the new rules and ensure flagrant violations were rigorously enforced. (FMCSA news release 03-04, dated 03/04/04, available at http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/contactus/press/2004/030404.htm)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued its weekly quota commodity report as of March 8, 2004. This report includes tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) on various products such as beef, tuna, sugar, dairy products, peanuts, cotton, cocoa powder, tobacco, certain JFTA, NAFTA, SFTA, and UCFTA TRQs, etc. This report also includes the AGOA, ATPDEA, CBTPA, NAFTA, SFTA, and UCFTA tariff preference levels (TPLs) for qualifying apparel and/or other textile articles, the TRQs on worsted wool fabrics under HTS 9902.51.11 & 9902.51.12, etc. (CBP's weekly quota commodity report, dated 03/08/04, available at http://www.customs.ustreas.gov/xp/cgov/import/textiles_and_quotas/commodity/)

The International Trade Administration (ITA) has issued a notice stating that it is postponing until May 13, 2004 (from March 23, 2004) its preliminary antidumping (AD) duty determination on certain aluminum plate from South Africa.

(a) Companies other than the 14 listed above, will either be subject to an earlier final results of a CV duty review or the "all others" rate established in the original CV duty investigation. The ITA notes that the "all others" rate is expected to change in a future final results of a CV duty expedited reviews. (See ITT's Online Archives or 11/13/02, 05/14/03, 05/22/02 and 02/04/04 news, 02111345, 03051430, 02052217 and 04020435 for BP summaries of the final results of CV duty expedited and new shipper reviews for other companies, and the CV duty order for softwood lumber from Canada.)

The Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA) has issued a notice requesting public comments by March 26, 2004 regarding a "commercial availability" petition it received under the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA), the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), and the U.S.-Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA) from S. Schwab Company, Inc.:

The Web site of the International Trade Administration's (ITA's) Trade Information Center (TIC, www.ita.doc.gov/tic) contains a publication entitled, Tariff and Tax Information which contains certain information, online resources, and contact information for U.S. exports, etc.

On March 4, 2004, the Senate passed its version of H.R. 1047, the "Miscellaneous Trade and Technical Corrections Act of 2003."

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted a notice to its Web site stating that effective February 25, 2004, hand-loomed fabrics of the cottage industry, hand-made cottage industry products made of hand loomed fabrics and traditional handicraft textile products that are entered or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption on or after February 25, 2004 are eligible for Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) duty-free treatment provided that proper requirements are met.

On March 4, 2004, the Senate passed its version of H.R. 1047, the "Miscellaneous Trade and Technical Corrections Act of 2003."

The Canada Border Services Agency ¹ (CBSA) has modified its previous instructions regarding the implementation schedule for the Advance Commercial Information (ACI) initiative for inbound marine cargo in order to change the advance reporting timeframes for i) conveyances for containerized cargo, ii) conveyances for non-authorized break bulk cargo and iii) empty containers.