China dominates in rare-earths magnet production, which is a threat to U.S. national security, the Commerce Department concluded, but the president will not be authorizing tariffs to bolster a nascent domestic rare-earths magnet industry.
The Federal Maritime Commission has received nearly 100 charge complaints and numerous questions related to the Ocean Shipping Reform Act since its enactment earlier this year, FMC official Lucille Marvin said during a Sept. 21 FMC meeting. She also said the agency is making progress on a range of OSRA provisions and other agency priorities, including one that will result in a set of best practices for chassis pools and another that will formally propose new demurrage and detention billing requirements.
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The U.S. cannot seize or forfeit imports that are federally deemed "drug paraphernalia" but whose delivery, possession and manufacture were made legal at the state level, the Court of International Trade ruled Sept. 21. Judge Gary Katzmann found Washington state's move to make the marijuana-related drug paraphernalia legal allows interested parties to import the paraphernalia under the federal exemption laid out in the Controlled Substances Act.
House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., who schedules when legislation gets a vote in that chamber, said no one has brought up the Customs Business Fairness Act to him, and while he is aware it was part of a 2021 COVID-19 relief package, he hasn't heard anything about it lately.
The Ocean Shipping Reform Act (OSRA) will take time to implement, and the Federal Maritime Commission still needs companies to bring cases so it can effectively regulate ocean traffic, FMC Chairman Daniel Maffei said Sept. 19 during a panel discussion at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America annual Government Affairs Conference.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service hopes to begin implementation of its seventh and penultimate phase of Lacey Act declaration requirements toward the end of 2023, the agency’s Erin Otto said Sept. 19, speaking at a National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America conference in Washington. Otto said APHIS hopes to complete phase seven implementation in the summer of 2024, at which point the agency will pivot to the final phase eight.
The Part 111 broker regulations in the works for five years are about to be released (see 2209140051) and National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America Customs Committee Chair Mary Jo Muoio that said there are aspects of the rules that the group welcomes, and others that it dreads.
After 20 years of pushing, customs brokers got a carve-out to bankruptcy law so that the money importers give them to send to CBP to pay tariffs are not subject to clawback after a bankruptcy filing. The clawback provisions are there so that company insiders or other parties don't get favorable payments just before a filing. But that carve-out expired at the end of last year, and now brokers are trying to get it back. National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America members are making the Customs Business Fairness Act their No. 1 ask during lobbying on the Hill on Sept. 19.
Countries whose industries have been damaged by Chinese oversubsidization and overcapacity have tried to discourage subsidies in China, with results that have "been mixed at best," said Anna Ashton, the Eurasia Group's director of China corporate affairs and U.S.-China relations. She said allowing China to join the World Trade Organization, more than 20 years ago, was part of this system of carrots and sticks to effect changes in China.