Census Still Reviewing Puerto Rico EEI Rule
The Census Bureau hasn’t yet decided whether to eliminate export filing requirements for shipments to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, despite struggling to find a legitimate, alternative data source for those filings. A Census official suggested in September the agency was unlikely to move forward with a rulemaking to eliminate the requirements because no alternative data source had been found (see 2109140037), and said a final decision on the rule would be made within days. But two months later, it’s still under review, a Census spokesperson said Nov. 15.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
The agency proposed eliminating the Electronic Export Information filing requirements last year and received a mixed bag of feedback, with many in industry saying the filings were costly and burdensome (see 2012040033 and 2106250021). But some researchers and academics said the EEI data provides a vital source of economic information for the island, and the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis said it relies on the fillings to calculate Puerto Rico’s GDP.