Federal Agencies Dust Off Shutdown Plans as NCBFAA Urges Trade Exemptions

The FDA told International Trade Today that it expects "vital activities" to continue as they have done in past shutdown scenarios, directing us to a shutdown plan from December 2024 that notes that the review of import entries is one of the activities it deems vital.

The EPA directed ITT to a webpage linking to contingency plans drafted since 2011, including its latest plan drafted in March. While the plan doesn't mention imports or trade explicitly, the plan mentions that the agency will continue only the issuance of permits, guidance, regulations and policies for activities deemed exempted. Updates to the EPA website and other communication activities would continue also only for exempted activities.

The National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America, which sent a letter to the Office of Management and Budget earlier this week calling for OMB to ensure that federal employees involved in trade compliance are deemed essential (see 2509220037), also sent letters to the heads of the FDA and EPA asking them to support trade-facing employees.

To the FDA, NCBFAA said that while the agency maintained enforcement staff at the ports during previous shutdowns, smaller border ports, particularly those along the U.S.-Mexico border, "experienced seriously reduced FDA staffing. This created lengthy back-ups, congestion, costly demurrage for the trade and inefficiencies in sorting through compliant versus noncompliant shipments." The trade group urged the FDA to have sufficient staff at all its ports to support import and export processing functions.

To EPA, NCBFAA said that staff in the regional offices and headquarters are critical for trade compliance, in addition to those working at the ports. These staff "conduct document reviews, process pesticide Notices of Arrival or respond to inquiries when automated 'May Proceeds' are delayed," NCBFAA said. "In prior shutdowns, lengthy delays of EPA-regulated products occurred when the Regions were left unstaffed. This created congestion at the ports, costly demurrage for the trade and inefficiencies in sorting through compliant versus noncompliant shipments."

NCBFAA also sent letters to the heads of other partner government agencies, including USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service: "We are aware that AMS inspection services are user-fee funded and will continue to operate during a shutdown, as will CBP Agricultural inspectors, who will be considered 'excepted' employees. Frontline staff at the ports are indeed critical. But just as important are staff in regional offices and headquarters to conduct document reviews, backstop automated systems and processes, and respond to issues relating to agriculture holds. In prior shutdowns, we saw many local issues, such as one port that was requiring any shipment with an agriculture hold to be re-exported."

An NCBFAA letter to the Fish and Wildlife Service said: "During recent shutdowns, FWS was forced to perform manual clearances when e-Decs was temporarily halted. This created congestion at the ports, costly demurrage for the trade and inefficiencies in sorting through compliant versus noncompliant shipments."

The trade group also sent a similar letter to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

CBP meanwhile could see roughly 60,000 employees of its total 66,000-employee workforce continuing to work amid a government shutdown, according to a March update of DHS' shutdown contingency plan.