U.S. Customs and Border Protection has adopted, without change, its 2011 proposed rule to amend its regulations at 19 CFR Part 10 to allow 314 days (rather than 90 days) after the date of entry for the filing of the State Department Certification needed for auditory and visual materials to qualify for duty-free treatment under HTS 9817.00.40.1 This new rule is effective March 23, 2012.
The American Association of Port Authorities issued a press release lauding the Obama Administration for proposing to spend $848 million from the Harbor Maintenance Fund (HMF) in FY 2013, a $90 million (12%) increase over the Administration's FY 2012 budget request. AAPA advocates for full use of the Harbor Maintenance Tax’s collections for the dredging of U.S. deep-draft navigation channels, and expressed disappointment that the request does not approach the $1.4 billion collected annually by the tax.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued the following releases on commercial trade and related issues:
A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages from the International Trade Administration posted to U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Web site as of February 20, 2012, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. These messages are available by searching on the listed CBP message number at http://addcvd.cbp.gov.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a fact sheet on Simplified Entry, which provides information on how the Simplified Entry process works, advantages to the approach, as well as a flow diagram depicting the process from pre-departure to arrival. CBP has also posted a fact sheet on the Centers of Excellence and Expertise (CEEs), which provides information on how the centers work and the key benefits they provide. Simplified Entry fact sheet is available here. Centers of Excellence and Expertise fact sheet is available here.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted two additional documents for the February 21, 2012 Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations of Customs and Border Protection (COAC) meeting. One of the new documents posted is the 12th Term COAC Membership Directory for 2011-2013, which provides the name, title, and company name and address for COAC members and subcommittees (here). CBP has also posted draft submission instructions for CBP Bond Form 301 (here). All materials for the February 21 COAC meeting are available here.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued two messages alerting the trade that the six-month count down to turning off the Automated Manifest System and replacing it with ACE e-Manifest: Rail and Sea (M1) is targeted to start in March 2012 when CBP announces that M1 will be the only CBP-approved electronic data interchange (EDI) through which rail and sea manifests will be transmitted. CBP warns that there will be mandatory changes to functionality that impact ABI software developers and their users, and it is time for those not filing via ACE e-Manifest: Rail and Sea to test and become certified now. CBP notes that the deployment of M1 is going well, and that all direct arrival ports will be deployed with trained CBP users by the end of March 2012. CSMS #12-000051 (dated 02/17/12) available here. CSMS #12-000050 and attachment (dated 02/17/12) available here.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted another updated version of its February 2012 "Trade Transformation" document. The revised document no longer states that testing of the Simplified Entry process in the air cargo environment will begin mid-February followed by production in late February to early March. The updated document also no longer states that the first Simplified Entry is expected to be filed (by the trade) in March 2012. The revised version has also added back in a listing of the locations for the two established and seven planned industry Centers of Excellence and Expertise (CEEs).
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message announcing that it will present upcoming programming changes for existing and new functionality scheduled to be delivered as part of the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) at the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America (NCBFAA) meeting on March 6-8, 2012 in Arlington, Virginia. The seminar will target ocean and rail software developers and ABI participants. Presentations over the three days will focus on: (i) Message formats for ACE M1 Ocean/Rail Manifest and the trade pilot; (ii) New IT initiatives including Export Manifest, Cargo Release, Simplified Entry, Document Image System (DIS), PGA Message Set, and ABI changes for M1; (iii) ACE entry summary and related documentation overviews such as ACS to ACE changes, Entry Summary Create/Update and Status Notification, Post Summary Corrections, etc. Registration is available at http://www.ncbfaa.org/.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued the following releases on commercial trade and related issues: