U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued its weekly tariff rate quota and tariff preference level commodity report as of February 13, 2012.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection for the Area Port of Boston has issued a Public Information Notice announcing that the service offices of the Area Port of Portland, Maine will be closed on Friday, February 24, 2012.

In early January 2012, U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued instructions for the ten weekly Special Import Quota announcements for Upland Cotton that were issued by the USDA's Commodity Credit Corporation. CBP also listed the dates and quantities for each of the ten. In February, CBP added weekly Special Quotas 22 - 25, and now Special Quota 26 has been added to the list. CBP's instructions, with the new quota added, are summarized below. (Note that ITT has corrected the typos in the "buy date" column.)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message to all ACE report users that states that all Account Management, Authorized Data Extract, Entry Summary, Multi-Modal Manifest, Reference and Transactions reports were not updated last night. U.S. Customs and Border Protection is aware of the issue. The data load is continuing to run. At this time CBP anticipates reports to be up to date by February 16, 2012. A subsequent message will be issued once the data load is completed and reports are up to date. (CSMS #12-000047, dated 02/15/12)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message announcing the issuance of Harmonized System Update 1202 on changes to the 2012 Harmonized Tariff Schedule. This update contains 606 ABI records and 158 harmonized tariff records. Adjustments required by the authentication of the 2012 Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) are included. The modified records are currently available to all ABI participants and can be retrieved electronically via the procedures indicated in the CATAIR. For further information about this process, please contact your client representative. Contact Jennifer Keeling via email at Jennifer.Keeling@dhs.gov for all other questions.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued the following news releases related to commercial trade and related issues:

A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted to U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Web site as of February 14, 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.

CBP has posted an updated version of its Public Automated Commercial System FIRMS (Facilities Information and Resources Management Systems) report that is organized by port code and alphabetically by company name.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a February 13, 2012 version of its CF 1400 (Record of Vessel in Foreign Trade Entrances) electronic query report of the Vessel Management System (VMS), in accordance with 19 CFR 4.95, organized by entrances. CBP has also posted a version of its CF 1401 (Record of Vessel in Foreign Trade Clearances) electronic query report of the VMS, in accordance with 19 CFR 4.95, organized by clearances.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted the following user guides for the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE):