The Commerce Department's National Marine Fisheries Service acted within its authority when it issued rules for imports of species of seafood the agency has deemed high-risk, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said in an Aug. 28 ruling. The National Fisheries Institute (NFI) and individual seafood importers and processors filed the lawsuit to challenge the rule, which was issued in December last year and includes new ACE filing requirements at time of entry beginning in January 2018 (see 1612080014). The companies said the NMFS undercounted the burdens to industry of the and rule and that only the Food and Drug Administration has the statutory authority to regulate seafood fraud. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta disagreed with those arguments and ruled in favor of the government.
CBP posted its ACE deployment schedule, which reflects recent changes to deployment plans (see 1708230027), the agency said in a CSMS message. Two items, Automated Surety Interface: Billing Information and collections, were removed entirely from the schedule, according a list of changes included with the schedule. For those items, "capability will remain in [the Automated Commercial System] until further notice," it said.
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Aug. 21-25 in case they were missed.
CBP’s Office of Field Operations (OFO) plans to roll out an interim standardized format for foreign-trade zone compliance reviews by Oct. 31, the Department of Homeland Security said in response to a Government Accountability Office report. The GAO report, released Aug. 28, found that CBP doesn't "centrally compile FTZ compliance and internal risks" to help analyze risks across the FTZ program. FTZs accounted for 11 percent of imports in 2015, and incorrect risk level determinations could impact FTZ program effectiveness and revenue collection, the GAO said.
CBP on Aug. 29 issued additional guidance on cargo affected by port closures from Hurricane Harvey. For now, nothing needs to be done for entries and entry summaries that have already been filed, even for cargo diverted to other ports. Pending entry summaries for entries already filed at affected ports should be filed at the same port, while pending entries should be filed at the new port of arrival, CBP said. In the long-term, the trade community should expect the Port of Houston and other affected ports to be closed for the “foreseeable future” and plan their shipments accordingly, said Gary Schreffler, acting chief of CBP’s Cargo Control & Release Branch, during a call held Aug. 29.
FDA will on Sept. 1 cease sending electronic messages on entries filed in the legacy Automated Commercial System, CBP said in a CSMS message. “After September 1, 2017, any status changes for FDA ACS entries/lines will be solely communicated via official Notices of FDA Action or other written communication from the FDA Import Division responsible. Electronic messaging will continue for entries submitted to FDA through ACE,” it said.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee approved recommendations on filing of Fish and Wildlife Service-regulated commodities in ACE, including on the agency’s upcoming pilot and a desired trusted trader program, at its Aug. 23 meeting in San Diego. The recommendations, which include short-term advice for the FWS ACE pilot as well as long-term guidance on FWS filing in general, were put forth by a COAC FWS working group created after the agency suspended its ACE pilot in January in response to industry concerns (see 1701190011). FWS has said it will take the recommendations into account when it updates its ACE implementation guide in October (see 1708160036).
Among the express industry’s hopes for CBP regulatory reforms is elimination of rules governing importer storage of records of a non-original format, and switching from a district permit structure to a “customs territory permit structure,” according to a list of recommendations provided by the Express Association of America to Tim Skud, Treasury Department deputy assistant secretary for tax, trade. Skud mentioned the recommendations at the Aug. 23 meeting of the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee, and said the EAA's were the only ones he had received so far. CBP is in the process of compiling an "inventory" of deregulatory actions to comply with Trump administration initiatives including the two-for-one rule, officials have said (see 1705090020).
The unplanned ACE outages during the week of July 31 (see 1708030015) were the result of "hardware failure," CBP Acting Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said during the Aug. 23 Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee meeting in San Diego. McAleenan noted that the issues weren't caused by a cybersecurity problem or any other malicious incident.