With its first ACE mandatory use date around the corner, CBP clarified its transition plans for new filing requirements that take effect March 31 (here). Beginning on that date, filing all entry summaries for entry types 01, 03, 11, 23, 51 and 52, as well as all entries and entry summaries of those entry types with Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Lacey Act or National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Partner Government Agency data (and no other PGA data) must be filed in ACE (see 1602080042). Any filers submitting entries or entry summaries required in ACE on March 31 through the legacy Automated Commercial System “will be notified to cease and desist,” said CBP (here). If the filer continues to file in ACS in violation of the March 31 deadline, “CBP will avail itself of any enforcement actions available,” it said.
Lacey Act
The Lacey Act and subsequent amendments make it unlawful to import, export, transport, sell, receive, or acquire any plant, fish or wildlife obtained in violation of U.S., tribal or foreign law, as well as any injurious wildlife. The law is administered by the Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and CBP. APHIS has been implementing Lacey Act declaration requirements since 2009. Lacey Act declarations may be filed by the importer of record or its licensed customs broker, and include information on imported item's species name, value, quantity, and country where it was harvested.
Lumber Liquidators will pay $2.5 million to California regulators to settle alleged emissions violations related to high levels of formaldehyde in its composite wood flooring, said the California Air Resources Board (CARB) on March 22 (here). According to the state agency, testing of composite wood flooring obtained from Lumber Liquidators stores in California between 2013 and 2015 revealed that some products were labeled as compliant, but exceeded state formaldehyde limits. CARB claimed Lumber Liquidators “failed to take reasonable prudent precautions to ensure that laminate flooring sold in California” complied with state formaldehyde emissions standards, it said. Lumber Liquidators cooperated with the investigation and enforcement action, said CARB. The $2.5 million payment comes on top of over $13 million the company agreed to pay in October to settle federal Lacey Act charges (see 1510080012). As part of the California settlement, Lumber Liquidators will implement programs requiring regular audits of existing and new suppliers and random tests of composite core samples.
Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies, on March 3 said (here) he is reluctant to support the Agriculture Department’s request for a $4.5 million increase in Lacey Act enforcement funding for fiscal 2017. “I have trouble supporting such an increase at the expense of higher priority and more effective animal and plant health programs, many of which the agency has proposed to decrease,” Aderholt said during a subcommittee hearing on USDA’s fiscal 2017 budget request for its Marketing and Regulatory Programs. “It is this subcommittee’s responsibility to ensure that the additional funds being requested for several initiatives are not to the detriment of critical and successful programs.” The additional funds would be used to support electronic filing of Lacey Act declarations, providing law enforcement agencies improved access to declarations and helping prevent the importation of products derived from illegally harvested timber (see 1602100038).
CBP formally spelled out its revised timeline for making the Automated Commercial Environment the sole Electronic Data Interchange for providing import data required by CBP and some other agencies in a notice (here). The notice follows CBP's recent decision to delay some mandatory use dates for ACE following readiness concerns (see 1602080042). "While significant progress has been made, continued concerns about trade readiness have necessitated an updated timeline for the mandatory transition to ACE for electronic entry and entry summary filing," said CBP. "As a result, CBP has developed a staggered transition strategy, to give the trade additional time to adjust their business practices and complete programming for entry and entry summary filing in ACE."
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Feb. 16-19 in case they were missed.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is drafting a "formal clarification" to spell out exemptions to Lacey Act declaration requirements for plant products entered from Foreign Trade Zones, an APHIS spokeswoman said in an email. There's been confusion over several years as to whether an exemption to the requirements applies to type 06 entries. With the move toward the Automated Commercial Environment, the agency plans to bring type 06 entries "into the fold of the Lacey Act declaration requirement," APHIS's Parul Patel, senior agriculturalist, Imports, Regulations, and Manuals, said at a National Association of Foreign Trade Zones conference on Feb. 9.
Federal agencies asked for the authority to impose over $200 million in user fees on importers and their suppliers in their fiscal year 2017 budget requests. A Food and Drug Administration user fee on imports would go toward more staff at the borders and "port of entry streamlining," with the agency also requesting direct funding from Congress for implementation of the Foreign Supplier Verification Program. A CPSC user fee on imports, estimated at 0.007% of entered value, would support the commission's import surveillance office, including by funding full implementation of the Risk Assessment Methodology targeting system. The two agencies have been asking for import user fees since FY 2015 (see 14030519).
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
CBP again adjusted its transition timeline for the Automated Commercial Environment following new concerns over the government's readiness to move from the Automated Commercial System, said CBP Feb. 8 (here). "While significant progress has been made, continued concerns about stakeholder readiness have necessitated an updated timeline for the mandatory transition to ACE for electronic entry and entry summary filing," said CBP. The shift marks the second major change to its schedule due to readiness uncertainty (see 1509010017).
CBP should adopt a “soft mandated” approach to its Feb. 28 Automated Commercial Environment deadline for cargo release entry types 01, 03 and 11, keeping the Automated Commercial System online as a fallback, and delay the deadline for both cargo release and entry summary for all other entry types until 90 days after programming has been finalized, said the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America in a letter to agency officials dated Feb. 2 (here).