CBP Releases its March 31, 2005 Quarterly Report to Congress on ACE (Part II - Final)
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has recently posted to its Web site its quarterly report on the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) entitled Report to Congress: The Automated Commercial Environment. This report is dated March 31, 2005 and covers the January 1, 2005 - March 31, 2005 period.
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CBP states that this report provides a "snapshot" of current program status, highlighting recent accomplishments, challenges, cost and schedule status, and near-term milestones.
This is Part II, the final partof a multi-part series of summaries on CBP's March 31, 2005 report and provides highlights of CBP's accomplishments, cost and schedule status, etc. (See ITT's Online Archives or 08/26/05 news, 05082605, for Part I.)
CBP still expects to complete ACE development in 2010. CBP states that although it has implemented some changes to the approach for ACE development, the Acquisition Program Baseline to which CBP is managing continues to be a $3.3 billion, 8.5 year program, with completion of ACE development in 2010.
According to CBP, the schedule and cost estimates in the Ace Program Plan reflect this baseline. In addition, the plan aligns the ACE Program to better address terrorist threats and related Department of Homeland Security (DHS) mission priorities, and will enable enhanced Screening & Targeting (S&T) functionality to be more effectively focused on border security.
CBP notes that it took a big step in the expansion of ACE capabilities on December 12, 2004, with the implementation of the e-Manifest: Trucks pilot at Blaine, WA. New capabilities fielded as part of the test included: Automated Truck Manifest, expedited importation processing, and primary inspector interface (consolidating seven separate cargo release systems).
Congress approved FY 2005 ACE Expenditure Plan in February 2005. CBP notes that Congress approved the fiscal year (FY) 2005 CBP Modernization Expenditure Plan in full on February 15, 2005. The plan requested $305.5 million for ACE and $16.2 million for the International Trade Data System (ITDS). CBP states that the key activities supported by the plan are:
Detailed design and development of the trade facilitation and S&T functionality
Deployment of Automated Truck Manifest capability to ports
Design and development of up to 28 agencies' requirements for ACE/ITDS.
CBP notes that, to date, Congress has appropriated and released $1.39 billion for ACE/ITDS.
FY 2005 funding enabled CBP to develop and expand ACE. In the conclusion of its report, CBP states that funding of $321 million in FY 2005 has enabled CBP to continue development and begin to expand the first installment of ACE benefits to the trade community.
CBP notes that as of its March 31, 2005 report, there were 420 importers, brokers, and carriers using the ACE Secure Data Portal and that since June 2004, CBP has been collecting an increasing amount of duties and fees via the ACE periodic payment capability.
CBP also notes that it has conducted a successful pilot test of the ACE truck cargo release capabilities, and is implementing plans to expand these capabilities to ports across U.S. northern and southern borders.
CBP working to position ACE to support broad homeland security mission. Concurrent with its ACE truck cargo release efforts, CBP states that it is working with the DHS Chief Information Officer and the US-VISIT Program to ensure compliance with the DHS Enterprise Architecture and position the ACE architecture so that it can be leveraged to support the broad homeland security mission.
ITDS Board of Directors adopts standard set of trade data. CBP states that included in the $321 million for ACE is $16 million dedicated to continuing support of ITDS, which is the mechanism for coordinating intergovernmental support for ACE and ensuring that ACE meets the needs of government agencies with border security responsibilities and a need for trade data. To that end, the ITDS Board of Directors has adopted a standard set of trade data as a step toward the concept of ACE as the "single window to the trade community." The original group of eight participating government agencies in ITDS has now grown to 26 and representatives from these agencies are actively involved in defining ACE capabilities.
March 31, 2005 ACE quarterly report available at