CBP Officials Talk Budget Woes, Int'l Cooperation, Pre-Departure Initiatives at Industry Day
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials further elaborated on the challenges they face due to budgetary constraints at late morning and afternoon sessions of its Industry Day event, held in Washington, DC on May 22, 2012. In the face of such constraints, CBP officials said that cooperation with industry is essential to improve efficiency and lessen the burden on port personnel. A panel on intelligence and targeting said such budgetary constraints have encouraged CBP to use pre-departure initiatives for the same motive. However, an official from the Department of Homeland Security research arm bemoaned the effect of budget woes on the development of revolutionary technology.
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CBP Faces Budgetary Constraints, but Cooperation w/ Industry Fruitful
Maintaining the theme from earlier in the day of budget constraints, Valerie Isbell of the Office of Information and Technology said CBP faces a budgetary tradeoff between sustaining its old technology and investing in new technologies. Vincent Annunziato of the Office of International Trade added that CBP is at the point where it can’t throw people, resources, regulations and initiatives at problems anymore. However, Annunziato cited the Air Cargo Advance Screening (ACAS) initiative as a recent success despite these constraints, specifically CBP’s cooperation with industry to receive information on shipments much earlier than previously using an existing platform with no additional cost.
Officials Cite Difficulty of Encourging Asian C-TPAT Participation, but AmChams Help
Several CBP officials commented on enhancing international cooperation to expedite trade and travel. One official said that, while the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) had been made available in Asia, and CBP had traveled there several times to increase participation or meet in a partnership to facilitate C-TPAT, some in Asia are not interested in the project, noting that efforts to increase participation are still ongoing.
Charles Stallworth of the Office of International Affairs said that some of the most effective efforts at increasing participation in initiatives such as C-TPAT and the Container Security Initiative (CSI) are made by American Chambers of Commerce. AmCham’s influence over counterpart customs and other agencies is much more significant than U.S. Government agency influence, said Stallworth, and in many cases private industry from the U.S. or multinational corporations talk to foreign private sector business partners and note the real costs of the lack of foreign participation in CBP’s initiatives, such as containers held up at ports in the U.S.
Budget Woes Reinforce CBP Move to Pre-Departure Initiatives
A panel on intelligence and targeting also cited budgetary constraints as one of their biggest challenges. Andrew Farrelly of the National Targeting Center talked about the effect of the budgetary environment, combined with several attempted terrorist attacks, on the future of targeting, noting that pre-departure initiatives such as ACAS are even more critical because they alleviate the burden on field personnel.
Development of New Tech Stunted by Budget, but Working on “Chain of Custody” Tool
Steve Dennis of the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (HSARPA) said budgetary constraints have forced HSARPA to shrink its time horizon for implementation of new technologies to two years, even though its goal is to promote revolutionary technologies.
Currently, said Dennis, HSARPA is working on a “chain of custody” tool that allows shipments from Mexico and Canada destined for the U.S. to cross the border quickly. Dennis said that HSARPA will hold a variety of demonstrations on the tool over the coming year. HSARPA is also working on ways to determine chemical or biological composition inside shipping containers, cybersecurity, tunnel activity monitoring, tunnel detection, and mobile surveillance, among other things, said Dennis.
Statistical Analysis, Trusted Shippers Making CBP Targeting Smarter
The Office of Intelligence and Investigative Liaison has been using statistical analysis to glean common characteristics of companies that have violated intellectual property rights to determine which shipments to inspect, said Thomas Bush, Executive Director Targeting, in response to an industry question on integration of intelligence into supply chain analysis when targeting.
Farrelly added that, in targeting, it is important to know not just what to look at, but also what not to look at by building a picture of trusted shippers.
“Risk Characterization” Mandated by Obama Plan Difficult
The Obama Administration released a global supply chain strategy at the end of January, noted Farrelly, and included in the plan was an internal guidance that charged CBP to develop a “risk characterization” through an interagency process. Farrelly said that this effort has been extremely difficult due to the necessity of quantifying different risks between such unlikely but possible events as a dirty bomb on an airplane or a fully weaponized nuclear bomb in a container.
Agenda of CBP Industry Day event available here.
(See ITT’s Online Archives 12052227 for summary of the first session of CBP’s Industry Day event.)