U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a fact sheet on the Automated Commercial Environment multi-modal manifest (MMM) capability, which will expand ACE to include all modes of transportation and provide a single, automated system for cargo control and release.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued an ACE Portal Accounts and ACE Reports CSMS message announcing that it will soon introduce ad hoc reporting capabilities as an enhancement to Automated Commercial Environment reports.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a Truck Manifest CSMS message announcing that it has fixed the problem with the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) is experiencing some synchronization issues with the Free and Secure Trade (FAST) database that was causing Commercial Drivers Licenses (CDL) to appear to be expired. According to CBP, Truck manifest filers should not be receiving rejected manifests based on expired CDLs.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, with trade community input, has created a new Automated Commercial Environment Secure Data Portal account revenue report.
The House Agriculture Committee reports that on May 8, 2008, Congressional negotiators announced a final Farm Bill conference agreement. According to a Committee fact sheet, the conference agreement includes, among many other things, a provision to make country-of-origin labeling for meat and produce mandatory. (House Agriculture Committee statement available at http://agriculture.house.gov/inside/FarmBill.html; Fact Sheet on conference agreement summary available at http://agriculture.house.gov/inside/Legislation/110/FB/Conf/FarmBillOnePager.pdf.)
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted the April 2008 customs broker license exam answer key.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has published a list of field offices whose ports accept the electronic CBP Form 214 (e214, Foreign Trade Zone Admission and/or Status Designation) in lieu of a paper copy.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection sources, the April 2008 customs broker license exam had a pass rate of 20.5%, with over 1,600 people sitting for the exam. Sources add that the answer key should soon be posted to CBP's Web site, and the letters notifying candidates of their April 2008 exam scores are expected to be mailed out the week of May 7, 2008.
At the April 2008 National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America's Annual Conference, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials1 stated that CBP is working to establish a Broker Compliance Management program.
On April 22, 2008, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials gave an Automated Commercial Environment update at an event hosted by the Baltimore Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association.