U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has updated its document on the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) entitled Information for New Accounts - Account Activation Process, which summarizes the relevant data to be gathered and submitted by trade participants and explains the Account Access Privileges for each user-type (i.e. brokers, carriers, and importers) to access the ACE Secure Data Portal.
The Senate Commerce Committee seems poised to act quickly next week on junk fax legislation that stalled last year in the Senate. Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. Stevens (R-Alaska) has set a hearing and mark-up next week on S-714, a junk fax bill introduced this week by Sen. Smith (R-Ore.) and Senate Commerce Committee ranking Democrat Inouye (D-Hawaii).
CBP has issued a notice announcing that the following six individual Customs broker licenses, as well as any and all permits have been cancelled due to the death of the broker:
The Journal of Commerce reports that customs brokers are often caught in an awkward position between shippers and carriers when storage fees are charged, but brokers are convinced that technical issues related to demurrage and detention fees can be worked out or at least clarified if carriers and brokers discuss their operational methods. (JoC, dated 03/28/05, www.joc.com)
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site the March 2005 issue of its U.S. Customs and Border Protection Modernization newsletter which discusses, among other things, CBP's plan to launch (i.e., implement) the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) Release 4 (Truck Manifest) at ports in geographic clusters, starting with the Blaine cluster.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection's (CBP's) Office of Information and Technology has posted a notice to its Web site containing a list, as of March 29, 2005, of companies/persons offering data processing services to the trade community for the Automated Broker Interface (ABI).
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site a notice announcing that, effective April 1, 2005, an electronic certification (eCERT) transmission issued by the Government of Singapore will be required for tariff preference level (TPL) claims under HTS Chapter 99, Subchapter X, U.S. Note 13, pursuant to the U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (SFTA).
The U.S. Census Bureau (Census) has issued a proposed rule to amend the Foreign Trade Statistics Regulations (FTSR, 15 CFR Part 30)1 in order to require mandatory filing of export information through the Automated Export System (AES) or AESDirect for all shipments where a Shipper's Export Declaration (SED) is currently required, etc.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site the Spring 2005 issue of its "ACE Modernization Monitor" newsletter, highlights of which are noted below (see future issue for additional highlights):
The Justice Department, on behalf of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), has filed a request with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit asking that the court overturn the decision issued by the U.S. District Court in Montana that granted a preliminary injunction to delay the implementation of USDA's minimal-risk regions final rule, which would, among other things, re-establish trade with Canada for beef products and live cattle under 30 months of age. (See ITT's Online Archives or 03/04/05 news, 05030410, for BP summary of the Montana court's injunction.) (USDA Release No. 0096.05, dated 03/17/05, available at http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?contentidonly=true&contentid=2005/03/0096.xml)