The Department of Energy will extend the comments deadline to Feb. 29 on a proposal that would require importers of products covered under “an applicable energy conservation standard” to file a “certification of admissibility” for each shipment of such products before their arrival at a U.S. port of entry, it said (here). The proposed rule would require the filing in the Automated Commercial Environment at time of entry (see 1512290020). DOE also granted a request to hold a public meeting to explain the proposal before comments are due, said a prepublication Federal Register notice released by the agency. That meeting will be Feb. 19, 9:30 a.m., at DOE headquarters, 10 days before comments are due, the notice said. The meeting also will be webcast, it said. Trade groups, including the Consumer Technology Association and Plumbing Manufacturers International recently said in a joint filing (here) that they're genuinely "confused" with the proposal because it “does little to explain the specific issue the Department is attempting to resolve with the proposed import data collection.” The groups had asked DOE to extend the comments deadline until 30 days after the meeting date.

CBP named Alice Kipel, previously a lawyer with Steptoe & Johnson, as the executive director or Regulations and Rulings in the Office of International Trade, the agency said in a news release (here). CBP also noted Deborah Augustin's previously announced new role as the executive director of the Automated Commercial Environment Business Office (see 1601130053). Augustin previously was acting executive director.

The Food and Drug Administration’s new Foreign Supplier Verification Program will be implemented over the next five years, with deadlines for importer compliance based on the product being imported. International Trade Today is providing an implementation timeline to help food importers comply with the new program.

President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2017 budget proposal released Feb. 9 asks for a $24 million increase in funding for the International Trade Administration, and a$14.4 million bump for the Bureau of Industry and Security (here). The Commerce Department’s $521 million request for ITA includes $10.4 million for hiring 36 full-time employees to expand its “capacity and footprint” and place personnel in high-demand markets, as well as $2 million for 12 new full-time employees in FY 2017 to better enforce antidumping and countervailing duty laws.

CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:

CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:

Importers are seeing an increase in requests for certificates of compliance by the Consumer Product Safety Commission due to a general effort to enhance enforcement as well as recent targeted sampling on toys, said Jim Joholske, CPSC’s acting director of import surveillance, during a Feb. 9 conference call with members of the Retail Industry Leaders Association.

The Environmental Protection Agency is amending its regulations on importation and exportation of ozone-depleting substances to implement electronic filing through the International Trade Data System (ITDS), in a direct final rule (here). Effective May 9, EPA is removing the requirement that importers submit a petition along with entry documentation for certain ozone depleting substances, and is eliminating references to paper forms that CBP will no longer use as it moves to the Automated Commercial Environment. If EPA receives adverse comments by March 10, it will withdraw the direct final rule and consider the changes as a proposal (here).

CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:

With the Automated Commercial Environment set to operate at full operational capacity, resulting in lower expected sustainment costs for ACE, the Department of Homeland Security is requesting $83.9 million to maintain ACE next fiscal year, $29.2 million less than DHS received for the program in fiscal 2016, according to the department’s fiscal 2016 budget request released Feb. 9 (here). “In FY 2017 ACE will be operating at full operational capacity with the Automated Commercial System (ACS) being decommissioned, thereby requiring less overall sustainment costs for the program,” DHS also asked for $118.1 million to maintain its Automated Targeting System for fiscal 2017, $3.8 million more than what was given for the preceding year.