CBP’s Pharmaceutical, Health and Chemicals Center of Excellence and Expertise met with industry partners from government and private sector in August to discuss issues facing pharmaceutical, health and chemical industries such as disruptions to supply chains, CBP said. According to a news release, the CEEs “process participating importers within 10 CEE industries by account” and allow CBP to quickly adapt to industry changes. CBP said that CEE staff uses “industry knowledge to resolve holds and mitigate requests for information or CF-28s—oftentimes before the accounts know it themselves.” CEE Director Leon Hayward said these efforts reduce costs for the trade community and that the CEEs were “designed as the centerpiece of CBP’s 21st Century trade modernization efforts.” Other industry speakers called the CEEs “the nexus for engaging with the government on all questions for their imports.”

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

CBP plans to implement its first piece of Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) under its new "agile" development program on Oct. 5, the agency said in an ACE Trade Owner Account update. The implementation will allow for an expansion of the Simplified Entry pilot.

CBP published on Aug. 29 its agenda for the quarterly broker meeting which will be held on Sept. 12 at 10 a.m. at 1100 Raymond Blvd. in Newark, N.J. Discussion topics will include ISF enforcement penalties, exam delays, ACE update and a GSP expiration update. Industry members may contact Linda Birck with any questions at 973-368-6107 or by e-mail at Linda.Birck@dhs.gov.

Pharmaceutical and trade groups urged FDA to tread lightly as it puts in place new requirements for drug importers under the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act (FDASIA). The National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America (NCBFAA), American Association of Exporters and Importers (AAEI), and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) each submitted comments in favor of an FDA definition of importer that recognizes that trade services firms like customs brokers can’t be responsible for compliance. They also said FDA should be careful not to impose new data submission requirements that are too onerous. AAEI and PhRMA pushed FDA to establish a trusted drug importer program based on the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT), and NCBFAA cautioned against a repeat of the U.S. agent dilemma caused by FDA’s foreign food facility registration requirements.

CBP’s ability to consistently enforce Importer Security Filing (ISF) among different ports is one of several major worries for the agency’s new stricter enforcement policy on ISF, said surety company Roanoke Trade in an Aug. 27 document. According to Roanoke, CBP has said it will not impose uniformity across the ports for ISF hold and liquidated damages outside of the directions already given to the ports from CBP headquarters. The document, “ISF Enforcement Summary,” addresses ISF enforcement among ports and CBP policies on liquidated damages claims, and lays out industry concerns, CBP responses, and Roanoke’s own input as a surety.

CBP will begin enforcing entry requirements on container residue on Nov. 25, and is launching a pilot on the same date that will allow for simplified “residue entries,” it said in a notice set for publication in the Aug. 27 Federal Register. To qualify for residue entry, the residue must fall under thresholds for weight or volume, and must not have any commercial value. Residue entries will be released under modified procedures for low value shipments. Participation in the pilot is not required. All may participate in the pilot and file residue entries, and those that don’t will have to enter container residue under normal entry procedures.

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

CBP posted a reminder that it will have the scheduled weekly outage to ACE Certification from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET Aug. 21. ACE Certification is the testing environment used by trade software developers. If you are not developing or testing software, this outage does not apply to you, and ACE Production won't be impacted, CBP said.

The ACE Certification system was back up and operational by early afternoon Aug. 19, CBP said. It had been experiencing technical issues earlier that day, and was not available (see 13081914), CBP said.