The Consumer Product Safety Commission’s proposed new requirements for certificates of compliance would impose a heavy burden on importers and customs brokers, said several companies and trade associations in response to the proposed rule (here). CBP hasn’t implemented CPSC compliance data in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), so electronic filing would likely take the form of complicated and time-consuming PDF submissions, said industry groups. And the proposal’s definition of importers brings customs brokers under the new requirements, even though they’re not in a position to certify compliance with product safety regulations, the National Customs Brokers & Freight Forwarders Association of America (NCBFAA) said.

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

CBP will add post summary corrections abilities within the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), providing summary data to all filers of all version of the entry summary effective July 27, the agency said in CSMS message (here). CBP on Aug. 10 will also deploy changes to ACE Reports making the latest entry summary information details available to current or previous owners of the entry summary, it said in a separate notice (here). As a result, "no separation of information between owner and semiprivate owner will occur," said CBP. The agency will publish notices in the Federal Register in the near future to announce the changes, it said.

CBP is unable provide further information as to the data elements and conditions through which CBP can share data from the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) with the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC), said a CBP spokesman. "We are not able to provide more detail regarding the data elements and the conditions under which the FMC may use them beyond what is contained in the release," he said.

The Federal Maritime Commission signed a memorandum of understanding with CBP on July 19 agreeing to share trade data within the International Trade Data System (ITDS), said CBP in a press release (here). The sharing of Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) data will help "strengthen the balance of facilitation and enforcement regarding the regulation of ocean carriers and other entities involved in trade," said CBP. The agreement means that CBP can transfer ACE data directly to the FMC to help it fulfill its "statutory and regulatory duties and responsibilities" and conserve resources within both agencies, said CBP. The agreement "specifies the specific data elements to be shared, the legal authority of FMC to receive the data and the conditions under which FMC may use, store or share the information," said CBP

CBP released the agenda for the Aug. 7 meeting with the Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (COAC) in Washington, D.C. CBP also said the meeting will be available online and registration is available (here).

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

International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for July 8-12 in case they were missed.

CBP has finished some of the initial work that will allow for entry summary quality control checks, known as edits, within the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), said CBP in its June "ACEopedia." CBP started with Harbor Maintenance Fee (HMF) validations to lay a foundation for additional validations and "developed a business rules engine that enables development teams to more easily capture, update, and maintain the business rules that govern how the validations work within the system," it said. "As development progresses and CBP gains more experience with Agile development, increasingly complex validations will be added. The second development Increment is focused on coding validations related to Classification. CBP plans to deploy Increments 1 and 2 in October 2013."

CBP's Los Angeles/Long Beach field office will make use of cargo holds in the Automated Cargo Environment (ACE) to address non-compliance with Importer Security Filing (ISF) requirements, the office said in a July 12 public bulletin. Use of the holds will begin July 15 and CBP "will hold all non-compliant ISF shipments at the terminal until the required ISF is filed, it said. CBP recently announced plans to ratchet up enforcement of ISF rules (see 13062613).