U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message announcing that registration is now partially open for CBP's free webinar on ACE Post Summary Corrections that will be held on September 1, 2011. CBP is also accepting questions by August 24, 2011 in order to tailor this webinar to specific areas of interest.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has announced that it is hosting a series of free webinars to provide more timely and up-to-date information to the international trade community on CBP trade policy. The next upcoming trade outreach webinar will be held on September 1, 2011 and will focus on ACE Post Summary Corrections.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a final rule to discontinue mailing paper courtesy notices of liquidation for entry summaries that are filed in the Automated Broker Interface (ABI), effective on approximately September 30, 2011. Importers of record whose entry summaries are not filed through ABI will continue to receive paper courtesy notices of liquidation on CBP Form 4333-A.

According to CBP sources, the agency's recent Information Notice on e-Manifest: Ocean and Rail (M1) contains information on the general enhancements to the ACE Portal for all users that will be included with M1's code deployment later in August 2011. General Portal enhancements include new shared report functionality for all ACE report users, while ocean and rail improvements include automated in-bond authorizations for transportation companies with custodial bonds.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a fact sheet and presentation on the work being done to model simplified entry and financial processes for imports, as called for by Commissioner Bersin, who asked industry and government to consider how import trade processes can be re-engineered to meet the technological needs of the 21st century. CBP hopes to pilot these models in fiscal year 2012.

CBP has issued a CSMS message which states that CBP will be deploying new capabilities later this month that will allow rail and sea carriers to transmit electronic manifest data to the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). Attached to this CSMS message is a summary of M1’s enhancements.

CBP officials state the agency is “exploring its options” on how to address trade concerns that the original ACE entry summary filer is missing out on perhaps important information, when a different filer replaces the original filer’s summary with a Post Summary Correction version, as the original filer does not have visibility to the PSC filing.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued instructions on using the Remote Location Filing "Hybrid Process" when paper form Other Government Agency documents must be filed with CBP in conjunction with the RLF data in ACS or ACE. CBP also lists the paper OGA documents that are ineligible for hybrid filings.

U.S. Customs and Border protection has posted a 2011 ACE Accomplishments fact sheet listing a total of 22 accomplishments from January to June 2011. Most recently, in June 2011, a Trade Support Network (TSN) Webinar was hosted where updates were provided on e-Manifest: Rail and Sea (M1), Cargo Release, Post Summary Corrections (PSC), etc. Also in June, the Trade Leadership Council held a meeting to provide ACE project updates to the trade community and to receive trade input on ACE project priorities. On June 4, PSC enhancements were deployed.

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and U.S. Customs and Border Protection Joint Agency Task Force has issued a report on its progress in implementing 2007 action plans to address concerns regarding the 2003 transfer of the agricultural inspection function from APHIS to CBP. Pending items to accomplish include creating cargo performance measures and a penalty review process.