U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued instructions in English and Spanish for brokers, importers, and carriers with Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) portal accounts, that wish to act as third parties on behalf of truck carriers with ACE non-portal accounts, in order to submit their electronic manifest (e-manifest) information via the ACE Secure Data Portal.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued a notice announcing a change in the deployment date for the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) Entry Summary, Accounts, Revenue (ESAR) A1 release. This release, originally scheduled for May 2007, has been moved to August 2007.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has recently posted to its Web site its quarterly reports on the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) entitled Report to Congress on the Automated Commercial Environment. These reports cover the four quarters of calendar year 2006.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is announcing that beginning March 15, 2007, truck carriers who participate in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE)Truck Manifest Test¹, that have ACE non-portal accounts, can submit their electronic manifest (e-Manifest) information via the ACE Secure Data Portal using third parties that have ACE portal accounts.

On February 27, 2007, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Ralph Basham testified before the House Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Homeland Security regarding CBP's fiscal year (FY) 2008 budget request.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site a notice which announces the phased enforcement of mandatory ACE electronic manifest: Truck (e-Manifest: Truck) for advance cargo information purposes at all land border ports in Michigan and New York beginning May 24, 2007.

CBP has issued its weekly tariff rate quota (TRQ)/tariff preference level (TPL) commodity report as of March 12, 2007. This report includes TRQs on various products such as beef, tuna, sugar, dairy products, peanuts, cotton, cocoa powder, tobacco, certain BFTA, CAFTA-DR, JFTA, MFTA, NAFTA, SFTA, UAFTA (AFTA) and UCFTA (Chile FTA) non-textile TRQs, etc. Each report also includes the AGOA, ATPDEA, BFTA, CAFTA-DR, CBTPA, MFTA, NAFTA, SFTA, and UCFTA (Chile FTA) TPLs and TRQs for qualifying apparel and/or other textile articles, the TRQs on worsted wool fabrics, etc. (CBP's weekly TRQ/TPL commodity report, dated 03/12/07, available at http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/import/textiles_and_quotas/commodity/)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site an updated version of its lengthy document on the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) entitled "ACE Frequently Asked Questions."

According to an American Shipper editorial, the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) has been eclipsed by efforts to enhance cargo security since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The article adds that CBP did cross a major ACE milestone last year when it announced the first group of border crossings at which truckers would be required to file electronic instead of paper manifests, but full ACE implementation is still years down the road. (American Shipper Pub February 2007, www.americanshipper.com)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site an updated "draft" deployment schedule for equipping land border ports with ACE e-Manifest: Truck capabilities.