Congressional appropriators finished an omnibus bill for fiscal 2016 that would provide $829.5 million for operation and improvement of CBP automation expenses, including $151.2 million set aside for Automated Commercial Environment development (here). The bill requires that $53 million of the ACE funding is spent by Sept. 30, 2018. Overall, the bill includes $8.6 billion for CBP, $3.3 million of which would be drawn from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund. Additionally, the bill would allocate $30 million until Sept. 30, 2017 for recruiting, training, and equipping law enforcement officers and Border Patrol agents. The House is expected to vote on the legislation Dec. 18, said a House staffer.

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

International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Dec. 7 - Dec. 11 in case they were missed.

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

CBP is working on a new Form 3461 for filing “walk-up” entries and requests for release during broker or Automated Commercial Environment system outages, said the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America in an update. Current downtime procedures will continue to apply after the ACE transition, with CBP accepting either the new Form 3461 or a cover sheet that includes the same information, said the agency, according to the NCBFAA.

The Food and Drug Administration is making no changes at the present time to the data elements it requires for filing in its Automated Commercial Environment pilot, said Domenic Veneziano, director of FDA’s import division, in response to our inquiry Nov. 11. The data elements outlined in FDA’s current supplemental guide are “critical” in admissibility decisions, allowing the agency to more timely process releases, he said at a webinar hosted by Integration Point the previous day. “The only change, at this time, to the pilot is the need to complete and submission of the template,” Veneziano said, referring to FDA’s decision to end a pilot requirement that the agency prevalidate shipment data before it is filed in ACE (see 1512080075).

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s pilot to test “core” non-Lacey Act data in the Automated Commercial Environment is now live and accepting participants for filings under the agency’s Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) and Veterinary Services (VS) programs, said APHIS officials during a webinar held jointly with CBP on Dec. 9. Two other programs, Biotechnology Regulatory Services and Animal Care, are not yet ready for piloting but will be “in the future,” said Sean Blount, APHIS’ acting assistant director for Quarantine Policy, Analysis and Support.

The National Association of Foreign Trade Zones (NAFTZ) continues to have major concerns with the schedule for mandatory use of the Automated Commercial Environment, it said in a Dec. 8 letter to CBP Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske (here). A "general lack of understanding" related to FTZ reporting among the Partner Government Agencies adds to the trade association's worries for ACE, it said. The NAFTZ made a number of its concerns known in a letter last month that called for a delay to parts of the ACE rollout (see 1511190017).

Lawmakers finished up work on a conference version of long-debated customs reauthorization legislation that combines the underlying concepts of the Senate- and House-proposed customs bills, said Conference Committee members on Dec. 9 (here). Notably, the compromise legislation (here) would impose the ENFORCE Act's firm deadlines on CBP to investigate claims of antidumping and countervailing duty evasion, and would require new regulations on customs broker identification of importers, under threat of penalty. A new provision in the legislation -- absent from either chamber's original bill -- would hold CBP to stricter deadlines for reliquidating entries. The bill could go to a vote on the House floor as early as Dec. 11, a congressional staffer said. The lawmakers also released a summary (here) and joint explanatory statement (here) on the bill's provisions.

There’s still space for importers, customs brokers and software developers that want to participate in pilots of Environmental Protection Agency filing in the Automated Commercial Environment, said Roy Chaudet of EPA’s Office of Information Collection during a webinar held with CBP on Dec. 8. Among pilots that are limited to nine participants, tests for imports of non-road vehicles and engines and pesticide notices of arrival currently have around two each, and a pilot on hazardous waste exporters has four, said Chaudet. Ongoing pilots with unlimited participation include imports of on-road vehicles and engines and ozone depleting substances.