Trade and other sources state that U.S. Customs and Border Protection could maintain its momentum in the development of the Automated Commercial Environment, even without a Presidential appointee as Commissioner.

David Genovese, the Director of Trade Modernization and ACE Coordination in the ACE Business Office of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, passed away at age 44 on December 27, 2011. He is survived by his wife and two children, ages 16 and 13. The David Genovese Memorial Fund, Wells Fargo Bank c/o Branch Manager, 131 Garrisonville Road, Stafford, VA, 22554 has been created to benefit his children, in lieu of flowers. Internment was private. Press reports indicate Genovese died of a massive heart attack. Daily Record obituary notice available here.

Broker Power is providing readers with some of the top stories for January 3-6, 2012 in case they were missed last week.

In late December 2011, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced that 13 CBP ports were starting to process rail and sea manifests in the "CBP port phase" of the ACE e-Manifest: Rail and Sea (M1) pilots, which began in November 2011.

The Los Angeles Field Operations branch of U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a Public Bulletin to announce that the LA/Long Beach Seaport is posting the “official” Bulletin Notices of Liquidation -- CBP Forms 4333 -- on a compact disk as of January 6, 2012 for three port codes. According to CBP sources, this change facilitates requests for copies, as it will be less burdensome than copying from the paper version.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a 2009 Great Idea Form (GIF) on a request from the trade community for the ability of Customs brokers to upload employee information from an Excel spreadsheet to the ACE Portal to meet the 19 CFR Part 111 requirement to provide CBP with a list of broker employees. The GIF notes that the functionality delivered with ESAR A1 does not allow the mid to large size broker to take advantage of the ACE Portal for this requirement.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted two Great Idea Form (GIFs) on requests from the trade community for access to (i) Document Image System (DIS) information in ACE Reports and (ii) images submitted electronically to CBP through DIS via the ACE Portal. According to the GIFs, providing these enhancements to the trade will allow importers to view and review documents in near real-time, communicate with the Participating Government Agency (PGA) in nearly the same view, resolve matters expeditiously, and review and discuss trends that will ultimately lead to fewer trade disruptions.

The Bureau of Industry and Security has announced that FedEx Express has agreed to pay a $370,000 civil penalty to settle allegations that it committed six violations of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) relating to FedEx’s provision of freight forwarding services to exporters for unlicensed exports.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued two Frequently Asked Questions documents on the ACE Simplified Entry Pilot that it plans to start testing in the air environment with pilot participants by late January 2012. One set of FAQs is on the policy aspects of the pilot; the other FAQ set is on its technical aspects. Among other things, CBP states that the Simplified Entry data set is 90% complete and it is currently reviewing which airports will be used for the pilot. In addition, a working group will convene in February 2012 to discuss the vision of Simplified Summary and define its requirements.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is requesting comments by January 30, 2012 on its Simplified Entry information collection (which is part of its information collection request for CBP Forms 3461 and 3461 ALT). CBP is proposing to extend the expiration date of this information collection with a change to the burden hours as a result of the proposed addition of the Simplified Entry Program.