U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message stating that as of June 1, 2009 electronic truck manifests submitted via the Automated Commercial Environment without approved Western Hemisphere Travel (WHTI) documents for drivers will be rejected.

CBP has issued a CSMS message stating that ABI filers may not be aware of a potential problem when the 'bill of lading update' application in ABI is used. If the original entry release transaction omits the carrier code from the input and the input is accepted by ABI, any future bill of lading update will be rejected with the message 8WD: MOT NOT ORIG SEA/AIR/RAIL/TRUCK.

CBP has posted a notice providing information on Census Warning capabilities that will be deployed with ESAR A2.2 (Initial Entry Summary Types). ACE will communicate directly with the Census Bureau to override Census warnings generated by ACE. The electronic interface of ACE will enable a filer to submit an override code preemptively for known Census variances or to certify information after filing an entry summary. This functionality will only be available if the entry summary was filed in ACE. (Notice, dated 03/26/09, available at http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/trade/automated/modernization/whats_new/filers_census.xml)

CBP has issued a CSMS message stating that ACE experienced a nationwide problem impacting the trade. Users were receiving a "page cannot be displayed" message when trying to access ACE via the portal. Trade users could not submit e-Manifests via the ACE portal. EDI was not impacted by this issue. The service was restored at 12:50 p.m. EDT on March 24, 2009. (CBP previously issued CSMS messages announcing the problem and providing an update on the problem.) (CSMS messages, dated 03/24/09, hyperlinked 09-000136, 09-000134, and 09-000132)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials at the March 25, 2009 ACE Information Seminar provided an update on the current status of the Automated Commercial Environment and the capabilities to be delivered in future releases.

CBP has issued an "Asian Gypsy Moth Maritime Alert" due to U.S. and Canadian authorities' interception of live Asian Gypsy Moth egg masses on an unprecedented number of commercial vessels in 2008. As a result, CBP is seeking to increase collaboration with shipping lines, agents, and associations in order to try to minimize the occurrence of these events. The alert states that it will be necessary for shipping lines to order all vessel crews to conduct intensive vessel inspection to remove (scrape off) and destroy all egg masses prior to entering U.S. and Canadian ports. (See future issue of ITT for details.) (Alert, posted 03/20/09, available at http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/trade/priority_trade/agriculture/agm_alerts.ctt/agm_alerts.doc)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has made available through a recent Webinar¹ a March 17, 2009 PowerPoint presentation containing updated information on the Lacey Act Amendments declaration requirement for imported plant and plant products.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection will automate versions of the following most commonly used CBP forms with the deployment of ESAR A2.2 (the Initial Entry Summary Types release)¹, which is expected in spring 2009:

CBP has issued its weekly tariff rate quota (TRQ) and tariff preference level (TPL) commodity report as of March 16, 2009. This report includes TRQs on various products such as beef, sugar, dairy products, peanuts, cotton, cocoa products, tobacco, certain BFTA, DR-CAFTA, Israel FTA, JFTA, MFTA, OFTA, SFTA, UAFTA (AFTA) and UCFTA (Chile FTA) non-textile TRQs, etc. Each report also includes the AGOA, ATPDEA, BFTA, DR-CAFTA, CBTPA, Haitian HOPE, MFTA, NAFTA, OFTA, SFTA, and UCFTA TPLs and TRQs for qualifying apparel and/or other textile articles, the TRQs on worsted wool fabrics, etc. (Weekly commodity report available at http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/trade/trade_programs/textiles_and_quotas/commodity/)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message announcing the expected implementation date for two rules in the Batch & Block Control Chapter of the ACE ABI CATAIR¹ that will need to be adhered to for all messages for six ABI application identifiers, or fatal errors will result.