Rep. Filemon Vela, D-Texas, along with five other Democrats, introduced a companion bill to the bipartisan Senate bill Protecting America's Food and Agriculture Act. H.R. 4482, introduced Sept. 24, instructs CBP to hire 240 more agricultural inspectors a year above the current rate of attrition, until the shortage is resolved. The National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America supports the proposal (see 1907220044). The co-sponsors include Reps. Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas, Salud Carbajal, D-Calif., Jim Costa, D-Calif., Cindy Axne, D-Iowa, and Agriculture Committee Chairman Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn.

Several issues related to detention and demurrage remain to be addressed as the Federal Maritime Commission moves forward with its recent proposed rule on detention and demurrage practices, said Richard Roche of Mohawk Global Logistics, at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America’s government affairs conference Sept. 23 in Washington. Key among these are notices of availability for cargo and charges for customs holds, he said.

CBP will eliminate penalties for minor violations of Census Bureau export filing requirements as part of its upcoming electronic export manifest rollout, said Jim Swanson, director of CBP’s Cargo and Security Controls Division.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is moving into the latter stages of an effort to streamline ACE messaging to CBP and entry filers, said John Blachere, trade specialist at CPSC’s Office of Import Surveillance, at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America government affairs conference on Sept. 23.

The CBP Base Metals Center of Excellence and Expertise is overseeing a huge increase in the number of Post Summary Correction requests for retroactive application of Section 232 exclusions, agency officials recently told the American Institute for International Steel. "The Base Metals Center PSC workload has increased approximately 1500% from pre Section 232," AIIS said. As a result of that volume, "[w]hen exclusions are claimed retroactively by PSC, some time may be required to process," the trade group said.

The National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America will submit a comment to CBP on the proposed rule (see 1908130031) aimed at tackling the problems of compliance for non-resident importers, according to Mary Jo Muoio, senior vice president, Trade Services and Government Relations, for Geodis USA. Muoio, who was responding to CBP Deputy Commissioner Bob Perez at the NCBFAA Governmental Affairs Conference in Washington Sept. 23, said the rule would have unintended consequences, because self-filers would not have to subject themselves to the same scrutiny.

CBP is preparing for the possibility of another immigration surge at the southern border similar to the one that stretched the agency’s customs resources earlier this year, said Robert Perez, CBP’s deputy commissioner. Perez, speaking at a National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America conference on Sept. 23, highlighted CBP’s response efforts to the initial surge but said the crisis led to “longer wait times” for cargo clearance and diverted a large number of the agency’s resources and officers.

Tomatoes imported from Mexico and sold on consignment can be valued using pricing data from the Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service, said CBP in a Sept. 12 ruling. Stein Shostak lawyer Richard Shostak requested the ruling on behalf of the Nogales Customs Brokers Association, the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas and the Texas International Produce Association, CBP said. Currently "almost all of the fresh produce presently being entered at Nogales is imported on consignment," CBP said. "In other words, the produce is not sold until after it is imported into the United States, and thus there is no sale for exportation."

The Mexican Secretariat of Economy recently issued instructions for entering samples into Mexico for the purpose of obtaining a certificate of compliance with Mexican product standards, according to a recent circular issued by the Mexican Confederation of Customs Broker Associations (CAAAREM), as posted by consultancy AJR Comercio Exterior. Importers should declare the samples under Mexican tariff subheading 9906.00.01, and attach to the entry an electronic document issued by the relevant certification body that says the samples are being imported for the purposes of certification with a Mexican product standard, the circular said. A maximum of three samples may be imported for this purpose, or in some cases the number of samples stated in the relevant product standard. Under recently issued regulations, certain goods may not be imported into Mexico without a certificate of compliance at the time of entry stating it complies with Mexican product standards.

CBP is planning to put out some more information about the power of attorney requirements for customs brokers filing Type 86 entries, a CBP official said during a Sept. 12 call with software developers. The agency's Type 86 test notice (see 1908120019) mentions that CBP is "requiring that consignees intending to file an entry type '86' appoint a customs broker to act as the importer of record (IOR) for the shipment" and that "customs brokers must be designated to enter qualifying shipments through a valid power of attorney." While filing Type 86 entries is considered "customs business," CBP's "intention was not to have a broker go out and get thousands of powers of attorney when they're doing these type of shipments," the CBP official said. "So we are working with our attorneys to get some kind of clarification out there of what we mean by 'power of attorney,'" she said. For Type 86 entries that are subject to the Section 301 tariffs on China, CBP does not "expect" the filer to include Chapter 99 tariff numbers that are required for other entries with Section 301 goods, the official said.