NEWTON, Mass. -- CBP and other federal agencies with a role in trade have been taking a look at operations during October's federal government shutdown, and will apply the lessons learned in the event of another hiatus, said Richard DiNucci, acting assistant commissioner at CBP's Office of International Trade, at the Coalition of New England Companies for Trade's Northeast Cargo Symposium on Nov. 7. The Environmental Protection Agency in particular was singled out for its failure to process Notices of Arrival required for pesticide shipments during the shutdown, he said. As a result, EPA is not only rethinking its shutdown procedures, but its entire Notice of Arrival system.

International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Oct. 28-Nov. 1 in case they were missed.

Customs brokers and importer self-filers in CBP's Simplified Entry pilot will no longer be required to have Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) status to test the program, CBP said in a notice. The agency is expanding the pilot program and officially rebranding it as the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) Cargo Release test, said CBP.

Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and 20 other Senate Democrats launched the Manufacturing Jobs for America initiative on Oct. 29, a campaign designed to push forward 40 trade-related bills (here). Among the bills is the FAIR Enforcement Against Duty Evasion Act. The legislation, yet to be introduced in this Congress, would create “know your customer” rules for customs brokers, implement improvements to the importer record database, and permanently eliminate the AD “bonding-in-lieu” provision for new shippers. Senator Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., last introduced the legislation in 2011 (see 11092222).

CBP released the agenda for the Nov. 15 meeting with the Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (COAC) in Washington, D.C. CBP also said the meeting will be available online and registration is available (here).

International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Oct. 21-25 in case they were missed.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., wants more information from data broker Experian. In a Wednesday letter (http://1.usa.gov/1am3zpA), Rockefeller asked the company for more specifics about its subsidiary Court Ventures, which allegedly sold sensitive personal information to an identity fraud service in Vietnam, according to an investigation by Internet security news site KrebsonSecurity (http://bit.ly/15W0gEb). The Senate Commerce Committee, which Rockefeller chairs, has been investigating the data broker industry since last October (WID Oct 11 p9) when Rockefeller sent letters to nine data brokers, including Experian, asking for information on each company’s business practices (http://1.usa.gov/16zWQ72). “The committee’s investigation has focused to date on how companies including Experian collect and sell consumer information for marketing purposes,” Rockefeller wrote in his recent letter to Experian. “However, if these recent news accounts are accurate, they raise serious questions about whether Experian as a company has appropriate practices in place for vetting its customers and sharing sensitive consumer data with them, regardless of the particular line of business.” Experian, which did not comment on Rockefeller’s letter, has until Nov. 8 to comply with the senator’s request. The company did give a brief statement to The New York Times Thursday, saying Experian had “worked closely and in full cooperation” with the government during its investigation of Court Ventures (http://nyti.ms/17MnJVT).

Correction: CBP mistakenly listed a number of revoked customs broker licenses as reinstated (see 13102504).

The Senate Finance Committee should resolve the questions on antidumping and countervailing duty enforcement and work to get customs reauthorization legislation to the Senate floor this year, a group of companies and trade associations said in a letter to committee leaders. The Oct. 24 letter was sent to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Ranking Member Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and emphasized the importance of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Reauthorization Act of 2013 (S. 662), which has stalled over disagreement on how to handle and update AD/CV duty enforcement (see 13040911).

CBP again revoked 38 customs broker licenses it previously revoked and subsequently said were reinstated, said CBP. The licenses were originally revoked on Dec. 6 for failure to submit a 2009 or 2012 triennial report and fee, but were listed as reinstated on Aug. 8 because CBP said those licenses were named by mistake (see 13080720). CBP is now revoking a number of those licenses it mistakenly listed as being reinstated on Aug. 8. "Those brokers were never personally notified that their licenses were reinstated and have not been permitted to practice despite the erroneous publication," said CBP.