Cassidy, Whitehouse Propose Manifest Publication for Air and Land Shipments
Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., introduced a bill that would require public disclosure of air cargo, truck and rail manifests, not just ocean shipments. Manifests usually include the name and address of the shipper, a cargo description, number of packages and gross weight, name of the carrier, port of exit, destination port and country destination.
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“When combatting the flow of drugs and illegal goods into the U.S., we need transparency on every shipment crossing our borders, not just half," Cassidy said in a news release announcing the bill. "The law is falling short of a goal Congress set decades ago. This fix is overdue and urgent."
"Drug traffickers, kleptocrats, and human rights abusers rely on transparency gaps in trade data to move illicit products and hide their ill-gotten gains. Shining a light on opaque air and vehicle imports will help law enforcement take down bad actors and keep American consumers and companies safe from unsafe or counterfeit goods," Whitehouse said.
The senators noted that investigators have used manifest data to identify Russian sanctions evasion, uncover Uyghur forced labor in supply chains, and help law enforcement identify shipments linked to drug smuggling.
"Businesses also rely on data [gleaned] from ocean manifests to find and evaluate suppliers, identify new customers, research market trends, and protect their intellectual property," the release said.
They noted that Congress passed legislation in 1996 to expand disclosure to aircraft manifests. "Despite Congress’s intent, courts have interpreted a technical drafting error in a later bill to prohibit the public disclosure requirement from applying to aircraft manifests," they wrote.
The issue of public manifests on land and air has also come to the attention of the House Ways and Means Committee (see 2305250033), when ImportGenius told the committee it needed to change. That company supports this bill, as do S&P Global, Kpler, The Human Trafficking Legal Center, Transparency International U.S., Global Financial Integrity, Verité, Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum, Corporate Accountability Lab, Greenpeace USA, Humanity United Action, The Uyghur Human Rights Project, Jewish World Watch, Crane Center for Mass Atrocity Prevention, Anti-Slavery International, Oxfam America, Polaris, Free the Slaves, Transparentem, and the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking, the release said.