CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:​

The National Marine Fisheries Service announced the beginning of an ACE pilot to test filing of data required under the Seafood Import Monitoring Program for high-risk seafood. The pilot, which “will commence after” Oct. 1 and run until further notice, will be open to all customs brokers and importer self-filers for all commodities and all modes of transportation, NMFS said. Electronic filing of SIMP data is mandatory for certain high-risk species beginning on Jan. 1, 2018.

Full deployment of export manifest capabilities in ACE is expected to automatically connect manifest and export commodity filings, and should help resolve current disputes between freight forwarders and carriers regarding responsibility for filing and correlating those different information sets, government officials said Oct. 3 during a Bureau of Industry and Security export control policy conference. CBP recently expanded pre-departure export manifest filing pilots for exports in ACE to more participants, and extended the testing periods to Aug. 10, 2018, for air cargo, Sept. 21, 2018, for vessel cargo and Oct. 9, 2018, for rail cargo (see 1708110020).

CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:​

CBP on Sept. 29 posted draft Customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements (CATAIR) guidelines for drawback procedures under the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2016, it said in a message. The draft CATAIR is meant “to facilitate preparations for programming in advance of the forthcoming rulemaking,” CBP said. “The reader should be advised that this technical document is considered a DRAFT and is subject to revision before a final version is provided. Any decisions a reader makes based on this draft document are taken voluntarily and with the understanding that the draft may be revised,” it said.

CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:​

A Trump administration policy to repeal two regulations for every new one created could be complicating the Department of Homeland Security’s issuance of a proposed rule to make mandatory the air cargo advance screening (ACAS) program run by CBP and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Cargo Airline Association President Stephen Alterman told senators Sept. 28. "I think that one of the problems that they're encountering is we do have this new administration's rule that you can't put in new rules without taking two away, and the cost implications of that," he said. Acting CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan has argued that ACAS qualifies for an exemption from the "two-for-one" requirement because it has a national security basis (see 1705180027).

CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:​

CBP Miami issued guidance on local downtime procedures during ACE outages for the Miami International Airport Cargo Clearance Center (CCC), in a Sept. 26 information bulletin. Brokers experiencing downtime should submit a letter requesting manual clearance, accompanied by supporting documents including the invoice, bill of lading, partner government agency (PGA) documents and the ACE CBP Form 3461, the bulletin said. Brokers should notify the Miami CCC of any shipments that require expedited clearance. Copies of in-bonds, entry packages, delivery tickets, zone admission documentation and export documents will be kept by CBP for input by the agency upon system restoration, it said. “System performance issues may be local in nature, may not have been identified by CBP yet, and may not impact national operations,” CBP Miami said. “Therefore, CBP strongly encourages the Trade Community to call the established local CBP [points of contact] and notify Miami CCC of any system issues that are impacting their daily operations.”

CBP's final rule on changes to the agency's in-bond regulations (see 1709270017) include some major deviations from the rules the agency proposed in 2012. The agency decided against requiring several new data elements for in-bond applications and won't reduce the arrival reporting requirements to 24 hours, it said. The final rule follows several years of consideration of the proposed rules, which were issued in 2012 (see 12022131). CBP said it plans to provide additional guidance on the ACE requirements.