The Consumer Product Safety Commission will hold a public workshop on Sept. 18 to discuss electronic filing of certificates of compliance as part of the import entry process. CPSC says it will use input it gets from the workshop to inform its implementation of electronic filing at time of entry, which may take the form of an electronic document or data elements in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). Registration is required by Aug. 8 for presenters, and Sept. 5 for all others who want to attend the workshop, which will also be webcast. Registration will be available (here). CPSC will also accept written comments by Oct. 31.

CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related issues:

CBP will hold an outreach event in San Francisco on July 17 at 9:30-11:30 a.m. to discuss the rollout of the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) with the trade community. Steve Hilsen, director of business transformation at CBP’s ACE business office will discuss upcoming ACE deployments, new functionality, and mandatory dates for filing through ACE. Space for the event is limited, said CBP. To register, email Elizabeth Valentini at elizabeth.a.valentini@cbp.dhs.gov.

CBP will begin the third phase of its Document Image System (DIS) pilot in the Automated Commercial Environment, expanding the program by supporting additional partner government agency (PGA) forms and revising rules for submitting images through DIS, said CBP in a notice. DIS allows for electronic submission of documents during the import process required by multiple agencies. CBP began testing the program in 2012 (see 12040548) and began the second phase during the summer of 2013 (see 13071014).

Some Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) antidumping/countervailing duty entry summary transactions for cases with a specific rate are being rejected incorrectly, said CBP in a CSMS message. The entries are rejected with the reason "Estimated duty/calculated duty mismatch,” said CBP. "Currently, there is no workaround for this issue" but "a fix to resolve this issue will be implemented in ACE" in the coming weekend, said CBP.

MINNEAPOLIS -- As the customs drawback claims process moves toward incorporation into the Automated Commercial Environment, Congress will need to act on Customs Reauthorization legislation in order to provide CBP the authority to both simplify and automate the program, said industry officials and a CBP customs official on June 18 at the American Association of Exporters and Importers (AAEI) annual conference. Both House and Senate Customs Reauthorization bills include provisions that would spur automation and revise drawback to simplify the process. Those bills, however, have not moved on Capitol Hill in months.

CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related issues:

CBP fixed a problem with Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) entry summary processing, CBP said in a CSMS message. Entry summaries that resulted in an ACE system failure response should be resubmitted, CBP said. The agency said earlier on June 19 that its ACE entry summary processing was down (here) and that the issue was being worked as "our highest priority."

MINNEAPOLIS -- The U.S., Mexico and Canada are edging closer to implementing a unified portal to process import and export compliance verifications, as the U.S. strives to meet a 2016 deadline on Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) completion and Canada wraps up work on its own single window, said acting CBP deputy commissioner Kevin McAleenan during June 17 remarks at the American Association of Exporters and Importers (AAEI) annual conference. Mexico has already completed work on its single window counterpart and integration among the three countries is “almost visible on the horizon,” said McAleenan.

It's still unclear exactly when the three Centers of Excellence and Expertise (CEE) chosen for accelerated roll-out will begin to handle import processing for their respective industries, said Elena Ryan, who is in charge of the transition to the CEEs at CBP. Those CEEs -- the Pharmaceutical CEE in New York, the Electronics CEE in Los Angeles and the Petroleum CEE in Houston -- will be the first centers to handle post-release processing for entire industries (see 14030613). Despite rumors otherwise, "we do not have a specific date in mind for all of this to happen," she said. Ryan discussed process on the CEEs during the American Conference Institute's Import Compliance and Enforcement forum on June 13.