Officials at U.S. Customs and Border Protection now state that the planned ACE enhancement to provide the original ACE entry summary filer with visibility to the Post Summary Correction done by another party is "on hold," as resources are being directed to e-Manifest: Rail and Ocean (M1) programming needs.

At the December 7, 2011 COAC meeting, COAC and CBP officials discussed the expansion and evolution of the Air Cargo Advance Screening (ACAS) pilot, including CBP's plans to make it a permanent program, the benefits of integrating ACAS and the ACE Simplified Entry pilot, and the EU's commitment to testing ACAS. In addition, COAC’s Air Cargo Subcommittee outlined the activities it plans to pursue during the next three months.

Broker Power is providing readers with some of the top stories for December 5-9, 2011 in case they were missed last week.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection recently announced that updates will be made to the CAMIR and ANSI X12 sea and rail interface guidelines that will set the stage for announcing an enforcement date to require residue (such as chemicals or other bulk goods) imported in containers considered to be instruments of international traffic (IIT) to be manifested, classified, and entered. CBP has delayed setting an enforcement date for this requirement since May 2011 pending the ability for Section 321 entries to be electronically filed in the rail mode.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a December 9, 2011 press release on the ACE Simplified Entry test and the nine brokers selected to participate, along with some of the brokers' clients that were selected too. An associated fact sheet dated August 2011 (here) is provided as a link, along with a July 2011 trade outreach seminar on SE (here) is available.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message providing a projected timeline for decommissioning the Automated Manifest System (AMS) for rail and sea manifests and transitioning to the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). CBP anticipates that the Federal Register Notice naming ACE as the only CBP-approved electronic data interchange (EDI) for the transmission of rail and sea manifests will be published by the end of the first quarter of calendar year 2012 and that rail and sea manifest capabilities for the AMS in the Automated Commercial System (ACS) will be decommissioned within six months of that publication date.

In December 2011, U.S. Customs and Border Protection updated its eight Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on voided Importer ID input Records (CBP Form 5106), making one substantive change. In the third FAQ, CBP clarifies that acceptable proof of an Employee Identification Number (EIN) includes a preprinted document that is received from the IRS.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has updated its ACE ABI Customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements (CATAIR) for the Chapter on Cargo Release (Certified from an ACE Entry Summary) in order to correct the description of a data element in the H2-output record. ACE ABI 2011 Change Record, including the December 2, 2011 change, available here. Home page for ACE ABI CATAIR available here. CSMS #11-000306 notice of posted correction available here.

At the December 7, 2011 COAC meeting, CBP officials provided an update on the status of the planned test of Automated Commercial Environment Simplified Entry (SE) in the air environment. Officials stated that CBP’s target date for the first SE filing is late January 2012. CBP also plans to test SE in the ocean and rail environments after M1 is deployed and hopes to soon include additional complexities (PGA entries, etc.) in the test.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated version of its spreadsheet of ACE ESAR A2.2 (Initial Entry Types) programming issues.