During the August 7, 2008 meeting of the Departmental Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Related Homeland Security Functions (COAC), CBP officials discussed the potential impact on the trade of the new Lacey Act plant and plant product import declaration requirements¹ that were recently enacted as part of the 2008 Farm Bill.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a memo on the increase of the fiscal year 2008 refined sugar tariff rate quota limit by a total of 272,155 metric tons (none of which is for specialty sugars) and extension of the refined sugar quota period through December 31, 2008. (See ITT's Online Archives or 08/11/08 news, 08081115, for previous BP summary.) (QBT-08-519, posted 08/13/08, available at http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/trade/trade_programs/textiles_and_quotas/qbts/qbt2008/08_519.ctt/08_519.pdf)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is scheduled to deploy Phase 2 of "ad hoc" capabilities as an enhancement to the ACE reports on September 6, 2008, according to CBP's updated "ACE Workplan Schedule."

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued its weekly tariff rate quota and tariff preference level commodity report as of August 11, 2008. This report includes TRQs on various products such as beef, sugar, dairy products, peanuts, cotton, cocoa products, tobacco, certain BFTA, DR-CAFTA, Israel FTA, JFTA, MFTA, SFTA, UAFTA (AFTA) and UCFTA (Chile FTA) non-textile TRQs, etc. Each report also includes the AGOA, ATPDEA, BFTA, DR-CAFTA, CBTPA, Haitian HOPE, MFTA, NAFTA, SFTA, and UCFTA TPLs and TRQs for qualifying apparel and/or other textile articles, the TRQs on worsted wool fabrics, etc. (CBP's weekly TRQ/TPL commodity report available at http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/trade/trade_programs/textiles_and_quotas/commodity/)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated version of its "ACE Workplan Schedule," which provides a list of the changes and/or fixes to the Automated Commercial Environment and other systems it interfaces with that were/are scheduled for deployment from July 26 through September 6, 2008.

The following are documents which CBP updates frequently (weekly, monthly, etc.):

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated version of its TRQ/TPL "threshold to fill" list, a quick reference to monitor tariff rate quotas (TRQs) and tariff preference levels (TPLs) that are approaching the restraint limit or have filled the in-quota (low duty) rate. The list is divided into two sections - quotas that are at least 85% filled and quotas that are closed. (List, posted 08/07/08, available at http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/trade/trade_programs/textiles_and_quotas/commodity/trq_thresh_fill.ctt/trq_thresh_fill.pdf)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued multiple CSMS messages regarding the status of ACE. At approximately 7:41 a.m. EDT on August 8, 2008, ACE service was restored. CBP and the trade now have access to the ACE Secure Data portal. (CSMS messages (hyperlinked): 08-000154, 08-000151, 08-000149,08-000146)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message announcing that it will implement the new rules for the format of ACE Secure Data Portal passwords beginning August 10, 2008.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a notice announcing that the new password policy change for ACE Secure Data Portal users is scheduled to take effect in early August 2008. The new policy does not affect users with existing passwords; however, when a new password is generated or an existing password is changed or reset, the new rules will apply.