Senate Panel Moves Tariff Bill

(Journal of Commerce Online – R.G.Edmonson)

Importers urge congress to complete legislation by year-end

The Senate Finance Committee belatedly kicked its miscellaneous tariff bill into gear, and is making up for lost time. Senators will have until October 30 to file requests for duty reductions or suspensions on specific imported products that have no equivalent manufacturer in the United States.

The miscellaneous tariff bill is normally routine and non-controversial legislation, but that changed this year due to the Senate’s late start. Last July, the Tariff Action Coalition, which consists of eight companies seeking action on imports, urged Congress to move forward quickly with the MTB. If a new bill is not signed into law by December 31, importers will lose some $500 million in tariff breaks now on the books. In comparison, the House has nearly completed work on its version of the bill, the coalition said. Read more here.

Privacy Act of 1974; U.S. Customs and Border Protection – 011 TECS System of Records Notice

(Department of Homeland Security)

SUMMARY: In accordance with the Privacy Act of 1974 and as part of the Department of Homeland Security’s ongoing effort to review and update legacy system of record notices, the Department of Homeland Security is publishing a revised system of records notice for the system formerly known as the Treasury/CS.244, Treasury Enforcement Communication System, October 18, 2001, as a Department of Homeland Security system of records notice titled, DHS/CBP-011 TECS. Additionally, the Department is giving notice that it plans to consolidate into this newly revised system of records the following legacy system of records: Treasury/CS.272 Currency Declaration File, October 18, 2001; Treasury/CS.224 Suspect Persons Index, October 18, 2001; Justice/INS-032 National Automated Immigration Lookout System (NAILS), October 17, 2002; and Treasury/CS.262 Warnings to Importers in Lieu of Penalty, October 18, 2001. Categories of individuals, categories of records, and the routine uses of this legacy system of records notice have been reviewed and updated to better reflect the Department of Homeland Security DHS/CBP-011 TECS, which is no longer an acronym.

New U.S. Custom and Border Protection Office Going Up in Great Falls

(Great Falls Tribune)

The city of Great Falls’ professional office park on the south east edge of the city will have a second tenant by spring.

A 10,000-square-foot building for U.S. Customs and Border Protection administrative offices is being built at 2108 21st Ave. S. The new office will be close to the new Social Security Administration office in the Medical Tech park.

The office will look similar to the Social Security building, said Van Rapp of SBC Archway, the private development company that owns both buildings. SBC Archway leases the property to the federal government.

CBP Issues Agenda for 2008 Trade Symposium

(International Trade Law News)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued the draft agenda for the sold-out 2008 Trade Symposium that will be held at the end of this month in Washington, DC. The program will feature the following breakout sessions:

• TSA Air Cargo Screening Programs – TSA’s 100% Air Cargo Screening and Certified Cargo Screening Program (CCSP): Listen to TSA and CBP discuss collaboration on TSA air cargo screening programs and initiatives designed to meet the 9/11 bill mandate to screen 100% of cargo on passenger planes.

• C-TPAT Security Best Practices and Lessons Learned – Don’t Let This Happen To You: Through case studies hear lessons learned from C-TPAT member security breaches.

• Implementing Importer Security Filing Implementation (ISF) – Hear from CBP experts on steps you need to take to meet the implementation requirements. Hear from ATDI participants and CBP as they discuss their implementation experience and answer more detailed and technical questions.

• CBP Trade Strategy – CBP Trade Strategy and What It Means To Your Business: Review with OT leadership the strategy in detail and discuss strategies planned to implement its goals and how they may impact your business.

• Import Safety Working Group and ISA – President’s Import Safety Action Plan One Year Later: Review CBP’s progress on implementing the plan provisions and hear about PGA program progress related to the action plan. Review progress made in ITDS and experience in piloting the ISA-Product Safety initiative.

• USDA/CBP Agriculture Mission CBP – Prevent Agriculture Related Remedial Actions: Get a progress report on implementation of the Joint Agency Task Force initiatives. Review case studies of Ag-related remedial measures and what you should know to prevent them.

• Upcoming ACE changes – Discuss in detail upcoming ACE functionality and schedule for an understanding of the impact on the trade community.

• ISA Best Practices for Compliance – Importer Self-Assessment, The Path to Facilitation: A discussion of best practices in a competitive environment.

• IPR Initiatives and Trade Facilitation – A discussion of issues surrounding IPR enforcement and future initiatives. Working with the trade to balance enforcement and facilitation.

New U.S. Law to Require Reporting of all Trees and Tree Products (Including Species & Genus)

(GHY International)

A new law will go into effect on December 15 and will have far-reaching consequences for international trade and will require an enormous amount of resources for CBP to implement.

Sec. 8204 of the Farm Bill broadens the definition of "plant" under the Lacey Act to include trees and products that come from trees, and requires additional reporting (detailed below) for imports of these products. CPB is working with USDA to determine what products will be subject to this new law. Exclusions include common food crops and common cultivars (yet to be fully defined; it is not clear if cotton will be exempted). Outside of these and some other specific exclusions identified in Sec. 8204, CBP says the new law does not provide them with much wiggle room.

What products will be subject to this law?

The question at hand is: what products will be covered by this new law? The answer will almost certainly surprise you (hint: it’s just about everything).

Here is a small part of a very long list of items (aside from obvious examples such as furniture, paper and wood flooring that are likely to be covered by this law:

• Wine with corks;
• Pots and pans with wooden handles;
• Musical instruments, such as violins;
• Pharmaceutical products;
• Textiles;
• Lipstick (made in part from wax from carob tree);
• Dried soup (that contains cellulose, which is a major component of wood);
• Hairspray (that is made in part from tree resins); and
• Anything that comes with an instruction booklet (even if the product itself contains no wood or wood by-product).

Example of how far reaching this could be: Country Time lemonade that is contained in a plastic bottle, with a plastic cap and covered with a plastic wrapper contains, among other things, glycerol ester of wood rosin. Glycerol ester of wood rosin is a common food additive and is prepared from resin acids of wood rosin harvested from the stumps of the longleaf pine. It would be covered by this law.

Reporting Requirements:

Sec. 8204 requires that import declarations state the scientific name of any plant (including genus and species) used to produce the plant product and the country of origin of the plant. If the genus and species is not known, then the declaration must contain the name of every species of plant that may have been used to produce the plant product; and if the country from which the plant was taken and used to produce the imported plant product is unknown, the name of every country from which the plant may have been taken must be stated. Packaging material that supports, protects, or carries another item is exempted, unless the packaging material itself is the item being imported.

Sec. 8204 makes commerce in products made from illegally harvested or traded plants and plant products, including wood, a federal crime and is going to be enforced by the US Department of Justice. CBP has managed to get Congress to agree to a phased-in implementation schedule, but Congress has not approved the actual schedule.

Lobbying efforts to minimize impact to trade community:

Efforts are getting underway to lobby Congress to make changes to Sec. 8204, or at the very least, delay implementation

Answering Questions on Border Laptop Searches

(Leadership Journal, DHS – Jason Ahern, CBP)

We’ve received several comments from readers regarding my recent post about laptop searches at the border. I’d like to take a few minutes to try to answer some of your questions and set straight some misinformation that is circulating with regard to this long-standing policy.

First, it’s important to note that for more than 200 years, the federal government has been granted the authority to prevent dangerous people and things from entering the United States. Our security measures at the border are rooted in this fundamental fact, and our ability to achieve our border mission would be hampered if we did not apply the same search authorities to electronic media that we have long-applied to physical objects--including documents, photographs, film and other graphic material. Indeed, there are numerous laws that apply to such material at the border including laws regarding intellectual property rights, technical data that can be imported or exported only under state department license and child pornography.

In the 21st century, terrorists and criminals increasingly use laptops and other electronic media to transport illicit materials that were traditionally concealed in bags, containers, notebooks and paper documents. Making full use of our search authorities with respect to items like notebooks and backpacks, while failing to do so with respect to laptops and other devices, would ensure that terrorists and criminals receive less scrutiny at our borders just as their use of technology is becoming more sophisticated.

This result would be ironic given that this same technology actually enables terrorists and criminals to move large amounts of information across the border via laptops and other electronic devices. At the end of the day, we have a responsibility to search items – electronic or otherwise – that are being transported across our borders and that could potentially be used to harm our nation’s citizens or that are otherwise contrary to law.

Second, this is not a new policy. We’ve been searching laptops of those who warrant a closer inspection for years. In fact, we’ve taken the unprecedented step of posting online (PDF 5 pages - 161 KB) a policy that would typically be reserved for internal purposes. This information is not new and has been publicly debated countless times. Indeed, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently confirmed the constitutionality of suspicionless laptop searches at the border.

This brings me to my third point, which is that travelers whose laptops are searched represent a very small number of people. As Secretary Chertoff noted in a recent op-ed, “Of the approximately 400 million travelers who entered the country last year, only a tiny percentage were referred to secondary baggage inspection…[and] of those, only a fraction had electronic devices that may have been checked.”

This number is less than one percent of people entering the United States. Contrary to some media accounts, we’re not rolling out a new strategy and screening an exorbitant number of travelers. We’re simply following a common sense border policy that has been in place for years, and has been reaffirmed by the courts.

And finally, to allay any concerns the business community or others may have that their personal or trade information might be put at risk by traveling with their laptops, I urge you to look at our track record. Every day, thousands of commercial entry documents, shipping manifests, container content lists, and detailed pieces of company information are transmitted to CBP so we can effectively process entries and screen cargo shipments bound for the United States. This information is closely guarded and governed by strict privacy procedures. Information from passenger laptops or other electronic devices is treated no differently.

Our Customs and Border Protection officers are trained professionals with a defined mission, and they have neither the time nor the desire to search travelers’ personal belongings for any reason other than to ensure compliance with our customs and related laws and to protect the United States. As the policy’s provisions make abundantly clear, officers are subject to numerous policy restrictions regarding the retention, sharing, and scrutiny of travelers’ documents and information.

I hope this has helped answer some of your questions. One of the lessons 9/11 taught us was that we must adapt to 21st century risks and anticipate rather than react to new threats. Our CBP officers are on the front lines every day ensuring that these lessons are heeded. We trust that travelers understand the need for these sensible security measures.

U.S. ITC Releases “The Year in Trade 2007”

(U.S. International Trade Commission)

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) today released The Year in Trade 2007, its annual overview of the previous year’s trade-related activities.

The ITC’s The Year in Trade is one of the government’s most comprehensive reports of U.S. trade-related activities, covering major multilateral, regional, and bilateral developments.

The publication provides a practical review of U.S. international trade laws and actions in 2007, a summary of the operation of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and an overview of U.S. free trade agreements and negotiations and of U.S. bilateral trade relations with major trading partners.

The Year in Trade 2007 includes complete listings of antidumping, countervailing duty, safeguard, intellectual property rights infringement, and section 301 cases undertaken by the U.S. government in 2007. In addition, the 2007 report covers:

• the operation of the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences, the African Growth and Opportunity Act, the Andean Trade Preference Act, and the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act;

• U.S. textile and apparel imports and developments in textile and apparel trade with selected partners;

• significant activities in the WTO, including its dispute settlement mechanism; the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum;

• developments in U.S. free trade agreements, including the agreements signed in 2007 with Panama and Korea, and activities under the North American Free Trade Agreement; and

• bilateral trade issues with major U.S. trading partners, including the European Union, Canada, China, Mexico, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and India.

Statistical tables highlight U.S. bilateral trade with major trading partners and trade under U.S. trade preference programs. In addition, data on U.S. private services trade are included in this edition of the report (PDF format, 229 pages).

CBP Develops New Online Trade Violation Reporting System

(CBP)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of International Trade has developed a new online trade violation reporting system called eAllegations to provide concerned members of the public a means to confidentially report suspected trade violations to CBP.

As of June 17, members of the public may report information regarding suspected violations via a new online form on the CBP Website.

CBP has established this reporting system to make it easier for the public to notify CBP of possible trade violations. CBP will confidentially research concerns, determine the validity of the allegations and any actions required based on the subsequent review.

To report a possible violation, an individual must submit the following information: the type of trade violation, description of what has occurred, the products or goods involved and the alleged violator’s name and/or company. Other information may be included on a voluntary basis.

eAllegations is not intended for assertions of security issues such as terrorists or weapons of mass destruction. Violations that may be reported online through eAllegations include misclassification of merchandise, country of origin markings, health and safety violations, intellectual property rights violations, textile or other trade violations.

For example, eAllegations will provide a means to report a possible violator who is importing substandard steel, claiming that it is of a higher grade, therefore creating a potential safety issue. Other possible violations that can be reported include a company claiming a lower than actual value on a product they are importing to pay less duty or a company who is importing textiles from one country but stating that the goods are from another country to avoid quota restrictions.

Concerned members of the public bring to light many trade violations and it is in the U.S. Government’s best interest to make it as easy as possible for the public to report possible violations. All information submitted to CBP is voluntary and confidential.

For additional information please visit the eAllegations “Questions and Answers“ on the CBP Website.