COAC Recommends Delay of Some ACE Cargo Release, Entry Summary Deadlines

CBP should adopt a “phased adoption” schedule for implementation of Automated Commercial Environment entry summary and cargo release, delaying ACE requirements for partner government agencies and entry types that are currently still in the early stages of development, said the Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations in recommendations adopted at a meeting held July 29 in Chicago. The agency should also adopt an “informed compliance” approach for entry summary and cargo release, holding laggards accountable but keeping the Automated Commercial System online as a fallback for filers having trouble with the transition, it said.

Under the recommendations, CBP would stick to its Nov. 1 deadline for entry summaries that are fully functional in ACE today – types 01, 03 and 11 – as well as ACE cargo release for entries that are not subject to PGA data element requirements or quota. As it did with Importer Security Filing, the agency should adopt a “defined informed compliance period” for importers that have made an effort to comply, but cannot due to issues beyond their control, such as technical problems or the release of capabilities shortly before the deadline, said the COAC. Incentives should be provided to filers that meet the Nov. 1 deadline for ACE cargo release. Filers that “have shown minimal or no attempt to file ACE Cargo Release” by Nov. 1 “should be held to a more aggressive action plan and be held accountable,” it said.

However, the COAC recommended that CBP delay by 90 days the ACE cargo release deadline for entries subject to PGA message set requirements, until around Feb. 1, “to ensure that all pilots have been concluded, issues have been resolved, and the related PGA message sets are fully defined and locked down,” said the COAC. Similarly, entry summary and cargo release for quota entries should be delayed until Jan. 1, 2016, it said. CBP should also conduct testing of the Document Imaging System (DIS) to ensure that it is ready for the large volumes it will have to handle on Nov. 1, and “consider alternate options to DIS, such as posting documents to the ACE portal” or “allowing filers to email documents” should the results of testing be unsatisfactory.

In the meantime, as the Nov. 1 deadline approaches, CBP should conduct bi-weekly briefings for COAC and the trade, as well as status reports, said the COAC. The agency should provide national guidelines to the ports “to ensure a common and consistent approach” as ACE implementation challenges arise, and any issuance of liquidated damages due to technical difficulties should be reviewed at CBP headquarters, it said. CBP should also “leverage the BIEC and ITDS” to provide “more targeted and less technical communication” to not just importers and brokers, but also to “other trade members, such as CFS stations and terminals,” and maintain oversight over the PGAs to prevent “data creep” and maintain “alignment with the PGA’s current regulatory authority,” said the COAC.

The COAC’s recommendations come partly as a result of lessons learned during ACE air manifest implementation, which “demonstrated that there is a need for a period of at least 60 days for the trade to participate in transmitting actual shipment data in the production environment prior to full deployment,” said Susie Hoeger, co-chair of COAC’s One U.S. Government at the Border Subcommittee. CBP should stick to its Nov. 1 deadline “as much as possible to keep momentum, but allow for the phased adoption of certain functionality that’s not currently available or still in a pilot, and be reasonable on how compliance is enforced,” she said.

The recommendations are not “a temperance of the COAC’s resolve and support” for ACE, said COAC co-chair Vincent Iacopella. They are also “not a message for filers that we are creating a space to create a huge lag in adoption or in development,” he said. “We want to be as aggressive as possible in adoption and development without causing any harm to the economy.

Brenda Smith, CBP assistant commissioner in the Office of International Trade, is appreciative of the level of engagement within the COAC on the issue, she said during a July 30 interview. "The feedback we're hearing from COAC is pretty representative of what we're hearing from the trade community," she said. "I think they have really done their homework in terms of identifying the hotspots for them, so that gives us some areas to focus on. I think their recommendations were very reasoned. They were also very tactical and that is not usually something we see from COAC." The recommendations from COAC tend to be more strategic, whereas the Trade Support Network usually offers tactical input, she said. The Trade Support Network and other industry groups have made similar calls for CBP to soften its Nov. 1 deadline (see 1507150063).