Monday Morning eBriefing

During this past week, the U.S. Government activated various enforcement agencies to do “boots on the ground” outreach to the trade, including freight forwarders. This has consisted of onsite visits, calls, and follow-up emails.

The NCBFAA Airfreight Subcommittee’s Internal Screening Advisory Council (iSAC) on March 9 identified and confirmed a new Security Threat Assessment (STA) from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to be used by the airfreight industry for all initial and renewing STA application submissions.

The NCBFAA Transportation Committee’s Logistics Subcommittee is regularly collecting data on the nation’s rail delays and port congestion that are impacting the supply chain and your business operations.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have continued to postpone their “Container Dwell Fee,” and said they will reconsider its possible imposition on March 18.

This article is provided to NCBFAA by our Customs Counsel Lenny Feldman at Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, P.A.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is launching the National Drug Entry Review Pilot, starting March 13, to conduct entry reviews of drug shipments on a national basis, rather than the current port-by-port entry review approach. Entry review staff for drug entries will operate on a 24/7 basis, covering all 336 ports of entry. The pilot will continue for 90 days.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in lockstep with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), FBI, and the National Security Agency (NSA), is urging U.S. infrastructure operators and air transport providers to protect themselves against the possible increase in cyberattacks.

Border Release Advanced Screening and Selectivity (BRASS) provided for the tracking and releasing of highly repetitive shipments at Customs and Border Protection (CBP) land border locations. CBP said the use of BRASS as an entry type will be discontinued when Truck Manifest Modernization (TMM) goes live for the ports listed below that are participating in the Truck phase deployment and ultimately will cease when deployment goes out to all remaining ports. The C4 code will not be supported going forward, and an alternative entry method must be utilized. This is effective for Truck only and will not affect the use of BRASS as a shipment type for Rail at this time. ACE Truck Manifest Modernization: Phase 2 and 3 Rollout Schedule: Brownsville – Deployment Jan. 31 Buffalo – Deployment March 13 Laredo – Deployment April 3 Blaine – Deployment April 24 Detroit – Deployment May 15 Remaining Ports – Deployment June 5 CBP said training will be available as rollout proceeds. On June 20, R4 will be retired. All related functionalities will be available for CBP users in the modernized application.

On behalf of NCBFAA's Board of Directors, Leadership and Staff, we want to take a moment to acknowledge and welcome the following members who have recently joined our association:

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced the selection of 15 stakeholders to participate in its Reimbursable Services Program (RSP), as provided for under Section 481 of the 2002 Homeland Security Act.

The U.S., along G7 members from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the U.K. as well as the European Union, announced on March 11 it will take steps to revoke Russia’s Most-Favored-Nation status in solidarity against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

We need each of our members to continue reaching out to their Congressional Members on Capitol Hill to let them know just how important Customs Business Fairness Act (CBFA) (H.R. 4186) is to our industry.

With the recent announcement that the U.S. will revoke Russia’s Most Favored Nation Duty Status, NCBFAA urges its members to monitor Customs and Border Protection’s CSMS and other trade-facing announcements as to when goods originating from Russia for U.S. consumption will be subject to exponentially higher column two duty rates. While such tariff rate changes typically track the date of entry for consumption or withdrawal from warehouse, it is possible that they may track the date of export from Russia, in this latter case where goods already exported, but not yet entered, may not carry the higher duty rates.

The NCBFAA Export Compliance Subcommittee has previously reported that all the HTS and Schedule B codes in 15 CFR 746 Supplement #4 now require licenses. We have since received further clarification from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) which advises that only the products covered by the product descriptions on the chart need licenses. The agency’s intention was not to include all products that could fall into the HTS or Schedule B categories. BIS advises that this clarification will be included in forthcoming FAQs

Here is a summary of the latest legislative and regulatory transport, logistics and trade sector updates brought to you by our NCBFAA Transportation Counsel firm Venable:

NCBFAA’s agenda for its 49th Annual Conference in Tucson, Arizona, on May 1-4, promises to enlighten and educate our members on the most important regulatory and legislative topics impacting their businesses today!

President Biden announced March 1, as well as highlighted during his State of the Union, that his administration will take a multiprong regulatory and legislative action aimed at lowering consumer prices and leveling the playing field in ocean container shipping.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on March 3 released three draft EDI implementation guide updates for ACE Import Ocean Manifest House Bill Release functionality.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have continued to postpone their “Container Dwell Fee,” and said they will reconsider its possible imposition on March 11.

On behalf of NCBFAA's Board of Directors, Leadership and Staff, we want to take a moment to acknowledge and welcome the following members who have recently joined our association: