Monday Morning eBriefing

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

Customs and Border Protection's Office of Trade Commercial Operations Revenue and Entry Division (CORE) will disable the 5106 mailbox, effective Sept. 4. All future Form 5106 requests must be sent to one of the noted locations. CBP asked the trade not to send requests to multiple locations since this will "cause duplication of work and delayed processing."

The U.S. government recently issued an advisory warning of compliance risks associated with doing business in Hong Kong and asked businesses to increase their due diligence.

We reported on this in the Aug. 2 Monday Morning eBriefing, but it bears repeating that on Sept. 4, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will implement a hard reject of food entries that have an invalid syntax for the FSV email transmitted in PG21. There will be no period of warnings.

Sens. Tina Smith (D-MN) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) introduced legislation to strengthen import requirements for the importation of live dogs. The Healthy Dog Importation Act addresses current gaps in oversight which have raised concerns among animal health groups, agricultural associations and public health organizations.

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

As with many large trade associations, the NCBFAA maintains outside counsel positions for guidance and to provide the membership with the highest quality of service available. To that end, we currently contract with two legal counsels, covering general association operations and customs and transportation matters, as well as legislative representative.

Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), on Thursday, July 29, introduced H.R. 4816, the Customs Business Fairness Act (CBFA) of 2021. Reps. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), Don Bacon (R-NE), and Alan Lowenthal (D-CA) have also joined Rep. Garbarino as original co-sponsors of the bill.

e Craft Beverage Modernization Act (CBMA) provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 reduced excise taxes on all beverage alcohol producers, large and small, foreign and domestic. In 2020, Congress made CBMA's tax cuts permanent. It also transferred responsibility for administering certain CBMA provisions for imported alcohol from U.S. Customs and Border Protection to the Treasury Department after Dec. 31, 2022.

Commerce Department regulations for the Aluminum Import Monitoring and Analysis System require that the License/Permit Code (LPC)=01 Steel license or the LPC=28 Aluminum license be included on the admission into the foreign trade zone (FTZ), and not on the withdrawal entry summary from the FTZ.

NCBFAA encourages the trade community to support the USMCA rulemaking expanding streamlined tariff shift rules in place of case by substantial transformation test for origin determinations by Aug. 5.

The FDA reports they are receiving a high volume of entry lines with an invalid syntax for the email transmitted in PG21 for the FSV entity. As a result, beginning September 4, the agency will deploy validation to check the syntax of FSV email addresses. To avoid rejects, the FDA reminds brokers to:

After approximately 20 years in the District of Columbia, NCBFAA has moved to a new headquarters office in close-by Silver Spring, Maryland.

Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) Plant Protection and Quarantine announced that its new APHIS eFile can now be used to obtain permits for cut flowers, greenery, and sugarcane products.

In Headquarters Ruling Letter H297978, issued July 16, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) responded to the NCBFAA's inquiry regarding the validity of an electronically signed customs brokers power of attorney (POA) for CBP purposes.

U.S. supply chain problems of various iterations continue to upset daily operations of customs brokers, freight forwarders, and NVOCCs, and their importer and exporter customers.

As with many large trade associations, the NCBFAA maintains outside counsel positions for guidance and to provide the membership with the highest quality of service available. To that end, we currently contract with two legal counsels, covering general association operations and customs and transportation matters, as well as legislative representative.

Federal Maritime Commissioner Rebecca Dye announced eight interim recommendations the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) can take to address ongoing port and supply chain congestion across the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

On PGA Day, July 16, in Washington, the NCBFAA Board and Regulatory Agencies Committee (RAC) members learned details of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) Two-way Messaging system from International Trade Specialist John Blachere.

Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) ACE Coordinator Rhyan Tompkins updated the NCBFAA Board on the upcoming mandatory ACE filing rollout. The FWS ACE filing program is still technically in the pilot phase. However, the pilot is open to any filer at any designated port. Tompkins emphasized that the CATAIR is final and software developers can update brokers' systems with confidence.