SENATE FINANCE TO OPEN HEARINGS ON U.S. CUSTOMS OPERATIONS

   The U.S. Senate Finance Committee will begin the first of three hearings
10 a.m. Thursday to review Customs’ operations with the commercial sector.
   The committee is particularly interested in problems associated with
Customs’ 15-year-old computer system and cargo processing procedures.
   Testifying on behalf of the government are Customs Commissioner Raymond
W. Kelly; Treasury’s Undersecretary of Enforcement James Johnson; and
Randolph Hite, associate director of government-wide and defense
information systems at the General Accounting Office.
   Industry spokesmen at the hearing will be George Bardos, executive vice
president of Vastera; Ty Bordner, director of application consulting at
Vastera; Kevin Smith, director of customs administration for General
Motors; Morgan Kinghorn, partner of PriceWaterhouse; Malcolm E. McLouth,
deputy executive director for business development at Canaveral Port
Authority; James B. Philips, executive director of the Canadian-American
Border Trade Alliance; and Sam F. Vale, chairman of the Border Trade
Alliance.
   The other two hearings, to be scheduled, will review Customs’
enforcement efforts and internal management.