CONGRESS CONSIDERS MAKING AES USE MANDATORY

   Congress says it will consider mandatory filing of shipper’s export
declarations through the Automated Export System in order to improve the country’s collection of export data.
   Congress included a provision in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2000, which President Clinton signed into law on Monday, for a study to be initiated on whether to make AES filing mandatory.
   During the next 180 days, secretaries of Commerce, State, Defense,
Energy and Treasury, and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency will determine if it’s advisable and feasible to process all export
declarations through AES.
   AES was developed several years ago as a voluntary system to help reduce paper filings of shipper’s export declarations. Customs uses the
information in SEDs for enforcement purposes, while Census compiles it for the country’s trade statistics.
   Census has studied the legislation and believes that AES is capable of
handling mandatory filings of SEDs.
   "I don’t see why we can’t handle mandatory filings if we have to," said
C. Harvey Monk Jr., chief of the Foreign Trade Division at Census. "But we’d much prefer shippers to do it on a voluntary basis."
   In the same legislation, Congress and the Administration agreed that
exporters of munitions and cargo listed on the Commerce Control List must file their SEDs through AES.
   The secretaries of Commerce, Treasury and the director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology have 270 days to certify to the Congress that an Internet-based AES is capable of confidentially handling increased volumes of export data.
   Census already offers exporters and their forwarders the ability to file
export declarations free of charge on the Internet. This service, called
AESDirect, began in early October.