CCAF PREPARES LETTERS TO ENLIST ACE FUNDING SUPPORT

CCAF PREPARES LETTERS TO ENLIST ACE FUNDING SUPPORT    The Coalition for Customs Automation Funding is preparing letters to Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and Mitch Daniels, director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, to increase funding in fiscal 2001 for Customs’ future computer system.
   The coalition, a group of shipping industry executives and associations which lobbies Congress to fund the Automated Commercial Environment, is largely credited for its work to start funding for the system’s development this year. In the fiscal 2001 budget, Customs secured $258 million for its automation budget, of which $130 million was earmarked for ACE development.
   “Customs has estimated that it will take as much as $1.5 billion to build this new system over the next four or five years,” the CCAF’s draft letter said. “At a minimum, appropriations of $300 million are needed in fiscal year 2002 to keep this project on track.”
   The CCAF pointed out that the Clinton Administration had requested a new user fee for ACE. Congress has repeatedly rejected this request, because the import industry already paid a merchandise processing fee, which generates about $1 billion for government’s general funds each year. In addition, Customs collects import duties of about $20 billion a year.
   “We urge you to support continued fiscal year 2002 funding for the new computer system adequate to keep this project on a four-year timetable,” the letter to O’Neill and Daniels said. “In addition, we urge you to oppose new user fees to pay for what is essentially a tax collection system.”
   Similarly, the coalition has drafted letters to Ernest Istook, R-Okla., chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal and General Government, and Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Treasury and General Government, to get them on board with ACE funding issues.