Chamber of Commerce weighs in on manifest rule

Chamber of Commerce weighs in on manifest rule       The U.S. Chamber of Commerce praised the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection for effectively balancing trade and security concerns in its proposed requirements for companies to submit international shipping information prior to arrival.
   However, the chamber raised many more concerns than the National Industrial Transportation League, another organization representing large U.S. companies with an interest in the international movement of goods.
   In its formal comments on the advance manifest rule, the chamber questioned the thoroughness of Customs’ assessment of the economic impact of the rule, whether all exporters will have time to set up electronic links to the Automated Export System for filing export declarations, whether AES Option 4 post-departure filing will be superceded by the new rule despite public pronouncements otherwise and that trucking companies will face the greatest costs once Customs develops a truck manifest module, as expected in 2004.
   The chamber sharply criticized Customs for not requiring the same information from the U.S. Postal Service, which competes with many commercial companies in the areas of parcel and express delivery.