U.S. Customs eyes two more CEEs by October

   The number of Industry Integration Centers for Excellence and Expertise within U.S. Customs devoted to centralizing the import process for trusted shippers could double to four this fiscal year, Acting Deputy Commissioner Thomas Winkowski recently said.
   Customs and Border Protection last fall established two Centers of Excellence and Expertise (CEE) – one in New York that deals with the pharmaceutical industry and one in Los Angeles responsible for electronics – as knowledge hubs for specific industries that can tailor shipment clearance and entry processes, and quickly resolve problems, for particular types of cargo. The idea is to move away from individual ports using a blanket approach to process imports, or make inspections, that may not be suitable for all types of merchandise and to ensure uniform application of regulatory policies.
   Initially, the CEEs are serving as the single point of processing for companies enrolled in the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism and the Importer Self-Assessment program that adhere to higher security and trade compliance standards. All import documents will flow to the centers, which will handle the entry summary work. Revenue collection will continue to take place at the ports. 
   Customs officials essentially view the integration centers as “virtual” ports of entry. 
   The permanent integration centers were formed in October after a trial period. Since then, CBP has worked on getting the technology, personnel and standard operating procedures in place to make them fully operational. In January, the centers began processing entry summaries from four ports for eligible companies to make sure information was being properly routed. The agency plans to handle entry summary work from all ports by the end of March, Steve Hilsen, director of trade policy and agreements, said Tuesday at the quarterly meeting of the Commercial Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) in Washington.
   The integration centers are part of a broader effort to employ modern account management principles, reduce costs and better target enforcement on high-risk shipments and importers.
   Last fall, officials suggested that at least eight more Industry Integration Centers would be deployed this year, but the agency in recent weeks has said it plans a more controlled rollout over three years after first evaluating the progress of the first two offices with the help of private sector representatives.

Winkowski

   Winkowski told American Shipper outside the National Association of Foreign Trade Zones legislative conference in Washington on Feb. 7 that he is “very hopeful” CBP can set up two more CEEs by the end of September and create a road map for standing up the five remaining centers that are currently envisioned for sectors such as textiles, petroleum, consumer products, agriculture, automotive, machinery and manufactured imports.
   Acting Commissioner David Aguilar “wanted to make sure before we got started expanding that we got buy-in from the industry, it’s working” and there is a plan in place to make sure the agency doesn’t get ahead of its capability to perform, Winkowski said.  
  “We want to move quickly, but we want to move cautiously and smartly,” he added.   
   Part of the challenge involves adjusting regulations that traditionally have spelled out the duties of port directors so they apply to the integrated, virtual ports, Richard DiNucci, deputy assistant commissioner for international trade, said at the COAC meeting.
   CBP has requested $3 million in appropriations and five additional full-time managers for the integration centers, according to the Obama administration’s fiscal year 2013 budget submitted to Congress two weeks ago. The additional funding will allow it to establish four additional CEEs.
   The trade community pushed CBP for several years to develop a mechanism for ensuring greater consistency in its enforcement efforts and cut down on penalizing companies for insignificant infractions. It finally found an advocate in former Commissioner Alan Bersin, who moved the agency to create a pilot program in 2010. The agency is now trying to figure out how to turn the limited program into an wide-scale part of its regular operation.
   The centers are intended to be an improvement over national account managers, or customer liaisons. Since the 1990s, they have been assigned as points of contact for large customers with the intent of ironing out bureaucratic hassles encountered at ports of entry, but they were often overruled by port directors.
   The vision of early partnership programs, such as the Business Alliance for Secure Commerce and the Carrier Initiative Program, to address the problem of concealed contraband on conveyances never truly made it to the field, Al Gina, assistant commissioner for international trade, remarked at the NAFTZ conference. There were cases in which airline security directors would tip off Customs contacts where to find a stash of drugs hidden in the crew or cargo areas and officers would seize the plane in addition to the narcotics, penalizing the company for its cooperation, he said.
   CBP learned that the client representatives lacked the authority to render a binding decision.
   With the development of the industry centers, Customs is “moving towards a mechanism that when a decision is rendered that decision is binding throughout the country,” Gina said.
   That is especially important for multi-national firms that operate through many ports.
   “If we holistically render a decision, that decision should be honored no matter where you are located,” he stressed.
   At the COAC meeting, Gina called the integration centers “game changers,” equating the program to the Container Security Initiative, Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, non-intrusive container inspection technology, and Global Entry and the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative – both for travelers – in terms of the impact they had in changing the way Customs operates.
   “We see the CEE as that significant an initiative, from our perspective,” he said. 
    CBP wants the group of industry trade experts to conduct a joint evaluation of the CEEs, to include visiting the centers and talking with staff, and make recommendations for improvement, Winkowski said, elaborating on comments Aguilar made to reporters several weeks ago.
   Hilsen said the Office of International Trade has drafted a plan for conducting evaluations that should be finalized in a few weeks, setting the table for the roll out of more CEEs. 
   Industry representatives on COAC expressed mixed feelings about the pace of the expansion effort, saying they understand the need to get things right but also urging Customs to implement the next phase as quickly as possible. 
   “We’re all pleased by the steady progress towards implementation of the CEEs. I’ll confess, at the same time we’re all impatient. We’d like to get this done yesterday,” COAC member Jeff Whalen, assistant general counsel for customs and international trade for Nike Inc., said. 
   Putting together the industry advisory groups as soon as possible will expedite the evaluation process and start building the framework for the next round of CEEs, he said.
   The integration centers are considered doubly important by the trade community because of their potential to help streamline requirements associated with other government agencies with jurisdiction over imports, Michael Ford, vice president of regulatory compliance and quality for BDP International, said.
    To read more about the Industry Integration Centers, see the feature story, “Customer service at the border,” in the January issue of American Shipper. – Eric Kulisch