CBP prepares wish list of advance cargo data elements

CBP prepares wish list of advance cargo data elements    A top U.S. Customs and Border Protection official recently suggested that the agency is getting close to making a decision on advance ocean cargo data elements it expects to require industry to produce to help it analyze containers for potential terrorist connections.
   Jayson Ahern, assistant commissioner for field operations, confirmed earlier this month that CBP is considering asking importers for 10 additional data elements to help Customs officers understand who is stuffing the container at its origin, the actual country of origin, and the importer of record and receiver of goods on the U.S. side. He declined to list the 10 targeting elements under consideration. (For a near complete list, see the July issue of American Shipper, page 10).
   Ahern told the Commercial Operations Advisory Committee that the agency also wants to look at the ocean carrier’s container stowage plan because it can be a valuable cross-referencing tool to check for containers that aren’t accounted for on the manifest. On occasion containers that aren’t listed on shipping documents are mistakenly loaded on vessels.
   “If the container isn’t transmitted and it shows up on a discrepancy report, to me that is a critical security vulnerability that has to be run to ground immediately,” Ahern said.
   A couple of ocean carriers will soon begin a pilot test to share their stow plans so the agency can configure its systems to receive the information, Ahern said.
   “It’s time for us to make some final determinations” about who will provide the advance cargo data and how it will be transmitted to the government, Ahern said.
   CBP currently receives the ocean carriers' container inventory list 24 hours prior to loading in the foreign port, but officials acknowledge that the information has limited usefulness.
   The agency still has a lot of work to do developing the business rules that will spell out how importers and carriers submit the information to CBP. One option under consideration is to collect information from more than one source so it can be cross-referenced.
   Ahern said the agency is still determining whether it can issue a regulation or needs Congress to change customs and security statutes for it to move forward.
   “The devil’s in the details and there’s a lot of devil in this,” said Kevin Smith, director of customs for General Motors.