CBP seeks power to recover disposal costs for abandoned ag shipments

CBP seeks power to recover disposal costs for abandoned ag shipments    U.S. Customs and Border Inspection is considering a policy to bill back to importers the cost of destroying or re-exporting abandoned agricultural goods that have been denied entry to prevent the spread of pests or disease.
   The border management agency wants to replicate the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s authority to take remedial action when importers ignore orders to destroy, re-export, fumigate or otherwise deal with a shipment that doesn’t comply with agriculture regulations, officials said.
   CBP absorbed USDA’s agriculture inspection force in 2003 as part of the government reorganization that created the Department of Homeland Security. USDA still sets the terms of what agricultural products are allowed in the country. The Plant Protection Act permits the secretary of agriculture to seek reimbursement for actions taken to eliminate pest threats.
   Since the merger, CBP has not experienced any situations where agricultural shipments have been abandoned or where the importer did not follow through in a timely manner to take action, but “we believe that one day that will happen,” said Jim Smith, deputy executive director for CBP’s agriculture programs and liaison office, in an interview.
   The agency is designing a policy for recapturing money spent as a result of someone walking away from a shipment. The policy would also apply to wood packaging rules that require all pallets, crates, boxes and wood to support or brace cargo be free of wood-boring pests and marked with a logo certifying they have been treated by heat or methyl bromide fumigation.
   Smith said CBP is weighing whether it is more cost effective and efficient to go through USDA to take remedial action or have the capability in house. Carrying out the policy will require staff, overhead and up front budget to fund disposal or corrective actions.
   Under the arrangement currently in place, if an importer doesn’t follow an order to deal with a shipment in a specified period of time CBP can ask USDA to initiate remedial action. USDA has the funding in place to pay an outside party to remove or destroy the shipment.
   A decision is expected within 30 days, Smith said.
   The prospect of charging importers for abandoned goods was first raised by Cathy Sauceda, director of special enforcement in the Office of Field Operations, at the quarterly meeting of the Commercial Operations Advisory Committee meeting earlier this month.
   Sauceda said that the import industry has done an excellent job so far of complying with the wood packaging rules, which went into final effect July 5.
   Most wood packaging violations are occurring on the southern border, she said, but the 20 to 25 shipments per day that are turned back there for non-compliance is very small in proportion to the large volume of trade flowing from Mexico each day.