COAC PROPOSES SHORTER TIMELINES FOR ADVANCE MANIFEST FILING

COAC PROPOSES SHORTER TIMELINES FOR ADVANCE MANIFEST FILING    AN influential advisory panel on trade issues proposed in a report released late Friday that the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection scrap controversial security plans for collecting cargo information prior to loading U.S.-bound cargo.
   Instead, the Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations (COAC), suggested that air, rail and truck carriers and transportation intermediaries can submit the necessary data in most cases while goods are in transit.
   The recommendations from the group of industry representatives are an attempt to help Customs implement congressional requirements for carriers and other parties to submit cargo information for security screening before shipments arrive or depart the United States. Customs’ first stab in January at devising rules for non-ocean modes met with protests from trade groups.
   Under the COAC model, airlines and freight forwarders should electronically file data on cargo shipments no later than one hour prior to arrival, a significant departure from Customs’ preliminary 'strawman' proposal for general air cargo and express carriers to submit manifest data eight hours and 12 hours prior to departure, respectively.
   COAC trimmed the Customs’ strawman for railroads to transmit data 24 hours prior to lading for imports and eight hours for exports to four hours in advance of arrival for inbound carloads and one hour for outbound traffic. Some types of rail traffic would be granted exceptions to operate with one hour time frames to compete with trucking. Intermodal ocean containers from Canada would be subjected to four-hour advance notification requirements, under the COAC plan.
   For cross-border trucking, COAC dropped the four-hour filing timeline to no more than 30 imports. Motor carriers participating in some expedited cargo release programs, such as the Fast and Secure Trade program, could transmit manifest data as little as 15 minutes before the truck arrived at the border.