PCC takes trade agenda to Washington

PCC takes trade agenda to Washington    A 40-member delegation from the activist Pacific Coast Council of Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarders Associations is in Washington this week pressing its case on a number of hot button issues related to international trade and freight transportation.
   The group met Monday with officials at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Food and Drug Administration, the Census Bureau and Federal Maritime Commission.
   Meetings are scheduled Tuesday with eight members of the House, two senators and staff members from every congressional district in California, Oregon and Washington, the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee.
   Among the issues being raised by the transportation intermediaries are the 10+2 security filing, financing intermodal infrastructure, CBP's Automated Commercial Environment, the Los Angeles-Long Beach ports' Clear Air Action Plan and other environmental protection efforts, ongoing labor talks between longshoremen and marine terminals, export filing rules, the Harbor Maintenance Tax, CBP's proposed change to the 'First Sale' valuation method, import safety legislation and ocean carrier antitrust immunity.
   CBP is drafting the final 10+2 rulemaking and importers and brokers are worried about how to collect and submit the additional data requirements intended for screening inbound shipments. Broker concerns heavily center on who will file the extra information and getting the software criteria from CBP so that industry can program its computer systems to communicate with the agency. The proposal leaves open the possibility that the foreign freight forwarder could be an authorized agent for the security filing.
   'My view is the filer of the importer security filing should be in the U.S.,' PCC President Jack Hubbard said during a break from Washington lobbying.
   Freight forwarders are also upset about the difficulty in obtaining containers for their customers' ocean exports due to self-imposed capacity reductions by liner operators. PCC delegates met with three members of the FMC and about 30 staff members asking for relief for what they claim are 'abusive' shipping practices.
   Complaints include:
   ' Carriers accepting bookings, but not providing containers or vessel space.
   ' Carriers extorting an additional $1,000 to ensure placement on the promised sailing after a shipment has been booked, loaded and dispatched to the port.
   ' Arbitrary use of fuel and other freight surcharges to win new revenue outside the negotiated service contract.
   ' Carriers not accepting new customers.
   ' Excess demurrage charges often caused by bookings being rolled to the next available ship.
   PCC officials also want the FMC to force marine terminals in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to open their books regarding PierPass. The program was instituted nearly three years ago to divert more port truck traffic to night and weekend hours in an effort to reduce local road congestion and pollution from idling in traffic. The Southern California ports collect a $50-per-TEU fee on daytime container moves to support the labor costs of keeping gates open at night and on weekends.
   The PCC doesn't believe marine terminal claims that PierPass is revenue neutral and wants an audit to see how much money the program collects and what expenses are being covered. The program has been relieving pressure on daytime gate moves, but has not released any truck traffic updates in a year or any financial information.
   'If they're making millions of dollars on it that's not what was sold and that's not right,' said Hubbard, California region manager for Portland, Ore.-based Total Logistics Resources.
   The association is keeping vigil on the conference report for the Consumer Product Safety Reform Act of 2007 to make sure that any provision assigning liability to brokers for unsafe imports is not slipped into the final version of the bill.
   PCC members also plan to ask their legislators to support during next year's highway reauthorization process a bill sponsored by Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., to create a national fee on import and export containers to fund freight infrastructure within 300 miles of international gateways. The PCC's Los Angeles Brokers Association helped draft the bill as an alternative to individual port efforts to collect container fees.
   Another issue being discussed by the PCC on the Hill is a bill by Reps. Donald Manzullo, R-Ill., and Adam Smith, D-Wash., that would codify an effort by the Census Bureau to make electronic filing of the shipper's export declaration mandatory via the Automated Export System and make export control compliance more efficient. The PCC supports a mandatory licensing provision in the bill for the AES filer, but wants to make sure that the bill retains strong language prohibiting the sharing of confidential export data with other governments, as sought by the Department of Homeland Security for collaborating on antiterrorism efforts overseas. ' Eric Kulisch