RAILROAD OPERATORS QUESTION MANIFEST RULES

RAILROAD OPERATORS QUESTION MANIFEST RULES    Railroad operators, transportation brokers, manufacturers and retailers told U.S. Customs Service officials at a public meeting Tuesday that preliminary ideas on how to implement a mandatory requirement for advance filing of manifests were too vague and did not cover many types of common shipping practices.
   Customs unveiled on its Web site Jan. 17 a proposal that railroads transporting goods from Mexico or Canada submit shipping information 24 hours prior to departure, but Customs officials confirmed to American Shipper that the text of the proposal should have read prior to lading. The officials attributed the discrepancy to a typographical error.
   The filing system will build on the voluntary Automated Rail Manifest System which has been in existence since late 1995 and is used to capture shipping information from most major railroads on the northern border and to a slightly less extent in the south. In the last fiscal year, Customs recorded 40,461 trains entering the United States from Canada and Mexico, said John Considine, director of Cargo Verification.
   While Customs says it is looking for a common system that can be implemented uniformly at all ports of entry, industry representatives expressed concern that Customs would not allow exemptions for certain categories of shipments, or distinguish between shipments moving in different types of rail cars or crossing different borders.
   Intermodal containers, for example, can be loaded and ready to transport within six to eight hours, explained Daniel Yoest, president of CrossRoad Carriers, an intermodal marketing company based in Stone Mountain, Ga. Carloads, on the other hand, often sit for a day or two after loading until a locomotive can pull it into a yard to be combined with a train.
   “I’d like to have an exemption for break bulk for my autos so I can be competitive with shipments from Asia,” said General Motors Corp. Customs Manager Gilbert Duhn, referring to ocean manifest rules currently in place that permit filing of manifests 24 hours prior to arrival rather than loading for break bulk commodities.    Last week Customs unveiled preliminary security requirements affecting international truck movements that called for manifests to be filed four hours prior to loading. Duhn asked whether intermodal shipments would be filed according to truck or rail manifest rules and under what rule if a shipment was transferred to a barge to complete a move.
   The meeting on rail manifest rules was calm and less well attended compared with last week’s sessions on air cargo and truck manifest rules. Those meetings were more contentious as shippers and carriers pointedly told Customs officials that the rules would slow down trade flows and severely harm their businesses. The air cargo and truck sessions were attended by about 250 and 175 industry representatives, respectively. Turnout for the rail session was about 85 persons.
   Customs officials say they continue to take seriously the need to institute security programs that do not hinder the free flow of commerce. “We have not stopped a single container yet in the [6 weeks] since the 24-hour rule was in place for ocean vessels,” Charles Bartoldus, director of border targeting and analysis, pointed out.
      Customs is encouraging the international trade sector to help develop the manifest rules, which are still at an embryonic stage. Specifically, officials say they want to know how much time railroads, motor carriers, and air freight operators need to divert a load if Customs orders it stopped if it has intelligence indicating a possible terrorist connection. That means Customs will consider a rule that might allow manifest information to be submitted in transit, rather than prior to loading, if carriers can make a strong case that meets Customs security requirements.
   As a result of feedback during the first round of meetings, Customs officials said they were looking at how to write rules to accommodate cargo that is bumped from its original conveyance and must go another way. They are also studying whether adopting some form of the Transportation Security Agency’s 24-hour manifest rule for “known shippers” could speed up targeting analysis and limit how far in advance trusted shippers would have to file the manifest data.
   Rail operators and users have 10 days to submit written comments on how to implement the electronic manifest filing requirements. Comments should be sent to traderelations@customs.treas.gov.