TRUCKERS, OCEAN CARRIERS TO CHALLENGE SED FILING FOR U.S./PUERTO RICO

TRUCKERS, OCEAN CARRIERS TO CHALLENGE SED FILING FOR U.S./PUERTO RICO    Truckers and ocean carriers in the U.S./Puerto Rico trade want to end the practice of filing shipper's export declarations, but it's expected to take extensive lobbying to change the law.
   Under the U.S. Foreign Trade Statistics Regulations carriers are required to collect and submit SEDs for shipments in both directions of the U.S./Puerto Rico trade.
   “This is not a new requirement. It's been around a long time,” said C. Harvey Monk Jr., chief of Census' Foreign Trade Division.
   Prior to the release of Census' new exporter definition, the so-called U.S. principal party in interest rule, carriers simply listed themselves as the exporter of record for shipments valued at more than $2,500 in the trade.
   “We were getting information but not an accurate picture of the exporter,” Monk said. “When the new law took effect, many shippers in the trade never knew they had to file SEDs.”
   Now the carriers are responsible for collecting SEDs from the shippers. They are building in-house systems to key this data into the government's Automated Export System.
   “We have spent a lot of money training customers and our sales team on what they have to do to complete and file SEDs correctly,” said Minou Wessant, manager of business process and regulatory compliance for CSX Lines in Dallas.
   In Puerto Rico, Census has an office to gather trade statistics from the SEDs and compile them for the Puerto Rican Planning Board.
   The American Trucking Association and the Jones Act carriers have indicated that they are considering to form a lobbying campaign on Capitol Hill and Puerto Rico to change the law.
   “I would think the government will not be supportive of this and clearly the Puerto Rican Planning Board would not because they would lose this valuable information,” Monk said.