Hearing on Modernization of Customs Procedures Scheduled for House Subcommittee
House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) announced a subcommittee hearing to review customs operations administered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The hearing will focus on efforts to enhance economic growth and job creation by facilitating legitimate trade, modernizing customs procedures, and enforcing U.S. Customs and trade laws. The hearing will help the Committee develop customs reauthorization legislation. The hearing will be at 10 a.m. May 17 in 1100 Longworth House Office Building.
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"Streamlining legitimate trade is an essential component to our competitiveness in the global marketplace," said Brady in a press release. "This hearing will explore how to allocate resources and develop models so that we can move the ever-increasing volume of legitimate trade more efficiently, while effectively filtering out trade that doesn’t comply with our laws.”
The Committee last conducted a comprehensive review of the structure and resources of CBP and ICE from a commercial operations and customs enforcement perspective in May 2010, said the release. Since then, there has been growing concern that, in particular, existing efforts to modernize trade functions, facilitate legitimate trade, and enforce customs laws may not be keeping pace with the growing volumes of trade, it said. CBP has been implementing several programs to automate trade, improve compliance, and identify shipments that violate U.S. laws. In addition, in working with CBP, the trade community has made large investments in international supply chains through advance submissions of cargo data and “partnership” programs between government and business. This hearing will explore how these enhanced targeting and screening tools can be improved to reduce costs, smooth movements of legitimate trade by trusted partners, and increase compliance with the customs and trade laws of the United States.
More enforcement-related training and other measures may be needed to ensure CBP can effectively address fraudulent practices that circumvent U.S. laws, including in the areas of antidumping and countervailing duty collection, intellectual property rights enforcement, and textile enforcement. The hearing will explore how CBP manages its resources and whether any structural or other changes are needed to ensure that U.S. customs and trade laws are enforced.
This hearing will examine the following topics:
- Modernizing: Modernizing CBP’s Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) is critical to supporting the increase in import volume and the successful pre-screening of cargo. Complementing ACE is the International Trade Data System (ITDS), the window through which 48 government agencies with border responsibilities must function electronically and seamlessly. Together, these systems will allow CBP and other agencies to process goods more quickly and cost effectively, as well as collect and use trade data. The hearing will focus on what is needed to process all agency requirements at the border in the face of the ever-increasing volume of imports.
- Streamlining: The Subcommittee will explore how CBP can use an account management summary processing approach as opposed to a shipment-by-shipment approach to facilitate trade by known and established industry partners, increasing compliance by allowing more focus on shipments posing greater risk.
- Enforcing: Revenue collection and trade enforcement activities are critically important missions for CBP and ICE. While the overwhelming majority of trade is compliant with U.S. law, the agencies face increasing challenges in revenue collection and customs enforcement as the sophistication of those who seek to evade our laws increases. The hearing will examine whether these agencies are meeting this challenge.