FSIS Outlines Selection Criteria for Pilot on Electronic Filing Through ACE
The Food Safety and Inspection Service’s pilot on electronic filing of import inspection applications through the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) will begin in summer 2013, and will include all products under FSIS jurisdiction, including meat, poultry, and processed egg products, the agency said. While FSIS doesn’t currently plan to restrict the number of participants, it may do so based on the number of volunteers responding to the request for participation in the pilot, it said. And although the Federal Register notice announcing the pilot said requests to participate are due by May 28 (see 13032829), FSIS will evaluate any request to volunteer for the pilot, including late requests, and “consider such requests appropriately,” the agency told us.
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To participate, volunteers must meet two preliminary criteria, FSIS said. First, they must be filers in ACE. Second, they must have developed software that provides the ability to transfer the Participating Government Agency (PGA) Message Set data in ACE. If volunteers meet these preliminary criteria, FSIS will then evaluate requests to participate based on transportation environments, exporting countries (and whether the country has an electronic certification interface with the Public Health Information Service (PHIS), types of products, and volumes, it said.
FSIS said it will notify selected participants “as soon as the evaluations have been completed and a firm date is announced for the pilot to begin.”
The agency has no set date for completion of the pilot. The pilot will last “as long as necessary to provide FSIS and CBP a high level of confidence that this step towards the single window concept provides the intended functionality and maximizes the benefit to all stakeholders prior to moving the message set process to production,” FSIS said.
CBP recently posted presentations on the FSIS pilot, along with an Environmental Protection Agency pilot on electronic filing through ACE (see 13032916).