On May 29, the optional import component of the web-based Public Health Information System (PHIS) will be partially operational, the Food Safety and Inspection Service said in a letter to importers dated April 18, 2012. On that date, in all U.S. official import inspection establishments handling imports of meat, poultry and egg products, PHIS will: (i) provide for a government-to-government electronic transmission of inspection certificate data as an alternative to the paper certification, beginning with Australia and New Zealand; and (ii) begin transfer of 10 data elements from U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) to FSIS.

The International Trade Administration initiated administrative reviews for certain firms subject to antidumping or countervailing duty orders with March anniversary dates. The ITA has also received a request to revoke in part one antidumping order for two exporters. The ITA intends to issue the final results of these reviews no later than March 31, 2013.

The International Trade Administration said it will no longer publish certain aspects of its determinations in antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings in the Federal Register. The ITA said it's taking this action due to the mounting costs of publishing notices in the Federal Register and widespread access to the Internet. According to the ITA, the content of many the ITA’s Federal Register notices will be reduced (for example, extension notices for preliminary and final results), with much of the information previously included in its FR notices being made available on the ITA’s website. The ITA said it will implement these changes incrementally, beginning May 15, 2012.

Incumbent LECs roundly condemned several legacy telecom regulations in reply comments posted Wednesday in docket 12-61 in support of USTelecom’s petition for forbearance, breaking out the thesaurus to describe the rules they say unfairly shackle ILECs while allowing other carriers to thrive. State commissions opposed the petition, arguing the elimination of several reporting requirements would harm consumers and make it harder for commissions to do their jobs.

The Court of International Trade dismissed another action brought by a domestic producer challenging the distribution of funds under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000 (CDSOA) (aka the Byrd Amendment) with regard to the antidumping duty orders on certain polyester staple fiber from Korea (A-580-839) and Taiwan (A-583-833).

U.S. Customs and Border Protection's ACEopedia for July 2012 adds additional information on the process improvements created by ACE to date. A new listing of those improvements is the largest change from the previous ACEopedia.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection posted an updated version of its spreadsheet of ACE ESAR A2.2 (Initial Entry Types) programming issues.

Porn companies and performers can further develop their case that federal record-keeping regulations known as Section 2257 rules are unconstitutionally broad, under a 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling Monday. The rules, intended to combat child pornography, require primary and secondary producers, such as porn studios and porn websites, to verify the ages of performers and keep such records for law enforcement review. The question of whether the rules are “narrowly tailored,” so that they don’t impact the production of porn whose performers are clearly not underage, will go back to the trial court, which initially ruled for the government against plaintiffs’ First, Fourth and Fifth amendment claims.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection posted an updated version of its spreadsheet of ACE ESAR A2.2 (Initial Entry Types) programming issues.

A recently released U.S. Customs and Border Protection February 23 Implementation Guide for Messaging Interface between International Trade Data System Trade Partners and the CBP Document Image System (DIS) for importers and brokers provides extensive technical details on the messaging processes. The document, numbered ITDS-DIS-IG-1.2.6, says For Official Use Only. CBP recently began the first phase of DIS testing for Importers and Brokers using ACE.