ACE 2.0 and the 21st Century Customs Framework are "absolutely key" to moving forward with CBP's Green Trade Strategy "with the urgency that is required as we globally fight climate change," CBP Executive Assistant Commissioner AnnMarie Highsmith said at a July 12 press conference. Highsmith said both initiatives will allow for improved traceability to aid sustainability efforts and, alongside improved CBP cargo processing at ports, help move goods more quickly across the border.

The Commerce Department’s Office of Inspector General plans to publish a “management alert” about NTIA’s “reliance on tribes’ self-certifications of their broadband status to determine their eligibility for grants under the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program,” Assistant IG-Audit and Evaluation Arthur Scott said in a Monday memo to NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson we obtained Tuesday night. OIG plans to release the alert Wednesday, officials said. TBCP is one of several federal broadband programs congressional Republicans have focused on since December as part of ramped-up scrutiny of the government’s connectivity spending.

Lane County, Oregon, in its June 1 motion for summary judgment (see 2306020025), established that it’s “entitled to judgment as a matter of law” on AT&T’s claims the county violated Section 332 of the Telecommunications Act when it denied AT&T’s application to build a new wireless tower, said the county’s reply Thursday (docket 6:22-cv-01635) in U.S. District Court for Oregon in Eugene in support of its motion. AT&T’s application didn’t describe any personal wireless services it would be effectively prohibited from providing without a new tower, it said. Nor did AT&T provide “the basic information necessary” for the county to determine whether the proposed tower “was the least intrusive means to fill any alleged gap in coverage for personal wireless services,” it said. That’s the “sole and controlling test” for determining a Section 332 violation, it said. AT&T then failed to follow Oregon’s land use process, which requires an appeal to the Land Use Board of Appeals as the final step in a land use application, it said. AT&T now asks the court to consider new evidence never provided to the county in the application process, it said. That would effectively bypass the local zoning process that Congress “expressly preserved” when it enacted Section 332, it said. The “material facts” in the case aren’t in dispute, it said. Under binding 9th Circuit precedent, the county “is entitled to judgment as a matter of law denying AT&T’s claims,” it said.

DHS published its fall 2023 regulatory agenda for CBP. There were no new trade-related rulemakings included.

Neither DOJ nor the Commerce Department provided a definition of the term "easement" in relation to Commerce's finding that a "conditional easement" exempting input supplier Nur Gemicilik from paying rent on land was a good provided by the Turkish government and subject to a less than adequate remuneration (LTAR) analysis, exporter Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret argued in a reply brief (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret, CIT # 22-00149).

Five individual residents of Kootenai County, Idaho, plus the 250 residents belonging to the Potlatch Hill Neighborhood Group, can’t rely on the county to protect their interests in AT&T’s fight with the municipality over a disputed cell tower, said the residents’ motion to intervene Thursday (docket 2:23-cv-00124) in U.S. District Court for Idaho. AT&T’s March 29 complaint seeks declaratory and injunctive relief based on the county’s denial of its application for a conditional use permit to build the 150-foot lattice tower in the northwest corner of the state near the Washington border (see 2303300046).

The Commerce Department should have applied adverse facts to a Korean oil country tubular goods respondent for "failing" to provide information that the department did not request and the government's claim that it so is "demonstrably false," SeAH Steel said in a June 27 response brief at the Court of International Trade (SeAH Steel v. U.S., CIT # 22-00338).

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said she would block all exports of sensitive technology to China and put in place new investment restrictions on Chinese purchases of agricultural land if she is elected to the White House. Haley, the former U.N. ambassador during the Trump administration who announced her 2024 presidential candidacy earlier this year, said President Joe Biden is “not up to the task” of protecting U.S. national security from risks posed by China and previewed several new policies that could cut off a range of trade between the two countries.

Japan, Australia and Singapore, co-conveners of the e-commerce talks at the World Trade Organization, recently urged delegates to consider how the initiative can achieve results by the end of the year, the WTO said June 22. Facilitators of small group discussions noted progress on finding "landing zones on text proposals in areas such as cryptography, source code, privacy, 'single windows,' telecommunications, and data flows and data localisation," the WTO said. Other sessions held at the meeting included talks on general and security exceptions, digital inclusion and development and implementation.

Japan, Australia and Singapore, co-conveners of the e-commerce talks at the World Trade Organization, recently urged delegates to consider how the initiative can achieve results by the end of the year, the WTO said June 22. Facilitators of small group discussions noted progress on finding "landing zones on text proposals in areas such as cryptography, source code, privacy, 'single windows,' telecommunications, and data flows and data localisation," the WTO said. Other sessions held at the meeting included talks on general and security exceptions, digital inclusion and development and implementation.