The Government Accountability Office has issued its report, as required by law, to Congressional committees on its review of the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS') fiscal year 2007 Automated Commercial Environment expenditure plan and its management of ACE.
The World Customs Organization has issued a press release announcing that the Universal Postal Union (UPU) and the WCO agreed in September to work more closely in modernizing postal and customs processes, particularly to meet increased demand for the electronic transfer of customs information. (WCO press release, dated 09/07/07, available at http://www.wcoomd.org/press/?v=1&lid=1&cid=4)
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued an ABI administrative message stating that the phone system has been out in Charleston, SC since October 19, 2007. CBP states that new phones are being installed, but the installation is expected to take one week to complete. In the meantime, email is the best way to reach the port (see message for email addresses and supervisors' cell phone numbers). (Adm: 07-0240, dated 10/29/07, available at http://www.brokerpower.com/cgi-bin/adminsearch/admmsg.view.pl?article=2007/2007-0240.ADM.)
The FCC should “reconsider and rescind” new cable landing license rules that implement the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA), a law aimed at balancing economic and environmental conservation interests in coastal development, the North American Submarine Cable Association said in comments filed Thursday. The rules are “unnecessary and otherwise flawed as a matter of law, unworkable at a practical level, and effectively gut the Commission’s submarine cable streamlining rules without any identifiable regulatory benefit,” NASCA said. The commission should reconsider the rules, NASCA said, because (1) the CZMA doesn’t mandate FCC rules for processing cable landing licenses; NOAA has that power and already has CZMA rules to address the issue; (2) cable landing license applicants can’t comply with the FCC rules because the agency “failed to account appropriately for states’ authority to review ‘unlisted activities,'” it said. The Commission rules require applicants to “verify… that no state has sought or received NOAA approval to review the application as an unlisted activity.” But NOAA regulations say “all states retain the authority, subject to NOAA approval, to review unlisted license activities,” and “a number of states have explicitly codified this authority.” Since states can choose to exercise authority, it’s “impossible” to “make definitive determinations” about whether CZMA certifications are required before filing applications, NASCA said; (3) the FCC wrongly called “significant” cable construction and capacity activation delays “minimal.” The Commission defined “minimal” as less than six months, a stretch given the business importance of time to market, NASCA said. The time frame also may be inaccurate, since the FCC failed to consider potential delays, it said. The longer time frame runs counter to 2001 FCC streamlining rules reducing the process to 45 days from 137 to 451 days, and conflicts with the FCC’s “longstanding policy of encouraging investment and infrastructure development in the undersea cable sector”; (4) the FDA CZMA rules are “unworkable” since FCC cable license applications don’t require detailed data required by state CZMA consistency reviews; (5) the FCC rules violate World Trade Organization commitments by the U.S. regarding licensing criteria. WTO requires the U.S. to make publicly available “the period of time normally required to reach a decision concerning application for a license,” impossible since the FCC rules don’t account for delays, it said.
Reuters reports that Canadian officials have stated that Canada is entering a difficult final phase of free-trade negotiations with South Korea and will need to secure a deal in order to compete with the U.S. in Asia. The article further quotes a Canadian official as stating that unless there are some breakthroughs in the negotiations, the free trade agreement may not be signed by the end of 2007. (Reuters, dated 10/23/07, available at http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticnews&storyID=2007-10-23T214619Z_01_N23331612_RTRIDST_0_CANADA-TRADE-KOREA-COL.XML.)
In May 2007, the International Trade Administration issued a request for comments on whether it should consider granting complete or partial market-economy treatment to individual entities for the calculation of normal value in antidumping proceedings involving China. The request focused on a possible market-oriented enterprise (MOE) test. (See ITT's Online Archives or 05/30/07 news, 07053025, for BP summary.)
A threatening letter from a European music publisher to a Canadian Web site that provided classical sheet music is sparking fears among some academics and lawyers that the public domain may drastically shrink. Vienna-based Universal AG told the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) that the site violated its copyrights by publishing the works of deceased European composers still covered by Europe’s death-plus-70 years copyright term. In Canada, the term is death plus 50 years. Since sites have to consider the laws where the copyright resides and not just the laws where site servers reside, the incident calls into question whether “public domain really only applies in an offline world,” University of Ottawa Law Professor Michael Geist told us.
The Transportation Security Administration has issued a notice announcing that on November 1, 2007 port workers, longshoremen, truckers and others at the port of Corpus Christi, Texas will begin to enroll in the Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) program. (FR Pub 10/26/07, available at http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20071800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2007/pdf/E7-21112.pdf)
The White House has issued the Homeland Security Council's 2007 National Strategy for Homeland Security(Strategy) to guide, organize, and unify the U.S.' homeland security efforts. Among other things, the Strategy calls for enhancing existing programs related to cargo security.
It could two weeks for retailers taking part in the DTV coupon program to be certified, says a new “Retailer Support Center” section at the NTIA website (www.ntiadtv.com). Corporate Lodging Consultants, part of the IBM team handling certification, runs the center and site from Wichita, Kan. The center is reachable by phone (866-296-1107) and fax (316- 771-7882). Retailers applying by web, fax or mail will get a “welcome kit” with training materials and a test coupon number, the site said. Certification is complete “once the retailer has successfully processed a test transaction,” it said. Coupon cards will be authorized over the Visa private label network, but retailers that don’t accept Visa can choose an authorization option to enter the transaction by phone or web, it said. IBM’s proposal said the coupon cards would be processed over the MasterCard network. Discussions with the IBM team after it landed the contract “led to the selection of Visa as the best solution,” an NTIA spokesman said.