CBP Says EEM Progress Is Being Made Ahead of COAC Meeting
CBP has developed a “trade facing” truck export manifest and is ready to deploy it “pending publication” of an interim final rule in the Federal Register, the agency said ahead of the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee’s September meeting. CBP also is hoping to soon publish a notice of proposed rulemaking to put in place an electronic export manifest for shipments traveling by vessel and is awaiting a final rule for its rail EEM proposal issued in January (see 2501080013).
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“Census preliminary data analysis of rail and vessel EEM data has shown positive impacts to statistical data collection efforts,” the agency said. “Based on initial results, EEM data would serve to improve the Electronic Export Information (EEI) filing.” It added that a “possible regulatory update to the required EEI data elements is being explored.”
CBP said its next steps are to continue to work with the COAC’s Export Modernization Working Group to “build the Truck EEM business requirements, document process flows, and data elements.” It’s also exploring “other ways to modernize or automate exports” and hopes to eventually “complete the review of, and publish, the Truck EEM pilot.”
The update comes after the advisory committee urged CBP in December to roll out EEM within the next COAC term (see 2312050026). CBP has been working for years to increase industry participation in the EEM pilot ahead of its full launch (see 2209150014 and 2110180038).
The export working group also issued a host of recommendations for CBP ahead of the full COAC meeting, calling on the agency to ensure that the rail EEM system “automatically update[s] the ACE in-bond record with both the in-bond arrival and in-bond export dates based on the rail conveyance border crossing event.” It also said CBP should, as part of its rail EEM, identify “US in-transit cargo and bridges over to the prior import manifest to leverage that data” by introducing new conditional data elements for in-transit cargo and the import bill of lading number.
Other recommendations call on CBP to increase “visibility and oversight” of EEM filings and work to address past recommendations from the committee.
“COAC recommends that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) prioritizes the review and implementation of the outstanding recommendations previously submitted by the Export Modernization Working Group, with the objective of advancing meaningful improvements to the export process,” it said.
CBP indicated in early July that all existing COAC subcommittees and working groups would come to a close after the Sept. 17 COAC meeting as CBP prioritizes trade enforcement (see 2507010077).