National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America (NCBFAA) Board Chairman Geoff Powell said Tuesday that while certain elements of the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) must still be developed, the system is “working very well” and that there is “great communication” between U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the trade community.
“It’s not done; I think we need to be clear on that. CBP has said that,” Powell said during the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Sixth Annual Global Supply Chain Conference on Tuesday. “But … it’s working very well.”
Powell added that NCBFAA is working with CBP on developing incomplete areas of ACE that “we hope to be addressed this year,” after Fiscal Year 2018 omnibus spending legislation gave CBP $34 million for continuing ACE development.
“We’re working with CBP on that, to identify what the priorities are, what the costs are and what the timing’s going to be,” he said.
One of the issues arising during continued ACE development is that, as different partner government agencies become integrated in the system, there has sometimes been poor communication to the trade about hours-long ACE software updates that can affect the way that filings take in the system, Fresh Produce Association of the Americas President Lance Jungmeyer said during the Chamber conference.
Solid backup plans should be developed for reverting to manual processes during ACE downtime, especially to assist “the individual ports and the people who coordinate those efforts, to be able to say, ‘We need to pull that trigger and go back to the old way, because things are backing up and the computers are not working,’” he said.