Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) Electronic Export Manifest for Rail Cargo

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>U.S. Customs and Border Protection</SUBAGY> <CFR>19 CFR Parts 113 and 123</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. USCBP-2024-0030]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1651-AB52</RIN> <SUBJECT>Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) Electronic Export Manifest for Rail Cargo</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> U.S. Customs and Border Protection, DHS. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This document proposes a new regulation pursuant to the Trade Act of 2002 requiring the submission of export manifest data electronically to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) for cargo transported by rail for any train departing the United States. The proposed regulation would mandate the electronic transmission of rail export manifest information, identify the parties eligible to transmit information, and describe the time frames prior to departure of the train in which the information is due. This rule would enable CBP to address important cargo security concerns while providing efficiencies to the trade. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received by March 14, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Please submit comments, identified by docket number, by the following method: <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the instructions for submitting comments via docket number USCBP-2024-0030. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All submissions received must include the agency name and docket number for this rulemaking. All comments received will be posted without change to <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information provided. For detailed instructions on submitting comments and additional information on the rulemaking process, see the “Public Participation” heading of the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section of this document. <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket to read the plain language summary, background documents or comments received, go to <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> David Garcia, Program Manager, Outbound Enforcement and Policy Branch, Office of Field Operations, CBP, via email at <E T="03">cbpexportmanifest@cbp.dhs.gov,</E> or by telephone, (202) 344-3277. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Public Participation</HD> Interested persons are invited to participate in this rulemaking by submitting written data, views, or arguments on all aspects of the notice of proposed rulemaking. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) also invites comments that relate to any economic, environmental or federalism effects that might result from this proposal. Comments that will provide the most assistance to CBP in developing these procedures will reference a specific portion of the proposed rule, explain the reason for any recommended change, and include data, information, or authority that support such recommended change. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Executive Summary</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Purpose of the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) Electronic Export Manifest for Rail Cargo</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD3">1. Need for the Regulatory Action</HD> Current regulations are insufficient to adequately capture cargo data for rail shipments leaving the United States. CBP is proposing this rule to reduce the data gaps existing under current regulations, and to address important cargo security concerns resulting from incomplete data. This proposed rule will apply to all rail cargo exports and provide efficiencies to the trade. CBP does not presently require the pre-departure electronic submission of data for all exported cargo as it does for imported cargo. This can result in a threat to cargo and broader U.S. national security because CBP has no regulation prescribing any method or means of review for cargo being exported by rail. The electronically transmitted cargo data that is submitted prior to departing the United States by rail is limited significantly in its scope. Currently, 19 CFR 192.14 requires a U.S. Principal Party in Interest (USPPI), the USPPI's agent, or the authorized filing agent of a Foreign Principal Party in Interest (FPPI) to transmit Electronic Export Information (EEI) to CBP through the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). While this pre-departure data is helpful, EEI is generally only required by the Bureau of Census regulations on shipments that exceed $2,500 per Schedule B number and is not generally required for shipments to Canada, unless certain controlled items are involved or the shipment is being transshipped to another destination. 15 CFR parts 30 and 758. Because of these limitations, there is a significant lack of electronic manifest data which inhibits the enforcement efforts by CBP for such exports because of the gaps in information. The proposed regulation would create an integrated pre-departure electronic export manifest which includes receiving advance information for risk assessment purposes from the source most likely to have correct information about the cargo. This proposed regulation closes the gap which currently exists and requires all information to be manifested which enhances the security of the rail cargo and aligns the security of exported rail cargo with the regulations that are required of rail cargo imported into the United States. <HD SOURCE="HD3">2. Statement of Legal Authority</HD> CBP is authorized to promulgate regulations providing for the mandatory transmission of electronic cargo information by way of a CBP-authorized electronic data interchange (EDI) system before the cargo arrives or departs the United States by any mode of commercial transportation (sea, air, rail, or truck). Section 343(a) of the Trade Act of 2002, as amended (Trade Act) (19 U.S.C. 1415). The required cargo information is reasonably necessary to enable CBP to identify high-risk shipments for purposes of ensuring cargo safety and security, including compliance with export controls; preventing smuggling; and commercial risk assessment targeting, pursuant to the laws enforced and administered by CBP. 19 U.S.C. 1415(a)(3)(F). CBP needs to obtain timely and sufficient data prior to cargo arriving or departing the United States via any mode of commercial transportation in order to review and conduct risk assessment to identify high-risk shipments and inspect cargo effectively. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Summary of the Major Provisions of ACE EEM for Rail Cargo</HD> This proposed rule would mandate the transmission of EEM data in addition to the EEI data required under 15 CFR part 30 for all cargo prior to departing the United States for Canada and Mexico in the rail environment in lieu of paper submissions. The new regulation that CBP is seeking to promulgate is proposed 19 CFR 123.93 which would mandate the electronic transmission of rail export manifest information, identify the parties eligible to transmit information, describe the time frames prior to departure of the train in which the information is due, and identify an initial filing that must occur 24 hours prior to departure from the port of export while requiring the remaining data to be transmitted at least two hours prior to such departure. The proposed regulation designates information as transportation data, cargo data, or empty container data, and lists the data elements to be transmitted while calling them out as mandatory, conditional, or optional. The data elements that are identified as mandatory must be submitted, while elements identified as conditional shall be submitted if available, and optional elements may be provided at the discretion of the filers. These elements allow for CBP to inspect cargo effectively, ensure compliance with U.S. export control laws and regulations and identify high-risk shipments for purposes of ensuring cargo safety and security. CBP proposes adding 19 CFR 123.93(c) which identifies the parties that can file the cargo and conveyance data. The outbound carrier is responsible for transmitting the export manifest transportation data and empty container data. If no other party elects to transmit the initial filing data and the export manifest cargo data, then the outbound carrier must transmit this data. If another eligible party elects to transmit either the initial filing data or export manifest cargo data, the outbound carrier may also choose to, but is not required to transmit such data. Other eligible parties include USPPI and FPPI, as defined by the provisions of section 30.1 of the FTR of the Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census (15 CFR 30.1), or its authorized agent. Other eligible filers also include any other party with direct knowledge of the export information, such as a customs broker, Automated Broker Interface (ABI) filer, NVOCC as defined by 19 CFR 4.7(b)(3)(ii), or a freight forwarder as defined in 19 CFR 112.1. If another party does not transmit advance export information, the party that arranges for and/or delivers the cargo to the outbound carrier must fully disclose and present to the outbound carrier the data elements for the initial filing. Proposed 19 CFR 123.93(d) requires a mandatory initial filing of seven data elements identified below to be submitted 24 hours prior to departure to a foreign port, by either the carrier, USPPI, or other qualified parties or their authorized agents. The results of the test have shown that some rail carriers would have the export manifest data available days in advance prior to departure and therefore would have all the necessary information to submit the initial filing data to CBP and all other export manifest data well in advance of the 24-hour prior to departure deadlines. Except for the in ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 236k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━