(The Washington Post published the following story by Martha McNeil Hamilton and Sara Kehaulani Goo on its website on July 23.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Customs and Border Protection proposed stiff new regulations yesterday designed to prevent terrorists from sneaking weapons or operatives into the United States in cargo shipments.
The rules create a system that requires all shippers to electronically transmit information about their goods and the recipients far enough before arrival to allow Customs to determine whether it needs to intensively inspect the cargo.
The system seeks to increase the efficiency of inspections by ruling out “the larger percentage of cargoes that don’t pose risks” in order to target those either identified as risks by intelligence or “about which we don’t know anything,” said Robert C. Bonner, commissioner of the Customs Service, which is now overseen by the Department of Homeland Security. He said Tom Ridge, Homeland Security director, had signed off on the regulations.
The regulations are one step Customs is taking toward improving security at U.S. borders. The agency has always required information on arriving cargo but only after the shipments had arrived. Many shippers had already begun providing information in advance, but the new rules make the procedures mandatory and require that the information be electronically filed into a system that assesses risk management for Customs.
“This is revolutionary in some ways,” Bonner said of requiring such information in advance.
About 18 million cargo containers enter the United States every year on trucks and ships, Customs said. The agency did not have a figure that included arrivals by air and rail.
Under the new rules, aircraft arriving from Canada, Mexico, and Central and South America as far south as the equator would have to report their shipments when they lift off, while aircraft arriving from Asia and Europe would need to report four hours before touching down. Railroads would be required to report on their cargo two hours before entering the country. Trucks would have to notify Customs an hour before they arrived, unless they were certified under the Free and Secure Trade program that provides background checks of drivers and outfits trucks with tracking equipment. The regulations also require advance notification on departing cargo, allowing Customs to inspect for cash leaving the country and to help provide security for other nations, a Customs spokesman said.
Ocean carriers have been required since earlier this year to report on their cargoes 24 hours before arriving in port. The proposed regulations would also mandate that those filings are delivered electronically.
Customs said there will be a 30-day comment period on the regulations. The final rule will be submitted Sept. 15 and take effect 15 days later — a timetable set out in the Trade Act of 2002.
Shippers said it was difficult to gauge the impact the regulations would have on their costs. “It is too early to say this is heinous, good or excellent,” said Peter Powell Sr., chairman of the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America, which has 700 members. “To be sure, business will be done differently,” Powell said. He doubted, though, that the regulations would force any businesses to close shop.
FedEx Corp. said it would use the comment period to raise its concerns about the proposed rules. “We still remain concerned that these proposed regulations will hurt the U.S. economy by slowing down critical shipments,” said spokeswoman Sandra Munoz, who said the company had not yet seen the regulations. “We believe there could still be some reasonable accommodations to make sure goods can move efficiently.”
Bonner said that shippers who failed to comply with the rules would face delays because their cargoes would become subject to intensive inspections. Shippers also could receive penalties ranging from $5,000 to the value of the cargo.
“The reality is we don’t want to shut down our borders,” Bonner said. “The question we have been grappling with is how to make sure we have the security that is required without having to inspect everything that comes in at our borders.”