On June 29, 2010, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Consumer Product Safety Commission held their annual fireworks safety demonstration on the National Mall in Washington. D.C. about the dangers associated with fireworks, especially illegal explosives.Dan Baldwin, CBP Assistant Commissioner for the Office of International Trade, stated that import safety is a priority trade issue for CBP, noting that CPSC personnel are now co-located in CBP's Import Safety Commercial Targeting and Analysis Center in Washington, D.C., and CBP assists the CPSC in selectively sampling and testing shipments of imported fireworks to determine if they are compliant with the Federal Hazardous Substances Act. CPSC press release on firework safety is available here.

CBP has issued the June 2010 ACE Trade Account Owner (TAO) Update. The update covers the creation of declaration records, CBP Form 28, 29, 4647 status report, bond update, recent ACE updates, frequently asked questions, etc.

CBP has issued a CSMS message stating that due to the potential impact from tropical storm Alex, snow days have been granted for all filers in the Texas ports of Brownsville, Pharr, and Progreso for Thursday July 1, 2010 and Friday July 2, 2010. CBP is extending two additional days without penalty for the filing and payment of entry summaries due on these days only.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has updated its overview of benefits and information on obtaining, viewing and processing periodic monthly statements through the ACE portal.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a final determination that Mexico is the country of origin for certain dimmer and fan speed switch controls for purposes of U.S. government procurement.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has completed an analysis of import trade trends through the Mid-Year Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 including projections of trade activity through the end of FY 2010. This interim report acts as a precursor to the more extensive FY 2010 Final Report to be released later this year.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a document (Version 2.2) which outlines entry summary processing in the Automated Commercial Environment. Processing entry summaries in ACE will change the system of record for these import related transactions from a paper-based system to a true electronic system of record keeping. A change of this significance requires revised operational policies and procedures and this document will address those changes. This document will be a living document as the different entry summary types and associated downstream processing migrate from the Automated Commercial System (ACS) to ACE.

Broker Power is now issuing weekly summary reports highlighting the most active textile and apparel tariff preference levels¹ from U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s “Quota Weekly Commodity Status Report.” BP’s weekly report also lists the TRQ commodities on CBP’s weekly “TRQ/TPL Threshold to Fill List.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a document listing the Remote Location Filing operational locations. The list includes the port name, port code, the Electronic Invoice Program (EIP)/RLF coordinator, the phone number (and extension, if applicable), and the fax number for each location.

CBP has posted an updated version of its TRQ/TPL "threshold to fill" list, a quick reference to monitor TRQs and TPLs that are approaching their restraint limit or have filled their in-quota (low) rate. The list is divided into two sections: those that are at least 85% filled and those that are filled.