Homeland Security Secretary
has begun enforcing a cargo reporting requirement that ocean carriers
and importers must submit additional details about U.S.-bound cargoes
24 hours before being loaded onto vessels in foreign seaports.
The rule aims to help identify high-risk cargoes,
such as hazardous materials, but will not have an effect on local port
operations.
“It’s more of a clerical information flow required from shippers and brokers,” said
“We, at the port level, have nothing to do with that,” he said. “That’s between the steamship lines and Customs.”
Since the
24 hours before sailing. The manifest information is transmitted to a
national center, analyzed, and high-risk cargoes are inspected before
leaving foreign ports.
The new screening measure asks for detailed
information about where the cargo came from, the origin, who the
shipper is, who the manufacturer was.
“The shipping community has known about it for quite some time,” said
“From our perspective in the port here, it won’t be
any different,” Holt said. “This gives Customs a lot more time to
screen the information that the exporters and shippers give them. And
it also gives them additional information, different data elements,
that will help them identify high-risk cargoes,” said Holt.
“So when cargoes do get here, Customs can either put
them aside for further scrutiny, or expedite cargo they may not have to
inspect. The key is to get to a point that cargo doesn’t get on the
ship unless it’s prescreened,” Holt said.
“It’s one more step in the government’s plan to make
the country safer from terroristic threats. It’s a good thing,” Holt
said. “There’s a much higher level of inspection of cargoes and
sensitivity to high-threat cargoes than pre-(
—
(c) 2010, The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Visit Philadelphia Online, the Inquirer’s World Wide Web site, at http://www.philly.com/
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
