By Peter A. Buxbaum, AJOT U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America, Inc. are both encouraging international traders to move their import business processes to CBP’s Automated Commercial Environment. ACE is the commercial trade processing system being developed by CBP to facilitate trade by automating and consolidating border processing. ACE, which has been under development for well over a decade, will be replacing the the Automated Commercial System (ACS). The ACE project began in the late 1990s when U.S. Customs decided it needed to replace ACS which was built on an increasingly obsolete processing language and dependent on old mainframe computer hardware. The idea behind ACE was to deliver a system using the latest computer languages that could be easily and rapidly modified to address CBP, trade, and legislative issues. It has been a long time coming but CBP has released several modules of ACE over the last year, including an air and sea electronic manifest program, ACE Truck, and a cargo release module. While NCBFAA as an organization supports the transition to ACE, there are differences among NVOCCs about the enthusiasm for the move and divergences of opinion among about the significance of this step. In the end, any dissent will be largely irrelevant. CBP has announced that it will begin to shut down ACS modules as their ACE counterparts come on line. “It is time for our industry to support the transition to ACE,” said Ken Bargteil, vice president and corporate compliance officer at Kuehne + Nagel and chairman of the NCBFAA’s customs committee. “The NCBFAA has published a tool kit to help our members make the transition. We will be holding a webinar on the subject and we appointed one of our officers to be the ACE champion. We have met with Customs and its software about moving full steam ahead so that we can persuade our members of the business case to transition in to ACE.” Other leading NVOCC executives are doubtful, however. “NVOCCs are skeptical of government initiatives that they push on us without explanation,” said Greg Howard, chairman and chief executive officer of CaroTrans International, an NVOCC. “We don’t know at this point how ACE is going to help move cargo and that is our concern.” Howard also wonders where CBP is going to come up with funding ACE development. “At this point ACE has maintenance funding but not development funding,” said Howard, “so it is not clear how CBP is going to be able to release new functionality.” Robert DeCamp, director of regulatory affairs and consulting at Deringer Logistics Consulting Group is similarly concerned about funding, particularly with regard to CBP’s recent proposed rule on in-bond transportation. One aspect of the proposed rule mandates that in-bond entries be filed electronically. “With limited resources, ACE can’t sustain a solid system for in-bond control now or under the new methods,” DeCamp said. But Michael Troy, founder and chairman of the NVOCC Troy Container Line Ltd., was more generous. “NVOCCs have complied well with regulations and have adapted very well to them,” he said. “If ACE can cut down on inspections and make the flow of freight smoother, there is not an NVOCC out there that would not be willing to work with it. On the other hand, “everything comes with the cost of time and time is money,” Troy added. “It will also be interesting to see if CBP can release ACE across the board.” Among the modules CBP has released so far is the electronic manifest for trucks. Processing time for trucks is over 29 percent faster nationwide, according to a CBP document, than prior to the implementation of the module. It is currently processing an average of 190,000 trucks nationally per week. ACE Truck also interfaces with Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) systems to check on carrier operating authority and insurance, driver credentials, and vehicle safety inspection status. CBP began a pilot phase of the latest ACE modu