19 U.S.C. § 1415 — Mandatory advance electronic information for cargo and other improved customs reporting procedures

(a) Cargo information. (1) In general. (A) Subject to paragraphs (2) and (3), the Secretary may issue rules requiring cargo information to be sent electronically to the Customs Service before cargo arrives in or leaves the United States. (B) The Secretary should try to issue the first rules by October 1, 2003. (2) Information required. The rules must require the cargo information the Secretary finds reasonably necessary to protect cargo safety and security under laws enforced by the Customs Service. The Secretary must give the information obtained under paragraph (1) to appropriate Federal departments and agencies. (3) Parameters. (A) The Secretary must seek comments from and consult many affected parties, including importers, exporters, carriers, customs brokers, and freight forwarders. (B) The rule should require information from the party most likely to know it. If that is not practical, it must consider how the party ordinarily gets the information and whether the party can check it. If the party cannot reasonably check it, the rule must allow the party to report what it reasonably believes is true. (C) The Secretary must consider competition among parties required to provide information. (D) Rules for carriers must account for differences among transportation methods, including business practices, operations, and ability to collect and send electronic information. (E) Rules must consider whether the needed technology is available. If it will not be widely available when the rules are issued, the rules must set temporary requirements suited to available technology. (F) Collected information may be used only for cargo safety and security, stopping smuggling, and commercial-risk targeting. It may not be used for commercial enforcement, including deciding merchandise entry. This section does not amend or change title IV of the Tariff Act of 1930 or its rules. (G) Rules must protect proprietary business information and other confidential cargo information, except manifest information that section 431 of the Tariff Act requires to be publicly disclosed. (H) Timing must balance effects on commerce with cargo safety and security and must account for transportation-method differences. (I) Where practical, rules should avoid duplicate requirements. (J) The Secretary must decide whether transition periods are appropriate and may set different periods for different affected groups. (K) (i) The Secretary must require the Postal Service to send the information described in paragraphs (1) and (2) to the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection for international mail, including mail sent to the Postal Service by foreign postal operators and carried by private carriers. (ii) The requirements must be comparable to those for similar non-mail cargo, while considering subparagraphs (A) through (J). (iii) The information must be sent as soon as practical in relation to transportation, consistently with subparagraph (H). (iv) The rules may phase in the requirement by setting increasing shipment-percentage targets and considering (aa) shipment risk, (bb) mail volume from or through each country, and (cc) foreign postal operators’ ability to provide the information. (v) (I) By December 31, 2018, the Postal Service had to arrange transmission for at least 70 percent of all covered mail shipments, including 100 percent from the People’s Republic of China. (II) If it did not, the Comptroller General had to report by June 30, 2019, to the appropriate congressional committees on (aa) why and (bb) how collection could improve. (vi) (I) By December 31, 2020, the Postal Service had to arrange transmission for 100 percent of covered mail shipments. (II) The Commissioner, consulting the Postmaster General, may exclude a country if it lacks capacity to collect and send the information, is low risk for unlawful mail, and has low mail volume that can be screened by another effective method. (III) The Commissioner must reconsider each exclusion at least yearly and may not continue it once the country no longer meets those conditions. (IV) Each year the Commissioner must give the appropriate congressional committees a list of excluded countries and the supporting information. (vii) (I) After December 31, 2020, the Postmaster General, consulting the Commissioner, must refuse shipments lacking the required information, unless (II) remedial action is appropriate, in which case they must take action such as destruction, seizure, controlled delivery, other law enforcement, or correcting the missing information. (III) From January 1 through March 15, 2021, the Postmaster General could accept a shipment without the information if the Commissioner, or the Postmaster General with the Commissioner’s agreement, found it low risk of violating relevant laws or rules, including those concerning fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. (viii) This subparagraph does not limit the Secretary’s authority to obtain international-mail information from private carriers or other appropriate parties. (ix) “Appropriate congressional committees” means the Senate Finance and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committees, and the House Ways and Means, Oversight and Government Reform, and Homeland Security Committees. (L) At least 15 days before publishing a final rule, the Secretary must send the Senate Finance and Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committees and the House Ways and Means and Transportation and Infrastructure Committees a report containing (i) the proposed rules, (ii) why requirements meet cargo-safety and security needs, (iii) expected effects on affected parties’ business practices, and (iv) responses to interested parties’ comments. (v) If the Secretary later changes the proposed rules, the Secretary must send the changes at least 5 days before publication. (4) Transmission of data. Within 1 year after August 10, 2005, the Secretary of Homeland Security, after consulting the Treasury Secretary, had to establish an electronic system for Customs and Border Protection to send the IRS electronic cargo information about taxable fuel as defined in 26 U.S.C. § 4083. Within that year, every filer of required information about that fuel had to send it through that system. (5) Capacity building. (A) With the State Secretary’s agreement and in coordination with the Postmaster General and appropriate Federal-agency heads, the Secretary may give foreign postal operators technical help, equipment, technology, and training to collect and provide information required by paragraph (3)(K), and other postal information about (i) terrorism, (ii) prohibited or restricted imports, including controlled substances, and (iii) other concerns the Secretary considers appropriate. (B) The Secretary may lease, lend, provide, or help deploy equipment and technology on prescribed terms, including non-reimbursable loans or transfer of ownership. (b) Omitted. (c) Secretary. Here, “Secretary” means the Treasury Secretary. If the Customs Service is no longer in Treasury when the subsection (a)(1) rules are issued, the Treasury Secretary must exercise subsection (a) authority jointly with the secretary of the department where the Customs Service is located.