Commission Eases Regulatory Burdens to Maritime Supply Chain Users - Federal Martime Commission
The Federal Maritime Commission today voted unanimously to amend its rules involving Service Contracts and NVOCC Service Arrangements (NSAs) in order to ease regulatory burdens and make the agency’s rules more consistent with how the ocean shipping business is now practiced.
"The Commission examined regulatory requirements for service contracts and NVOCC Service Arrangements in light of current commercial practice and has eliminated a number of burdensome regulatory requirements that served as obstacles to efficient ocean transportation arrangements, added unnecessary transactional costs, and served no regulatory purpose," stated Acting Chairman Michael Khouri. "Today’s action is consistent with recent executive orders highlighting the benefits of reducing unnecessary and costly regulations. I am committed to continuing to identify rules that are outdated, or impede the efficient operation of business, and eliminating them whenever possible."
Other Commissioners joined Acting Chairman Khouri in applauding the Commission’s action.
"I strongly support President Trump’s Executive Order on Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs," said Commissioner Rebecca Dye. "In the spirit of the Executive Order, this Final Rule is an important first step toward eliminating unnecessary regulatory compliance costs from our international supply chain. Of equal importance, the rule will increase commercial flexibility in freight transportation for American exporters and importers."
"This regulatory adjustment will help expedite commerce through streamlining the contractual relationship between carriers, NVOCCs, and shippers," observed Commissioner William Doyle.
Today’s rulemaking (Docket No. 16-05) is the first comprehensive review of the Commission’s service contract regulations in part 530 since promulgating the implementing rules pursuant to the 1998 Ocean Shipping Reform Act. Additionally, this is the first substantive revision to NVOCC Service Arrangements since being introduced in 2005.
From the start, the Commission’s goals in this undertaking were to identify areas of possible regulatory relief and to establish ways to streamline FMC and industry business practices. Over the course of the past 13 months, the Commission repeatedly engaged its stakeholders to benefit from their views and to craft a final rule that best addresses contemporary market conditions. The Commission first initiated action in this matter in February 2016 with the publication of an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) was issued in August 2016. Certain proposed changes in the NPRM were not adopted by the Commission today as they would not necessarily have decreased business burdens.
The Rulemaking approved today (Docket No. 16-05) makes the following key changes to Commission regulations:
• It allows the filing of sequential service contract amendments with the FMC within 30 days of the effective date of an agreement between shipper and carrier.
• It allows up to 30 days for filing NVOCC Service Arrangement Agreements with the FMC after their effective date.
• It allows additional time to correct technical data transmission errors from 48 hours to 30 days; and,
• It extends the period in which one can file a service contract correction request from 45 days to 180 days.
The text of the final rule should be available on the Commission’s website soon..
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Local CBP Officers Put the Brakes on Toys with Dangerous Lead Levels - U.S. Customs & Border Protection
SEATTLE, Wash. – U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at the ports of Seattle and Tacoma seized a shipment of toy ski scooters and a shipment of toy UFOs in February that were found to contain high levels of lead.
“CBP officers’ primary mission is to protect this nation from terrorists and terrorist weapons, however, they also remain vigilant in protecting our communities from all threats,” said Seattle Area Port Director Mark Wilkerson. “The high levels of lead in these toys posed a serious threat to the health and safety of children in our neighborhoods.”
Both of the seized shipments arrived from China. When field tests were performed upon the merchandise, lead levels in excess of the federal legal limit were discovered. The items were seized in accordance with the Federal Hazardous Substances Act.
The shipment seized at the Port of Seattle contained nearly 4,500 toy UFOs with a domestic value of nearly $17,000, while the shipment seized in Tacoma contained more than 3,400 ski scooters with a domestic value of nearly $33,000.
As the United States’ first unified border entity, CBP takes a comprehensive approach to border management and control, combining customs, immigration, border security, and agricultural protection into one coordinated and supportive activity.
The men and women of CBP are responsible for enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws and regulations. On a typical day, CBP welcomes nearly one million visitors, screens more than 67,000 cargo containers, arrests more than 1,100 individuals, and seizes nearly 6 tons of illicit drugs. Annually, CBP facilitates an average of more than $3 trillion in legitimate trade while enforcing U.S. trade laws.
On a typical day in fiscal year 2016, CBP officers throughout the nation processed more than 74,000 truck, rail and sea
containers and $6.3 billion worth of imported products.
USITC: News Releases - U.S. International Trade Commission
February volume total behind record-setting month in 2016
Reduced economic activity in Asia associated with the Lunar New Year contributed to lower February container volumes at the Port of Long Beach.
Overall, traffic totaled 498,311 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), a decline of 11.2 percent compared to the same month last year, the highest-volume February in Port history. Cargo in February 2016 ballooned 35.9 percent year-over-year.
The Lunar New Year holiday began Jan. 28, almost two weeks earlier than in 2016. The Lunar New Year typically results in slower trade since businesses in China — the world’s No. 2 economy and the Port’s primary trading partner — close for a week or more to observe the holiday. The impact on the Port is seen two weeks afterwards, accounting for the time it takes vessels to cross the Pacific.
Import containers were down 15.6 percent in February to 249,759 TEUs. Exports were slightly lower, 119,811 TEUs, off 2.6 percent. Empty containers sent from Long Beach docks totaled 128,742 TEUs, a decrease of 9.7 percent.
More than 1 million containers have moved through the Port of Long Beach in the first two months of 2017.
The Port of Long Beach is one of the world’s premier seaports, a gateway for trans-Pacific trade and a trailblazer in goods movement and environmental stewardship. With 175 shipping lines connecting Long Beach to 217 seaports, the Port handles $180 billion in trade annually, supporting hundreds of thousands of Southern California jobs.
Phishing Your Company's Good Name - Federal Trade Commission
Has a phishing scam hooked your company’s good name? Learn how to respond if your business is impersonated in a phishing scam.
Watch Video: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/audio-video/video/phishing-your-companys-good-name
Oceans of Trash - Fish & Wildlife Service
Eww. That’s gross. But what’s it got to do with you? More than you might think.
The photo comes from Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the Pacific, where seaborne trash is killing birds and turtles wholesale. Albatross skim up bright plastic bits from the ocean surface and feed them to their chicks. The young birds starve, their stomachs filled with man-made scraps.
What you may not know: The trash doesn’t come from anywhere near Midway. It comes from China, from Indonesia, from the United States. It comes from us.
And we can do something about it. Some would argue we have to.
Bottle caps, cigarette lighters, bags and bottles, soda cans that we discard on land make up most of the swirling mass known as marine debris. Rivers and storm sewers carry it to the sea, where abandoned boats and fishing nets add to the menace.
An estimated eight million tons of debris enter the ocean each year, outpacing efforts to remove it.
What’s scarier still: The global problem affects more than wildlife. Plastics have entered the human food chain, through the water we drink and the fish we eat. The impact on human health is not yet fully known.
But here’s the thing. If we recognize we’re part of the problem, we can take steps to curb it at the source.
Action: Buy fresh and local. Avoid excess packaging. Use reusable cloth bags instead of plastic bags. Dispose of waste responsibly. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.
“Marine debris is one of the most pervasive and pernicious global threats to the health of the world’s coastal areas, oceans and waterways,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service deputy director Jim Kurth testified to a Senate subcommittee in May 2016. The 180 national wildlife refuges that protect ocean, coast or Great Lakes habitat know the problem firsthand.
Nearly every seabird on the planet now eats plastic. Fish are eating microplastics — tiny beads found in cosmetics, lotions and toothpaste. Toxic chemicals bind to microplastics, and fish swallow these, too. When we eat the fish, we also swallow the microplastics and the toxins.
“Everybody’s seen pictures of beaches strewn with plastic,” says Pete Leary, marine coordinator for the National Wildlife Refuge System. “But people in Portland or Washington, DC, generally don’t think of marine debris when they’re forgetting to put their trash in bins in a park.” They should.
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ZTE Corporation Agrees to Plead Guilty and Pay Over $430.4 Million for Violating U.S. Sanctions by Sending U.S.-Origin Items to Iran - Department of Justice
Combined Penalty of $1.19 Billion with Department of Commerce and Department of Treasury Actions Shows All of Government Approach to Sanctions Enforcement
ZTE Corporation has agreed to enter a guilty plea and to pay a $430,488,798 penalty to the U.S. for conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) by illegally shipping U.S.-origin items to Iran, obstructing justice and making a material false statement. ZTE simultaneously reached settlement agreements with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) and the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). In total ZTE has agreed to pay the U.S. Government $892,360,064. The BIS has suspended an additional $300,000,000, which ZTE will pay if it violates its settlement agreement with the BIS.
Attorney General of the United States Jeff Sessions, Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security Mary B. McCord, U.S. Attorney John R. Parker for the Northern District of Texas and FBI Assistant Director Bill Priestap for the Counterintelligence Division made the announcement today.
“ZTE Corporation not only violated export controls that keep sensitive American technology out of the hands of hostile regimes like Iran’s – they lied to federal investigators and even deceived their own counsel and internal investigators about their illegal acts,” said Attorney General Sessions. “This plea agreement holds them accountable, and makes clear that our government will use every tool we have to punish companies who would violate our laws, obstruct justice and jeopardize our national security. I am grateful to the Justice Department’s National Security Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas and the FBI for their outstanding work on this investigation.”
“ZTE engaged in an elaborate scheme to acquire U.S.-origin items, send the items to Iran and mask its involvement in those exports. The plea agreement, which is pending before the Court, alleges that the highest levels of management within the company approved the scheme. ZTE then repeatedly lied to and misled federal investigators, its own attorneys and internal investigators. Its actions were egregious and warranted a significant penalty,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General McCord. “The enforcement of U.S. export control and sanctions laws is a major component of the National Security Division’s commitment to protecting the national security of the United States. Companies that violate these laws – including foreign companies – will be investigated and held to answer for their actions.”
“ZTE Corporation not only violated our export control laws but, once caught, shockingly resumed illegal shipments to Iran during the course of our investigation,” said U.S. Attorney Parker. “ZTE Corporation then went to great lengths to devise elaborate, corporate-wide schemes to hide its illegal conduct, including lying to its own lawyers.”
"The plea agreement in this case shows ZTE repeatedly violated export controls and illegally shipped U.S. technology to Iran," said Assistant Director Priestap. "The company also took extensive measures to hide what it was doing from U.S. authorities. This case is an excellent example of cooperation among multiple U.S. agencies to uncover illegal technology transfers and make those responsible pay for their actions."
The plea agreement, which is contingent on the court’s approval, also requires ZTE to submit to a three-year period of corporate probation, during which time an independent corporate compliance monitor will review and report on ZTE’s export compliance program. ZTE is also required to cooperate fully with the Department of Justice (DOJ) regarding any criminal investigation by U.S. law enforcement authorities. The plea agreement ends a five-year joint investigation into ZTE’s export practices, which was handled by the DOJ’s National Security Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas, the FBI, the BIS and the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations.
A criminal information was filed today in federal court in the Northern District of Texas charging ZTE with one count of knowingly and willfully conspiring to violate the IEEPA, one count of obstruction of justice and one count of making a material false statement. ZTE waived the requirement of being charged by way of federal indictment, agreed to the filing of the information and has accepted responsibility for its criminal conduct by entering into a plea agreement with the government. The plea agreement, which is contingent on the court’s approval, requires that ZTE pay a fine in the amount of $286,992,532 and a criminal forfeiture in the amount of $143,496,266. The criminal fine represents the largest criminal fine in connection with an IEEPA prosecution.
Read further - Summary of Criminal Conduct