Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and the Finance Committee he chairs in the U.S. Senate have been in the spotlight the past few months over healthcare reform. But did you know that he and Senator Chuck Grassley (R‐IA) introduced a bill back in August to facilitate trade processes? The Customs Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Reauthorization Act of 2009 aims to rebalance the focus of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which have been primarily occupied with trade security since 9/11. Here is an excerpt of Senator Baucus’ comments:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, have two vital duties. They must protect our national security by ensuring that threats to that security do not cross our borders, and they must protect our economic security by ensuring that legitimate trade does cross our borders, smoothly and quickly. I have no doubt that CBP and ICE know these duties. But they must do a better job of discharging their trade duties.

Senator Grassley and I introduced a bill that would require the agencies to do just that. The Customs Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Reauthorization Act of 2009 would direct CBP and ICE to make customs facilitation and trade enforcement a priority again, and it would provide the agencies with the tools and resources that they need to fully discharge those duties.

The bill covers a lot of ground, but here are some of the sections that I find most interesting:

SECTION 201: TRADE BENEFITS UNDER THE CUSTOMS-TRADE PARTNERSHIP AGAINST TERRORISM: The bill calls for “the Secretary to work with the private sector to develop and implement additional trade benefits for Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 participants in the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) program.” The main benefit right now for C-TPAT participants is reduced inspections. If your company is C-TPAT certified and you have a wish list of benefits you would like to receive, here’s your chance to make your case with CBP.

SECTION 205: AUTOMATED COMMERCIAL ENVIRONMENT COMPUTER SYSTEM: The bill directs “authorized appropriations of $300,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2010, 2011, and 2012 to complete the development of the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE).” It also requires the Commissioner “to submit to the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committees, and House Ways and Means and Appropriations Committees, a report by December 31, 2009 that specifies the plans and deadlines to fully implement ACE by September 30, 2012.” ACE is the government equivalent of a never-ending and over-budget ERP rollout. Initially, Congress thought it would take about 4 years and $1 billion to develop ACE. Ten years later, the development effort continues, and the costs continue to escalate. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has published several reports on ACE over the years—see here and here and here. It’s these types of “success” stories that make some people wary about government’s role in healthcare reform.

SECTION 211: COMMERCIAL TARGETING DIVISION AND NATIONAL TARGETING AND ANALYSIS GROUPS: This section “repeals section 343(a)(3) of the Trade Act of 2002, which prohibits the use of mandatory advance information [such as Importer Security Filing information] collected by CBP for commercial enforcement purposes.” It also requires National Targeting and Analysis Groups (NTAGs) to “target imports that may violate U.S. customs and trade laws, with particular focus on laws and regulations related to: (1) intellectual property rights; (2) health and safety; (3) agriculture; (4) textile and apparel; (5) general revenue; and (6) non-general revenue such as anti-dumping and countervailing duties.” I’m sure most companies will applaud these efforts to better protect intellectual property rights and improve enforcement of health and safety regulations. But the National Retail Federation has expressed some concern about this section of the bill: “While NRF strongly supports employing risk-based targeting for both security and commercial enforcement purposes, we have significant concerns about how this newly-collected data would be used and potential penalties that could be associated with it. We encourage the Committee to be very clear that the use of such data would be limited to the protection of intellectual property rights or health and safety issues and not be used for Section 592 penalty cases.”

The bottom line: Although healthcare reform and cap-and-trade legislation continue to hog the spotlight, there are other bills in Congress with supply chain implications to keep an eye on. And despite all the buzz from software vendors, there’s a lot more going on with global trade than compliance with ISF.