OTTAWA, (Oct. 26, 2004) — Trucks from companies slow in complying with U.S. advance cargo notification rules that take effect November 15 will not be turned back right away, Customs and Border Protection has assured the Canadian Trucking Alliance.

The CTA says it’s pleased by the decision, which came after discussions between the CTA, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, and CBP Commissioner Robert Bonner.

Of particular concern to CTA was a U.S. Trade Act provision requiring all drivers who wish to continue to participate in the (BRASS) line release program to be registered for the FAST pre-clearance system by November 15th. CTA says there will not be enough drivers registered for FAST by the deadline in order to handle the volume of BRASS shipments across the border. “If CBP were to commence hard enforcement on that date; if trucks were turned around on the bridges and carriers fined, we could have chaos,” CTA David Bradley said in a press release.

The trucking group says that CBP will follow a practice of “informed compliance” for a reasonable period of time, and will not turn trucks around at the border or begin levying fines against carriers that have not been able to get enough drivers into the system.

The agency also agreed to examine whether fines should also be levied against shippers when the program becomes fully operational.

However, Bradley warned carriers that the informed compliance period will not be in place indefinitely. “Neither CBP, CBSA nor the carriers and drivers who have complied will tolerate foot dragging by other carriers and drivers for an extended period,” he said.

The CTA says that about half of all loads crossing the Canada-U.S. border are BRASS shipments. However, at present only 23,000 of the approximately 90,000 truck drivers engaged in cross-border trucking are registered for FAST. Another 11,000 are awaiting interviews and a further 13,000 are elsewhere in the processing system.

In addition, CBP committed to long-awaited portable FAST enrollment centres — a joint program with the Canadian Border Services Agency — as well as a review of the hours of operation at the “fixed” FAST enrollment centres.

A trial of the portable enrollment centres will begin as early as this week in Sarnia/Port Huron. Once they are fully operational, carriers will be able to request that the enrollment centres visit their terminals if a sufficient number of drivers are available for registration.

CTA estimates that it could take 15 weeks to eliminate the backlog of drivers who were awaiting interviews as at September 30th — let alone all the new drivers who have become attracted to FAST following the more widespread understanding of the FAST/BRASS requirement.

However, truckers and carriers need to pay closer attention to the application process, says CBP. More than a third of applicants don’t show up for their face-to-face appointments with CBSA, and another third of all FAST driver applications are being rejected because of administrative errors by the applicants, CBP says.

CTA will be posting a link to a CBP and CBSA on-line guide for drivers called Tips for Completing the FAST Commercial Driver Application that if followed properly, should drastically reduce the administrative rejection rate.