WASHINGTON — Traditional BRASS line release truck shipments entering the U.S. could be discontinued by the end of this year, according to U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CBP).

Customs brokerage firm Livingston International says CBP’s Office of Field Operations has confirmed its intent to stop accepting BRASS and will seek regulatory support for canceling the program for truck imports prior to 2008.

Livingston says it’s time for shippers and carriers
to move away from BRASS to PAPS and FAST.

This move coincides with CBP’s rollout of its Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) e-manifest program, which focuses on electronic cargo information in advance of carrier arrival at the border. The e-manifest program is currently in various stages of implementation across Canada-U.S. land ports.

Livingston states that CBP is not expected to provide any additional support or enhancements to the BRASS program, either at the port or administrative level. At ports of entry where ACE e-manifest has been deployed, CBP is no longer consistently collecting import documents from drivers using BRASS.

“In these cases (Livingston) must obtain documents from the carrier or exporter and match them to the respective electronic release message received from CBP,” the firm explains. “Matching the documentation to the release message may not always be possible, as CBP does not download a common shipment reference number to the broker.”

Late entry filings and related penalties may be assessed by CBP against the import if documents are not matched in time. Therefore, the broker may assess a “missing documents” service charge on such affected imports, Livingston says.

Livingston is strongly advising clients to start transitioning truck shipments away from the BRASS program and adopt an alternative release procedure for U.S. truck imports, such as PAPS.