The Department of the Treasury appropriations bill, that included funding for the Automated Commercial Environment and the Automated Commercial System, was rejected by the Senate despite its passage by the House of Representatives. The Senate vote, taken Sept. 20, was 69-28.
The House passed the measure by a narrow 212-209 margin on Sept. 14.
The House version included $130 million for ACE, the import processing system; an additional $123 million to prop up the aging ACS, which would eventually be replaced by ACE; and $5 million for the International Trade Data System, which would serve as an information collection point for ACE.
But funding for Customs automation, new and old, is not dead yet. Congress is mandated to pass a Treasury appropriations bill for fiscal 2001 by Oct. 1.
Robin Lanier, vice president of JBC International and chairwoman of the Coalition for Customs Automation Funding, a group lobbying Congress for import-automation funds, said, “We have been assured by members in both the House and Senate that Customs automation funding will get done before the end of the fiscal year.”
