From: Paul Wegener [pwegener@mgmaher.com] Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 4:17 PM To: Food & Drug Subject: DOCKET NO. 2002N-0276 -----Original Message----- From: Paul Wegener [mailto:pwegener@mgmaher.com] Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 3:16 PM To: Food & Drug To: Howard Hodes; Pat Schafer Subject: FOOD & DRUG First of all, I must commend both of you on your composure under the circumstances. I think we all realized there were more questions than answers. I am jotting down a few that I think really have to be resolved and quickly. CATAIR - I have just learned on November 6th that there ha been two Administrative Messages - Administrative Message 03-2619 of November 4, 2003, an Administrative Message 03-2625 of November 5, 2003, dealing with the Food & Drug ADM/and BTA changes. Of course, this gives the programming community approximately 27 working days to do the programming. The data elements that will be required through the ABI and ACS systems are crucial to the working of the system. Another area that needs clarification is the definition "holding food and food products". I agree without any question a commercial warehouse food distribution center like in Roberts, Louisiana built by Wal Mart, that distribute all their food, both refrigerated and non-refrigerated throughout the South, definitely needs to register and obtain a Registration Number. However, I strongly disagree that steamship terminals, rail terminals, truck line terminals and any other service that merely expedites the movement of cargo to its contracted destination do not have to register. They are simply facilitators and are not in the business of holding food products for commercial use. Scheduling - train arrivals, vessel arrivals, equipment shortages can all cause a temporary hold on sea containers that happen to have food products in them. I do not think this was the intent of Congress and it is an over-kill by Food & Drug Administration to require their registration. Foreign Registration - This is good and we already do this in all electronic transmissions, identifying the seller of the goods for other Customs purposes. Another question is who is the most efficient person and what liability does a registrar or a company offering registration services taken on. As Customs Brokers we are allowed to register as an agent for a foreign seller or manufacturer. This is covered in the Customs Regulations under Sec. 141.18(a) and allows the Customs Broker to simply receive Service of Process and be their conduit to any subpoenas and questions for the foreign supplier. Apparently there is a cottage industry popping up and I have heard that the cost of registration is well over $1000.00 annually by these companies. Again, I do not think this was the intent of Congress imposing financial hardships on the foreign producers. I thought the easy solution would be to have the importer register their foreign suppliers. My opinion is this can work in many cases, but when you have a supplier selling to many importers there may be trade secrets and other competitive information that could be gleaned by the registrar. I feel if the foreign principal registers in one of the 25 Districts in the United States,the registrar will not have access to other information. I heard something in the presentation about having a 24 hour notification system in case there is an emergency. We would like to discuss this more and determine if this is really necessary. I think New Orleans has a special interest in Coffee and there are several issues that have to be resolved. There was some discussion at the presentation but we could not communicate with the people conducting the meting on requirements for growers. Everyone in the coffee business knows that basically most co-op coffee is co-mingled when it is dried and grounded. I hope the remark of "well the co-op could be the one to register" is sufficient. Also I think we need to emphasize what was said about in transit cargo. Any cargo that simply is transit through the port and the port of arrival only, is exempt from the requirements. A lot of Coffee uses the Port of New Orleans to be transshipped to Europe arriving on one ocean carrier line and being exported under a T&E under a different ocean carrier and should not require anyone to register. Port of Entry - We have to clarify this. Customs historically has defined the port of entry where the Customs entry is filed whether entry is defined as Consumption or Warehouse. This should be closely looked at and that the definition of "port of entry" is what is intended and that has to be incorporated into the rules on prior notice of the 8, 4 and 2 hours. 24 Hour Rule - As we know there is a 24 hour rule imposed upon carriers bringing cargo to the United States that certain information and data has to be supplied to the U. S. > Bureau of Customs & Border Protection 24 hours prior to loading of the conveyance and this is reviewed by a team made of U. S. Customs and former other legacy agencies that are now under the Homeland Security defense flag. We possibly should look at instead of having Food & Drug operate their own system different from Homeland Security, all of this should be in one targeting area and not redundant data going back and forth. Prior Notification - There is no correlation between U. S. Bureau of Customs (DHS) requirements for importing and the reporting by Food & Drug. We do not have any problem in letting Food & Drug know under the provisions of the electronic 701 the different sizes, but have a big problem in issuing pre-arrival notice for every different size. Again, when examining the law one does not find this provision and it has apparently been imposed by other people with the organization. In my opinion it serves no purpose and will create many, many redundant and unnecessary reviews, even for a sophisticated computer system. I believe this should be re-visited and modified. We need a re-affirmation that other non-food items Food & Drug is interested in - electrical appliances, TV's, crop protection chemicals that have dual use and other such items such as rubber goods do not require the registration of the manufacturer or the registration of warehouses that handle such products. While these are only a few of my questions and concerns, I am sending copy to our local Association asking them to review and forward to our members for any further questions and concerns. Just a matter of information, we were told that there were many questions on the Website under the Frequently Asked Questions and Answers. When we tried to find same we could not locate and became frustrated. We were informed on October 31st by Karen Zepeda of Food & Drug that no such web site exists at this time an she would investigate further. Checked again on November 6th with Karen Zepeda of Food & Drug and was again informed they are still working on same and headquarters people will have a phone call tomorrow to discuss these issues. I think we all realize there are some provisions that by statute certain deadlines have to be met, but I think common sense should prevail and a phase in period started, looking at past practices from the U.S. Bureau of Customs & Border Protection and the Food & Drug Administration in developing a workable system. cc: Peggy Dicharry 1st Vice President International Freight Forwarders & Customs Brokers Assn. of New Orleans,Inc. cc: John Hyatt Director International Freight Forwarders & Customs Brokers Assn. of New Orleans,Inc. Paul Wegener M.G. Maher & Co., Inc. One Canal Pl Suite 1600 New Orleans, Louisiana 70130 Ph: 504 561-6202 Fax: 504 529-2611 email: pwegener@mgmaher.com