Bill to Require Advance Data in Postal Shipments Seen as Remedy for Fentanyl Imports
UPS Global Customs Policy and Public Affairs Vice President Norm Schenk on May 25 urged senators to pass the Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose Prevention (STOP) Act, which he said could help the parcel carrier build more data elements into its automated systems to halt illicit drug shipments. Although the bill, which was introduced in both houses of Congress in February (see 1702160060), would require only the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to provide advance electronic data to CBP, express carriers could use some of the processes outlined in the bill to help them target illicit shipments of drugs like fentanyl, Schenk said during a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
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Express carriers are already required to submit to CBP advance electronic data, including the sender’s and recipient’s names and addresses, the value of a package’s contents, content descriptions and a piece count for the shipment. Subcommittee ranking member Tom Carper, D-Del., said he would submit questions to the hearing’s witnesses for amendments the Senate should make to its version of the STOP Act (here), introduced by subcommittee Chairman Rob Portman, R-Ohio.
Schenk also said enactment of the bill would help U.S. negotiations with fellow Universal Postal Union (UPU) members to provide the advance data that would help CBP stem the flow of drug shipments to the U.S. The UPU is an intergovernmental organization consisting of 192 countries that agree to delivering one another’s mail on the basis of reciprocity. The State Department has the role of negotiating with UPU members. At the last meeting of the UPU Congress, the group launched its Integrated Product Plan, which aims to modernize the UPU’s product offerings in the context of ecommerce. The plan’s first phase, to start in January, will require mail items containing goods to have a UPU standard barcode label, a “critical enabling condition” for advance electronic information, State Department Bureau of International Organization Affairs Office of Specialized and Technical Agencies Director Gregory Thome said in written testimony (here) for the hearing.
Portman in his opening statement (here), expressed concern that under those requirements, shippers won’t be required to load electronic information on the barcode until 2020. “Realistically, the target date to implement this requirement is closer to 2022, but there’s no guarantee it will even happen by then,” Portman said.
While the UPU Business Plan adopted in 2020 calls for all postal services to have the capability to exchange item-level data by the end of 2020, many UPU members lack the technical ability and infrastructure to exchange electronic data, Thome’s testimony says. During the hearing, Thome said U.S. officials have offered to assist developing countries party to the UPU with electronic data and tracking, should they agree to accept help. Schenk said having a legislative mandate for USPS advanced electronic data through the STOP Act would help U.S. negotiators press other members of the UPU to implement electronic data processes.
Stopping drug shipments through the USPS is a bigger concern than express carrier drug shipments because of a “much higher volume” of international postal packages than commercial carriers combined, Portman said in his opening statement. He criticized the fact that the office of the USPS’s inspector general found that during an ongoing USPS-CBP advance data pilot at USPS’s International Service Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, USPS didn’t present all packages CBP selected for inspection and cited a “substantial number” of packages weighing less than 4.4 pounds lacking any associated advance electronic data. “At the other four [International Service C]enters the Postal Service is stuck sifting through millions of packages trying to find a needle in a haystack,” Portman said. “We can’t continue like this. We need more advanced electronic data, and we need it now.”