ITC Proposes to Replace CBP Administrability Requirements for MTB Petitions

The International Trade Commission is proposing to remove a requirement for miscellaneous tariff bill petitions that the descriptions be “sufficiently clear as to be administrable by CBP,” the agency said in a notice. Instead, "the Commission would substitute more specific wording that requires the petition to describe the article based on the existing Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) category’s description (at the 8- or 10-digit level) in HTS chapters 1 through 97, or to delineate an article representing a subset of the coverage of the applicable HTS category using terminology already included in the HTS or interpreted in pertinent CBP rulings," the ITC said. The ITC also proposes that petitioners also include “the names of any domestic producers of the article, if available” and "an estimate of the share of total imports represented by the petitioner’s imports of the subject article." The proposal also includes some smaller language changes. Comments on the proposal are due by April 15. The agency adopted interim MTB procedures last year, while noting some changes were likely to come (see 1812260043).