14 June 2002

Bonner: Homeland plan good for Customs, trade

The following article is excerpted from the 14 June 2002 on-line edition of "The Journal of Commerce"

Customs Commissioner Robert C. Bonner said that including the Customs Service in a new cabinet-level homeland-security department will be good for trade while improving supply-chain security.

"The president fully supports trade facilitation and efficiency," Bonner said. While Customs' efforts will focus on international supply chain security, "simultaneously it will ensure speedy flow of legitimate trade."

Bonner called the media briefing on Thursday to address what he termed "myths" about Customs that had sprung up since President Bush proposed the Department of Homeland Security last week.

"First, that somehow the trade would not be heard," Bonner said. "I want to assure the trade that their voices are going to continue to be heard."

Second, that organizing the new department would delay development of the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). Bonner said that the new department might have the budgetary clout to accelerate ACE to completion in four years instead of five.

Third, that Customs would be divided into separate enforcement and trade offices. Not true, Bonner said, Customs' trade and enforcement functions are "inextricably linked. Having both functions has permitted Customs to facilitate trade and improve security."

He reiterated that all of Customs would move into the new department. Bonner wouldn't speculate on how long it will take Congress to act, but noted that the president expected action this year. He said it may take three or four months after that before agencies began to migrate to the new department.

Bonner also said that the trade will benefit from having both Customs and the Transportation Security Administration in one agency. Rather than having TSA impose its own requirements on the trade, "we will have one voice on these issues."

The new department also could improve border efficiency by including customs, immigration and agricultural inspectors in one department, but Bonner said that such re-organization will decided by the new secretary of homeland security.

Bonner noted that ideas for combining Customs, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service have circulated in Washington for years.

"All of those proposals were made in the context of good government: making government more efficient," Bonner said. "The difference is, all of those proposals were made before Sept. 11. A lot of things have changed forever, and we still have the continuing and real threat of terrorist attack."

He said the proposal also had the support of Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge.

"We're going to end up with a better, more efficient system for moving trade than we had before Sept. 11," Bonner said.