Customs’ Aging Computers Worry Officials, Importers

Despite recent efforts to shore up the aging federal computer system critical to feeding the nation’s dependence on trade, importers and U.S. Customs Service officials alike worry that the network remains vulnerable to a major collapse that could paralyze inbound cargo traffic across the U.S.

A prolonged systems crash, many fear, would idle workers, halt production lines and rob retailers of millions in sales.

Customs officials say the chances of such a crash are “very low” given the $3 million in improvements installed in March on the 16-year-old Automated Commercial System, or ACS, the huge computer network that tracks and clears all cargo coming into the country over land, by air and by sea. But, they concede, a catastrophic collapse is still a possibility.

“Are there risks of a major outage?” said Woody Hall, who oversees the system for the Customs Service. “Yes.

“Do we need to get off the current system and get onto a new system? Yes. . . . There are other weak links in the chain that could snap.”

Since October, ACS has had two minor crashes--one lasting as long as 36 hours--that prevented customs brokers from clearing cargo and caused delays, particularly at airports and land crossings. In Southern California, the nation’s busiest import and export district, the “brownouts,” as the Customs Service called them, left air cargo languishing in warehouses until the system could be brought back on line.

The crashes had little if any impact at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, the region’s leading foreign trade gateways, because ocean cargo is generally pre-cleared by Customs days before it arrives in port. A longer crash, however, could have led to cargo pileups and backlogs at the ports as well.

Importers agree a replacement for ACS--which operates on data transfer software developed 25 years ago--is desperately needed. The only problem, however, has been persuading Congress to appropriate the estimated $800 million for a new, state-of-the-art system.

Each day, ACS, based at the Customs Service National Data Center in Washington, processes nearly 30,000 requests to clear import cargo, the result of a workload that has jumped roughly 10% annually over the past few years as an ever-growing tide of imports surges over the country.

A major crash of ACS would affect such local companies as Gardena-based Nissan North America Inc., which imports $10 billion worth of goods a year, including 25% of all Nissan vehicles sold on the continent.

Leslie Cazas, Nissan’s corporate customs manager, said a prolonged outage could delay shipments to dealerships and service centers and even stall the company’s manufacturing plant in Tennessee. “If the system shut down for seven days, it would probably take us several weeks to get back to normal,” Cazas said. “We wouldn’t be able to service our customers.”

John Peterson, president of Long Beach-based Western Overseas customs brokerage, already got a taste of the problem during last year’s brownouts.

Airborne cargo generally isn’t cleared until after it has landed, Peterson said, and the stoppages left many customers waiting nearly two days for their shipments to be cleared through Customs. Two importers in particular--one was expecting dried pasta; the other, women’s apparel--feared cancellations from buyers had the delay lasted any longer, he said.

“From a customer’s perspective, it just made them very anxious because they had no control over anything,” he said.

Hall said the March improvements of ACS, which included installation of a new mainframe, have helped minimize the chance of a crash. But although there have been no brownouts since the repair work, other problems persist.

Peterson said his customs brokers still complain that they frequently cannot connect electronically with ACS, and that even when they can, it sometimes takes the system up to 10 minutes to process a clearance request.

Ideally, the time to electronically file and receive clearance on a shipment should be no longer than a minute, Hall said. Customs officials are hoping to reduce future delays, he said, by installing an additional $9 million in upgrades on the system by October. The agency, however, has yet to identify where funding for the improvements will come from.

“We’re still looking for it,” Hall said.

Indeed, the search is on not only for those funds, but also for the $1.2 billion over fours years the government estimates it would take to further shore up ACS and begin the process of building the $800-million replacement dubbed the Automated Commercial Environment, or ACE. The new system is expected to cut clearance time, increase capacity and allow shippers more access to information on the status of their imports.

Leading the effort to line up dollars for the replacement is a fledgling, nationwide coalition of roughly 200 shippers and import-related businesses, including dozens from Southern California.

The Coalition for Customs Automation Funding, launched in March, has so far been successful in axing a Clinton administration proposal that would have had importers themselves pay all of the $1.2 billion for the system changeover. The group, however, has not been as effective in coaxing congressional appropriators to earmark money for a project it sees as vital to the long-term health of the U.S. economy.

Coalition leader Robin Lanier, senior vice president for industry affairs of the International Mass Retail Assn. in Arlington, Va., said the group may have to wait until next year to win the first of four annual allocations of $300 million that it argues is necessary for the transition to the new system. The House appropriations subcommittee that oversees the Customs Service recently set aside only $35 million for maintenance of the current system and no money for development of the updated replacement system.

Coalition members are pressing ahead with efforts to lobby key congressional representatives, including 15 California lawmakers. Already, the group has won the support of Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles), who met with local members of the coalition last week.

“Los Angeles can’t afford, any more than these importers can afford, to have these brownouts become a blackout,” said Becerra, who sits on a House Ways and Means subcommittee that recently called on the Appropriations Committee to allocate $300 million during the next two years for the new computer system. On Tuesday, the full House voted 410 to 2 to back the request, but Becerra said there’s no guarantee budget-hawk appropriators will agree to fund even part of the authorization.

Coalition members say it’s only a matter of time before the purse strings are loosened. In their minds, the argument is simple: Faulty computers mean delays, and delays mean missed business opportunities. Add to that America’s seemingly insatiable appetite for imports, and, they say, the potential for a serious disruption should be clear to anyone.

Said Jason Clawson, an international trade consultant based in Washington, “$1.2 billion to keep trade flowing into this country is a fairly small price tag.”