Shape Up To Ship Out

Dec. 21, 2004

New anti-terrorism rules will affect air, rail, ship and truck cargo beginning Oct. 1.

Unless something totally unexpected delays them, new federal anti-terrorism cargo security rules will take effect Oct. 1. The rules could slow the movement of goods along some manufacturing supply chains, but even when fully implemented, probably during the first half of 2004, they are not likely to force most manufacturers to abandon their just-in-time inventory (JIT) management practices. Rules proposed July 23 by U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CBP), an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, would cover cargo carried by air, rail, ship and truck in or out of the U.S. and establish specific minimum periods for notifying CBP in advance about contents and recipients. The pending rules would require that CBP receive the information no later than four hours before landing for cargo coming into the U.S. by plane from Europe or Asia. For goods coming by air to the U.S. from elsewhere in North America or from Central America or South America north of the Equator, cargo information would be due by the time the plane departed for the U.S. For rail-carried cargo the minimum advance notification period would be two hours prior to U.S. entry, and for truck cargo generally one hour in advance. The existing 24-hour prenotification rule for ocean-borne cargo remains in effect, although under the pending regulations electronic filing of cargo data would become mandatory. For goods being exported from the U.S., the requirements would be similar: a minimum 24 hours' advance notice for cargo ships, two hours before scheduled departure time for air cargo; one hour before arrival at the border for truck cargo, and for rail-carried cargo four hours before the engine is attached to a train headed out of the U.S. The newly proposed rules carry "far, far less risk" of making JIT a casualty of regulation than did anti-terrorism cargo restrictions circulated earlier this year, says Larry Christensen, vice president for international trade content at Vastera Inc., a Dulles, Va.-based global trade-management firm. Citing the proposed rule requiring two hours advance notification on exports by air, he says: "That's going to hurt. It's going to require companies to prepare databases in advance. It's going to require them to automate their systems and to communicate with their carriers electronically. But that's certainly not as bad as 24 hours."

About the Author

John McClenahen | Former Senior Editor, IndustryWeek

John S. McClenahen, is an occasional essayist on the Web site of IndustryWeek, the executive management publication from which he retired in 2006. He began his journalism career as a broadcast journalist at Westinghouse Broadcasting’s KYW in Cleveland, Ohio. In May 1967, he joined Penton Media Inc. in Cleveland and in September 1967 was transferred to Washington, DC, the base from which for nearly 40 years he wrote primarily about national and international economics and politics, and corporate social responsibility.

      McClenahen, a native of Ohio now residing in Maryland, is an award-winning writer and photographer. He is the author of three books of poetry, most recently An Unexpected Poet (2013), and several books of photographs, including Black, White, and Shades of Grey (2014). He also is the author of a children’s book, Henry at His Beach (2014).

      His photograph “Provincetown: Fog Rising 2004” was selected for the Smithsonian Institution’s 2011 juried exhibition Artists at Work and displayed in the S. Dillon Ripley Center at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., from June until October 2011. Five of his photographs are in the collection of St. Lawrence University and displayed on campus in Canton, New York.

      John McClenahen’s essay “Incorporating America: Whitman in Context” was designated one of the five best works published in The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies during the twelve-year editorship of R. Barry Leavis of Rollins College. John McClenahen’s several journalism prizes include the coveted Jesse H. Neal Award. He also is the author of the commemorative poem “Upon 50 Years,” celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Wolfson College Cambridge, and appearing in “The Wolfson Review.”

      John McClenahen received a B.A. (English with a minor in government) from St. Lawrence University, an M.A., (English) from Western Reserve University, and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Georgetown University, where he also pursued doctoral studies. At St. Lawrence University, he was elected to academic honor societies in English and government and to Omicron Delta Kappa, the University’s highest undergraduate honor. John McClenahen was a participant in the 32nd Annual Wharton Seminars for Journalists at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. During the Easter Term of the 1986 academic year, John McClenahen was the first American to hold a prestigious Press Fellowship at Wolfson College, Cambridge, in the United Kingdom.

      John McClenahen has served on the Editorial Board of Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies and was co-founder and first editor of Liberal Studies at Georgetown. He has been a volunteer researcher on the William Steinway Diary Project at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and has been an assistant professorial lecturer at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.