Empty Residue Reporting

Released: November 19, 2013

UPDATE: Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has delayed the November 25th implementation of the test pilot for empty residue reporting until further notice. CBP states that additional time is needed to review concerns from the trade community prior to announcing a new date for the test pilot. CSX will inform its customers as soon as a new date for the test pilot is established by CBP.

CSX received from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) the Federal Register Notice that outlines a yearlong test pilot on residue shipments that would require the reporting of empty rail cars returning to the United States that contain residue. This ruling states that rail carriers must be in a position to begin manifesting and reporting empty railcars returning to the United States from Canada that contain residue of the original loaded product by November 25th, 2013. CSX has initially identified two specific car types (Tank cars and Covered Hoppers) that will be targeted for compliance with CBP.

Currently, empty residue shipments have been allowed to return to the United States without any manifest reporting to CBP and in most cases the cars have been automatically reverse routed by CSX without any customer involvement. This reverse routing policy will be disabled to coincide with the CBP implementation date of November 25th, 2013 and all empty Tank and Covered Hopper railcars containing residue must be manifested and reported to CBP electronically.

In order to comply with CBP's ruling, customers who are involved in the movement of empty Tank and Covered Hopper railcars returning to the Unites States from Canada will be required to submit an empty Bill of Lading to CSX via EDI or through the utilization of the ShipCSX Web based tools that must include the estimated weight of the residue product, as well as, other required shipment information as identified in the Trade Act of 2002 such as a description of the commodity last contained for the loaded shipment into Canada. The estimated weight provided by the customer will be used to calculate the percentage of residue based on the UMLER car capacity.

CBP has established a threshold for the reporting of empty residue cars returning to the United States at 7% or less of the UMLER capacity of the railcar. Shipments that fall within this threshold will not require broker filing/entry and CBP will issue a release to affect border crossing.

Shipments that exceed the 7% threshold will require a broker on the billing to CSX and the broker will be required to make broker entries on behalf of the shipper.

CSX has been making preparations to comply with the empty residue reporting requirements and stands ready to assist our customers for a successful implementation of these requirements. Additional information will be forth coming in the next couple weeks that will further outline CSX processes and procedures governing both Private and Railroad controlled cars containing residue that will be returning to the United States.

For questions you can contact one of the following CSX representatives on the Transborder working committees:

Howard Smith at 904-359-1833 or via email at Howard_H_Smith@csx.com.

Roger Sharlow at 315-388-4397 or via email at Roger_Sharlow@csx.com.