U.S. BROKERS, FORWARDERS COMFORTABLE WITH U.S. CUSTOMS’ Y2K PREPARATION

  The National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America testified before the U.S. House Subcommittee on International Economic Policy and Trade Tuesday that it believes the U.S. Customs’ system is ready to operate past 2000.
   The biggest worry, however, is that other government agencies which
interact with Customs’ system may not be ready for Y2K.
   "Customs alone cannot prevent Y2K disruptions," said Harold G. Brauner,
senior counsel for the NCBFAA and president of Brauner International Corp., based in Jersey City, N.J. "We are concerned about reports that other
nations, our trading partners, have been slow in moving forward with Y2K
programs of their own."
   Customs finished converting 6 million lines of code in its Automated
Commercial System earlier this year. The agency also has a "emergency
response" team on hand at its Office of Information and Technology on New
Year’s weekend.
   Brauner told the House subcommittee that his industry is more concerned
about ACS shutting down because of data overload. "We brokers and
forwarders are far more concerned that Customs modernization is vulnerable
to an aging Customs computer system than it is to Y2K," he said.