The Customs Service has identified $7 million in funding that could be reprogrammed for systems modernization, the service's chief information officer told a House committee Tuesday.
The announcement by CIO Woody Hall came just in the nick of time. Customs had planned to close its modernization office this Friday and shelve its modernization efforts for the year unless new funding was found.
Hall spoke at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Customs' information technology architecture modernization, known as the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). He said the funding would allow Customs to release a request for proposals for ACE development in June.
The Customs announcement surprised members of the Treasury, Postal Service and General Government Subcommittee, who said they had not yet seen a request for approval of the reprogramming. Such approval is likely. However, Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., the subcommittee's chairman, was rankled that he had not heard from Customs about the search for funding since a hearing in mid-March.
If Customs issues an RFP by mid-year, the contract award could come early in 2001. ACE is expected to cost $2 billion and take at least four years to build.
Although Customs has found funding for the procurement, it needs $5 million to continue work on the modernization this summer. Customs is also casting about for $17 million in life support for the failing Automated Commercial System, the system ACE is designed to replace.
"We keep on having to reprioritize funding for ACS to keep up with the growth in trade," said James Flyzik, chief information officer at Customs' parent department Treasury. "We need to find ways to fund the modernization program in its entirety."
Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., recognized that ACS won't keep up with the growth in trade over the next five years and later asked what would happen if Customs did not release the RFP. "That extends the time of use of ACS," Hall said.
"We find ourselves defeated by technology issues," Hoyer replied.
But funding remains the central issue, not the technology. The General Accounting Office has already signed off on Customs' plans.
For three years, Treasury has proposed paying for ACE by levying a new user fee on importers. Congress has balked at any new fees, leaving ACE unfunded. The subcommittee grilled John Simpson, deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury for regulatory, tariff and trade enforcement on the legality and desirability of more fees. The subcommittee came to no conclusion on funding sources for the first year of ACE, for which Customs needs $210 million.