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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 126 / Tuesday, July 6, 2021 / Proposed Rules
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this time cost and the historical average of about 52 case-by-case adjudication requests for non-preferential country of origin determinations for goods imported from Canada and Mexico, CBP
estimates that importers would save at least $13,050 in research time costs each year from no longer submitting case-bycase adjudication requests to CBP for their non-preferential country of origin requests for goods from Canada and Mexico. These requests may impose an unknown amount of additional time and resource costs on importers from an importers gathering of information for the process and drafting the request, which could be avoided with this rulemaking.
Furthermore, CBPs country of origin determinations sometimes result in an imported good being determined to be a product of Canada or Mexico for some customs purposes and a good of a third country for other purposes. This rulemaking would eliminate these different determinations, which would standardize country of origin determinations for non-preferential purposes for goods imported from the USMCA countries of Canada and Mexico. CBPs application of the part 102 rules would not, however, affect similar determinations made by other agencies, such as the Department of Commerces scope determinations in antidumping or countervailing duty proceedings see 19 CFR 351.225. This standardized approach would provide additional benefits to importers, but the extent of these benefits is unknown.
CBP requests public comments on the benefits of this change to importers.
Although this rulemaking would eliminate the need for some importers to request case-by-case country of origin determinations for non-preferential purposes, it may require such importers to now request classification determinations for their goods imported from Canada and Mexico. The extent of these new classification requests is unknown. To the extent that importers would need to request additional estimates shown under Mar., June, Sep., Dec. of the total compensation cost per hour worked for Office and Administrative Support occupations $28.8875 divided by the calculated average of the 2020 quarterly estimates shown under Mar., June, Sep., Dec. of wages and salaries cost per hour worked for the same occupation category $19.3725. Source of total compensation to wages and salaries ratio data: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employer Costs for Employee Compensation. Employer Costs for Employee Compensation Historical Listing March 2004
December 2020, Table 3. Civilian workers, by occupational group: employer costs per hours worked for employee compensation and costs as a percentage of total compensation, 20042020.
March 2021. Available at https www.bls.gov/web/
ecec/ececqrtn.pdf. Accessed June 1, 2021.

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classification determinations in place of case-by-case adjudications, the benefits of this rulemaking to importers would be lower. CBP requests public comments on any other benefits of this rulemaking to importers.
As previously stated, CBP issued 52
non-preferential determinations adjudicated on a case-by-case basis for goods imported from Canada and Mexico from October 2019 to December 2020. This rulemaking would eliminate the need for CBP to make such case-bycase determinations for similar goods imported from Canada and Mexico in the future. The current method for CBP
to determine country of origin on a caseby-case basis for non-preferential purposes is generally more time and resource-intensive than the tariff-shift method. For CBP, country of origin determinations for non-preferential purposes based on case-by-case adjudications are highly individual, fact-intensive exercises. This rulemaking would largely make it easier for CBP to administer rules of origin for non-preferential country of origin determinations for goods imported from Canada and Mexico by employing the codified part 102 rules for both country of origin marking and other nonpreferential purposes. By eliminating the need for importers to request nonpreferential case-by-case determinations of their goods from Canada and Mexico, CBP would save an average of 5 hours to 40 hours currently dedicated to each case-by-case adjudication. This would translate to a time cost saving of between $494.90 and $3,959.20 based on a CBP attorneys average hourly time value of $98.98.14 CBP estimates that with this proposed rule, CBP would no longer have to make 52 case-by-case rulings determining the origin of goods imported from Canada or Mexico for non-preferential purposes according to historical data. Considering these forgone determinations and the average time cost per determination, CBP would save approximately $25,735 to $205,878
per year from this rulemaking. These benefits would represent time cost savings to CBP rather than budgetary savings, meaning that CBP could use the savings to perform other agency missions, such as facilitating trade. As previously stated, this rulemaking may increase requests for classifications of goods imported from Canada and Mexico, though the extent of these requests is unknown. To the extent that CBP would need to conduct additional 14 CBP bases this wage on the FY 2019 salary, benefits, and non-salary costs i.e., fully loaded wage of the national average of CBP attorney positions.

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classifications in place of case-by-case adjudications, the benefits of this rulemaking to CBP would be lower.
Net Impact of Rule In summary, this rulemaking would introduce costs, revenue changes, and benefits to importers and the U.S.
Government. Some importers, for example, whose goods are subject to inconsistent origin determinations under the current practice, may incur minor costs to adjust their inventory tracking systems, ACE entries, and business practices to reflect the new country of origin determination for other non-preferential purposes, as described above. Transitioning to the proposed tariff shift system could also lead to an increase or decrease in nonpreferential payments from importers, which would lead to an equal increase or decrease in revenue to the U.S.
Government. The exact amounts of these costs and revenue changes are unknown, but they should be small considering the tariff shift methodology implements the same substantial transformation standard as the existing case-by-case method. Additionally, the rule would implement a simpler, standardized administration system for country of origin determinations made by CBP for all non-preferential purposes for goods imported from Canada and Mexico that would save importers and the U.S. Government time and resources. Importers could save at least an estimated $13,050 in time costs annually from this rulemaking, while the U.S. Government could save between $25,735 and $205,878 in time costs each year. Overall, CBP believes this rulemakings benefits would outweigh the costs.
B. Regulatory Flexibility Act The Regulatory Flexibility Act RFA;
5 U.S.C. 601 et. seq., as amended by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement and Fairness Act of 1996, requires agencies to assess the impact of regulations on small entities. A small entity may be a small business defined as any independently owned and operated business not dominant in its field that qualifies as a small business per the Small Business Act; a small notfor-profit organization; or a small governmental jurisdiction locality with fewer than 50,000 people.
This rulemaking proposes to expand the scope of the 19 CFR part 102 rules to provide that those rules are to be generally applicable to all nonpreferential country of origin determinations made by CBP for goods imported from the USMCA countries of Canada and Mexico. With this change,
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