CBP official detailed to Senate Homeland Security Committee
U.S. Customs and Border Protection will lose the services of Keith Fleming, director of cargo verification in the Office of Field Operation, for one year due to a transfer to serve as a liaison to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, according to Larry Rosenzweig, CBP’s deputy executive director for trade compliance and facilitation.
CBP will continue to pay Fleming salary’s while he is on detail to the committee. It is common practice for Congress to borrow executive branch officials as staff members.
Fleming’s temporary departure “will hurt” the agency’s supply chain security efforts, Rosenzweig said during last week’s National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America conference in San Diego. He said afterwards that he is looking to find a replacement, possibly by detailing somebody from the field to headquarters.
The director of cargo verification is closely involved with managing the implementation of advance manifest data collection programs, such as the 24-hour rule.