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Washington, D.C.-Understaffing and insufficient resources are undermining the ability of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) workforce to fulfill its dual mission of regulating and facilitating international trade, the president of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) told lawmakers today.

“NTEU is deeply concerned with the lack of resources, both in dollars and manpower, devoted to CBP’s trade functions,” NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley said. “Lack of sufficient focus and resources costs the U.S. Treasury in terms of customs duties and revenue loss and cost American companies in terms of lost business to unlawful imports.”

Kelley submitted her remarks to the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade. Working under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the NTEU-represented CBP staff includes Officers, Agriculture Specialists, Seized Property Specialists and trade enforcement and compliance personnel. In addition to securing the nation’s ports of entry, CBP facilitates more than a trillion dollars of trade annually. Customs fees are the second largest source of federal government revenue.

In its fiscal year 2011 budget request, CBP asked for $25 million for Intellectual Property Rights enforcement, including $14.1 million in human capital investment. This request, however, includes no increase in staff, such as Entry and Import Specialists, to implement this program. Kelley urged Congress to dedicate this additional funding to increase the number of CBP trade operations personnel at the ports of entry.

“Because of continuing staffing shortages, inequitable compensation, and lack of mission focus, experienced CBP commercial operations professionals at all levels, who long have made the system work, are leaving or have left the agency,” said Kelley. She added that 25 percent of CBP Import Specialists will retire or be eligible to retire within the next few years.

These shortages are exacerbated by CBP’s unwillingness to increase the number of Import Specialists above the number on board in March 2003 when the Homeland Security Act went into effect. As a result, ports of entry are seeing steep declines in onsite CBP trade staff in order to address shortages at other locations.

Staffing shortages have a direct impact on the CBP’s ability to collect millions of missed trade and import fees, depriving the federal government of valuable funds for other priority programs.

“The more than 24,000 CBP employees represented by the NTEU are capable and committed to the varied missions of DHS from border control to the facilitation of trade into and out of the United States. They are proud of their part in keeping our country free from terrorism, our neighborhoods safe from drugs and our economy safe from illegal trade,” Kelley said. “These men and women are deserving of more resources and technology so that they can perform their jobs better and more efficiently.”

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments.