Public Comments

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June 22, 2026
Thomas Smith
U.S. Census Bureau
4600 Silver Hill Rd
Washington, DC 20233
RE:

Federal Register notice of May 20, 2026, for the 2027 Commodity Flow Survey (OMB
Number: 0607-0932)

Dear Mr. Smith:
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) strongly supports the continued collection of data by
the U.S. Census Bureau for the Commodity Flow Survey (CFS). The survey data, co-sponsored
by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), are critical to the quality of several key
components of BEA’s economic statistics.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) relies heavily on data from the CFS to prepare both the
industry economic accounts and the regional economic accounts of the United States. The
industry accounts utilize the CFS for distributing the cost of transportation across individual
commodities. The regional accounts utilize the CFS for their prototype estimates of merchandise
trade by state.
Industry Accounts:
BEA uses information from the CFS to produce estimates on the use of transportation services
by commodity in the benchmark input-output accounts (I-O). The benchmark I-O accounts are
used in-turn in the estimation of BEA’s national income and product accounts, annual industry
accounts, and travel and tourism satellite accounts. These accounts are widely used by business,
government, and researchers to analyze industry performance and the changing structure of the
U.S. economy.
CFS data are BEA’s primary inputs for estimating each private industry’s purchases of
transportation services by mode of transport. Without these data, the accuracy of BEA’s
estimates of value added (i.e., contribution to GDP) for every private industry would be reduced.
A list of specific survey items that are used is attached.
To improve the BEA usefulness of the CFS data, BEA suggests the collection of data on freight
charges associated with the commodities transported in addition to the shipment characteristics
currently collected. This information would greatly improve the BEA estimates for commodity
freight charges.

Regional Accounts:
BEA relies on the CFS for its prototype estimates of merchandise trade by state. The
merchandise trade by state estimates offer unique insights into inter-dependencies within the US
economy, enabling policymakers and researchers to analyze supply chains within the US and
abroad. In addition, the merchandise trade by state estimates are a key component of BEA's
efforts to estimate expenditure-based GDP by state which in turn would allow BEA to improve
its income-based estimate of GDP by state, its estimates of PCE by state, as well as other
prototype estimates under development by bringing them all together into a unified system of
accounts.
The prototype merchandise trade estimates by state relies on the CFS public use files which are
the most comprehensive dataset on US merchandise shipments. These prototype estimates
would suffer without the CFS public-use files leading to loss in quality and accuracy. Currently,
BEA makes use of the origin, destination, export flag, commodity, industry of shipper, weight
factor, and shipment value from the CFS public use files, and there are plans to use the mode
information within the CFS public use files in future estimates of service trade by state. It would
also be extremely useful to have additional commodity detail in future CFS public use file
releases, as this greatly improves the accuracy of the estimated merchandise trade by state
estimates.
Please keep BEA informed about any modifications to these forms. We are particularly
interested in any modifications proposed during the forms’ approval process that would
substantially affect our use of these data. For additional information, please contact Tiffany
Burrell, Source Data Coordinator, on 301-278-9618, or by email at [email protected].
Should you need assistance in justifying these forms to the Office of Management and Budget,
please do not hesitate to contact BEA.
Sincerely,

Dennis Fixler

Digitally signed by Dennis Fixler
Date: 2026.06.22 13:07:08 -04'00'

Dennis J. Fixler
Chief Economist

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Attachment
Current Use of CFS-1000 and CFS-2000 in BEA’s Accounts
Items Used:

Both forms: Shipment Characteristics
CFS-2000: Third Party Logistics

Used in Estimation of:

Purchases of transportation services
for:
Benchmark I-O, Annual I-O,
National Accounts,
Travel and Tourism Satellite Account

Current Use of CFS Public Use Files in BEA’s Accounts
Items Used:

Origin Area
Destination Area
Export Flag
Commodity
Industry
Weight Factor
Shipment Value

Used in Estimation of:

Merchandise Trade by State Prototype
Estimates for:
Regional Accounts

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