USML Category XV Final Rule Nears, Despite Shutdown Hindrance, Says Commerce's Wolf
The interagency Export Control Reform (ECR) effort continues to prioritize, first and foremost, final rule publication for the transfer of items from U.S. Munitions List (USML) Category XV (Spacecraft Systems and Associated Equipment) to the Commerce Control List (CCL), said Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration, Kevin Wolf, at a Nov. 5 Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) Sensors and Instrumentation Technical Advisory Committee meeting. The agencies aim, by December, to craft the rule language for the category and begin the informal congressional notification process, said Wolf.
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“What we decided is to finish up Satellite controls first, which means going through all the comments involving commercial space flight…aperture size, anything that you can think of that pertains to stuff that’s flying in space, which still warrants control on the USML and warrants control on the CCL,” said Wolf. “These are all controls that are completely unilateral. There aren’t any multilateral controls on them...Its stuff that none of the rest of the world controls by and large.” The Category XV priority was also outlined by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration Matthew Borman at an Oct. 25 event (see 13102834).
The interagency export licensing personnel have cleared the backlog resultant from the October government shutdown, particularly at BIS, Wolf confirmed. Exporters are able to apply and receive licenses, along with Commodity Classification Automated Tracking System codes, he said. The ability for exporters to retain, as a matter of interagency policy, State Department Directorate of Defense Trade Control licenses, also limited the amount of CCL applications in the wake of the first ECR rule implementation on Oct. 15, involving largely aircraft items.
But the lapse in appropriations caused the cancellation of a host of meetings designed to hash out the final changes and considerations to the rules on the docket, all of which need to be vetted and cleared by the agencies, said Wolf. “We had a whole series of ‘we’re just going to keep meeting until we drop dead’ dates scheduled, particularly on XV,” said Wolf. “That all got shot and trying to get 15 different people from seven different agencies in the same room takes time and we’re getting back into that. But it’s blown out by more than 15 days our ability to get work done.” The agencies are also preparing to publish a final rule Category XI (Military Electronics), after issuing a proposal in July (see 13072421).
The new CCL regulations explicitly incorporate production equipment for the items that now fall under the CCL “600 series” items, all those USML transferred items, said Wolf. The State Department assumed exporters knew production equipment was controlled on the USML, but the USML regulations did not mention that explicitly, said Wolf. “So for companies that were completely unaware of the existence of controls on production equipment for military aircraft, it’s a huge increase in controls because we’ve identified it,” said Wolf.