Commerce, State Plan Minor Progress on Export Control Reform in Unified Agenda
The Commerce and State departments aim to continue progress with Export Control Reform in the coming months, the Office of Management and Budget said in its Spring 2015 Unified Agenda. Commerce and State plan to issue concurrent notices of proposed rulemakings at some point in May to transfer regulations from the U.S. Munitions List to the Commerce Control List for USML Category XIV (Toxicological Agents), despite the limited time remaining in the month.
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The White House has taken steps to transfer control of items from the majority of USML categories over recent months and years, and Category XIV is the only USML category due this Spring for the first steps in the rulemaking process, the Commerce (here) and State (here) agendas say. Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security and State’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls administer ECR. The Obama administration has now taken ECR action on 15 of the 21 USML categories since launching the process in 2009 (here). Action on the toxicological items will mean BIS and DDTC have tackled, to varying degrees, 16 of those 21 categories.
(NOTE: This is not an exhaustive list of import/export related regulations scheduled in the Unified Agenda. Many regulations appear in every edition of the agenda and are continually postponed. The rules listed below reflect new additions and notable changes from past agendas. See the full Unified Agenda for more detail.)
Administration officials are moving forward with other transfers from the USML to the CCL for fire control items and related guidance and equipment, as well as other categories. BIS and DDTC released proposals for that area of ECR in early May (see 1505040021). In the Unified Agenda, BIS confirmed the July 6 deadline for stakeholder comments on the proposal. The two agencies also aim to make unspecified changes to controls on Category XV (Spacecraft Systems and Associated Equipment). That transfer finalized in November 2014 (see 1411070017).
Commerce and State are also targeting more changes to non-ECR export-related functions. Commerce plans to issue a notice by December to eliminate the practice of breaking “down by paragraphs” the list of items in some Export Control Classification Numbers (here). BIS is “considering requiring that paragraph designations be included in the ECCN field on the Automated Export System,” said BIS. “Requiring this information would, in some transactions, allow BIS to determine more quickly the accuracy of a claimed use of authority to ship without a license or pursuant to a license exception.”
BIS also aims to issue a proposal by September to amend the Export Administration Regulations to update provisions applicable to License Exception Aircraft, Vessels and Spacecraft (AVS) (here). BIS will try to tackle by December a final rule to make changes to the definition of a routed export transaction, as well (here). The American Association of Exporters and Importers cried foul over a proposal for that final rule, arguing the proposal fails to address export compliance issues (see 14041021).