BIS to Retain Nearly All Employees Through Presidential Transition
Only 10 of the Bureau of Industry and Security’s more than 400 employees are set to exit the agency when the Trump administration takes over on Jan. 20, Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Eric Hirschhorn said during a Dec. 7 meeting of the President’s Export Council Subcommittee on Export Administration (PECSEA). Hirschhorn is meeting with President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team for the first time on Dec. 8, he said. The transition team was gathering information from the Commerce Department this week, while personnel issues were being discussed elsewhere, Hirschhorn said. The work terms for political appointees Hirschhorn, Assistant Secretary for Export Administration Kevin Wolf, and BIS Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement David Mills will expire at the end of the Obama administration, a BIS spokesperson said in October (see 1610310022).
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The large carryover of BIS employees expected for the new administration should help advance the mission of export control reform, but PECSEA members also expressed a desire to communicate priorities directly to the transition team or indirectly through industry organizations in touch with the transition, such as the Aerospace Industries Association. “Our hope is to have a very seamless handoff to the new team in terms of what our priorities have been, but also trying to help them [and] make sure that we hand these things off successfully,” Deputy Commerce Secretary Bruce Andrews said during the meeting.
Before the transfer of power, BIS hopes to issue a final rule by the end of the year related to export control reform for items to be shifted from U.S. Munitions List (USML) Category XV (spacecraft systems and associated equipment) to the Commerce Control List (CCL), Hirschhorn said, cautioning that it might not happen within that time frame. “Don’t believe it until you see it,” Hirschhorn said. “There’s always some hitch you didn’t think of.” He reminded attendees that BIS final rules admitting items from USML categories VIII (aircraft and related articles), XII (fire control, range finder, optical and guidance and control equipment), XIV (toxicological agents), XVIII (directed energy weapons) and XIX (gas turbine engines and associated equipment) to the CCL will take effect Dec. 31. While BIS and the State Department didn’t issue rules dealing with USML categories I (firearms, close assault weapons and combat shotguns), II (guns and armament, and III (ammunition/ordnance), he said those might be tackled in the future. BIS addressed about 85 to 90 percent of export control reform during the Obama administration, Hirschhorn said.
Hirschhorn said a joint BIS and State working group is working on the Single Trade Application and Reporting System (STARS), which will capture and direct export license information to appropriate agencies. But the effort is still in the system design phase, and won’t be finished before the presidential inauguration, Hirschhorn said. Wolf said in October that after completing the elements for data inputs of the STARS system, the federal government will issue a series of proposed rules, seeking public comment on how to complete and implement the system (see 1610310022). BIS is trying to make industry STARS requirements as streamlined and non-duplicative as possible, Hirschhorn said.