The Census Bureau revised its timeline for phasing out AESDirect legacy accounts, said CBP in a CSMS message (here). The phaseouts, based upon the two-digit prefixes of the registered filer ID, will begin Feb. 29, it said. The revised schedule is as follows:
The Office of Foreign Assets Control is lifting certain payment and financing restrictions for approved exports and re-exports of non-agricultural items to Cuba, and is authorizing the use of leasing arrangements, code-sharing, and blocked airspace by Cuban airlines to facilitate U.S. travel to the country, OFAC announced (here). The actions align with President Barack Obama’s Dec. 17, 2014 announcement of the rollback of sanctions on the country.
The Commerce Department and CBP aim to complete its transition of the Census Bureau’s AESDirect and AESPcLink into the Automated Commercial Environment by the end of the summer, Gerard Horner, director of the Bureau of Industry and Security’s Office of Technology Evaluation, said on Jan. 20 during the first of two days of meetings of Commerce's Advisory Committee on Supply Chain Competitiveness in Washington. Data will no longer be collected via separate systems. “Everything will go through the government's single window system ACE,” Horner said. “Census is currently transitioning the 50,000-plus companies who currently use AESDirect and AESPcLink to ACE."
The Census Bureau may adopt in the Automated Export System (AES) an “original Internal Transaction Number” (ITN) field and develop a used electronics indicator, it said in a notice (here). The original ITN field is an optional data field and will be utilized if the filer creates an additional AES record for a shipment that was previously filed. The used electronics indicator is a conditional data element, and will be used to improve information on the quantity and destination of used electronics, the notice says. The revisions are not expected to affect the average three-minute response time for completion of the AES record, said Census. Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information collection are due Feb. 11 to oira_submission@omb.eop.gov or faxed to 202-395-5806.
U.S. District Court Judge Yvette Kane sentenced Iranian company Falcon Instrumentation and Machinery FZE, formerly known as FIMCO, to pay a $100,000 criminal fine for conspiracy to evade export licensing requirements, after an alleged attempt to smuggle into Iran a large lathe used in steel manufacturing, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania and the Commerce Department’s Office of Export Enforcement said on Jan. 6 (here). As part of its plea deal, Falcon also agreed under a settlement with BIS to pay an $837,500 civil penalty to Commerce. The company already paid $587,500 out of pocket, and the remaining $250,000 portion of the penalty—suspended over two years—will be waived if Falcon complies with the terms of the plea agreement, any criminal sentence, and satisfies “certain additional conditions,” the announcement says. The company will also be subject to a two-year suspended denial of export privileges.
The U.S. Census Bureau updated the Automated Export System for the 2016 version of the HTS and the newly released 2016 Schedule B (here), the agency said. Changes to Schedule B include the consolidation of certain Schedule B numbers for tobacco, and a breakout of Schedule B numbers for heavy fuel oil by sulfur content (here). Under another change to Schedule B, exporters will no longer be able to use content kilograms—“ckg”—as a unit of measurement for certain tobacco products, and will be required to use kilograms in those cases, it said (here). Census also released public guidance for import (here) and export concordance (here). Census said that AES will accept shipments with outdated 2015 codes for a 30-day grace period beyond the expiration date of Dec. 31, 2015, after which reporting an outdated code will result in a fatal error. The legacy AESDirect system has been updated with the new codes and will accept the 2015 codes during the grace period as well, Census said.
The Energy Department’s Office of Fossil Energy is announcing the availability of a new study on the economic impacts of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to non-free trade agreement countries are available, in a notice (here). DOE ordered the 2014 U.S. Energy Information Administration study and the 2015 study by Oxford Economics and Rice University Baker Institute’s Center for Energy Studies, to inform its decisions on applications seeking authorization to export LNG from the lower-48 states to non-FTA countries.
A license from the Bureau of Industry and Security is no longer required to export crude oil, following the repeal of the oil export ban by the fiscal 2016 omnibus spending bill signed into law Dec. 18 (see 1512210002), said BIS (here). Effective immediately, crude oil is now designated as EAR99, which covers items subject to Export Administration Regulations, but not listed with a specific export control classification number, it said. Exports to embargoed or sanctioned countries and people will continue to require authorization.
The State Department on Dec. 16 posted public comments it received as part of a review of recently updated categories of export controls covering surface vessels of war, military ground vehicles, miscellaneous military articles and materials, and submersible vessels (here). The agency had requested input on whether revised U.S. Munitions List categories VI, VII, VIII and XX remain clear and up to date.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is making corrections to recent amendments implementing Wassenaar Agreement changes to the Export Administration Regulations, in a final rule (here). The corrections revise the Commerce Country Chart for Argentina and South Africa, and clarify export controls on rebreathing equipment, spacecraft and launch vehicles. The final rule, which takes effect Dec. 3, also removes Fiji from a list of embargoed countries.