International Trade Law News

Published by Jacobson Burton Kelley PLLC

From the House of Representatives International Relations Committee (HIRC) Report on the Foreign Relations Authorization Act (FRAA) for FY 2006-2007 (H.R. 2601):

"The committee commends the Department of Defense for the significant improvements it has made in reducing license review times in recent years, as documented by GAO, and notes that the overall 30-day goal established in Section 712(b)(6) would already be within the Executive Branch's grasp had the State Department's overall processing times not deteriorated since 2003."

H.R. 2601 contains a number of important provisions relating to export licensing. For example, section 713 authorizes up to $13,000,000 in fiscal years 2006 and 2007 "for salaries and expenses related to the assignment of additional full time license and compliance officers in the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls of the Department of State."

In addition, section 721 of the bill requires transparancy in the commodity jurisdiction and commodity classificaiton process. The bill states that the "complete confidentiality surrounding several thousand commodity classification determinations made each year by the Department of Commerce pursuant to the Export Administration Regulations and several hundred commodity jurisdiction determinations made each year by the Department of State pursuant to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations is not necessary to protect legitimate proprietary interests of persons or their prices and customers, is not in the best interests of the security and foreign policy interests of the United States, is inconsistent with the need to ensure a level playing field for United States exporters, and detracts from United States efforts to promote greater transparency and responsibility by other countries in their export control systems."

The bill also requires the State and Commerce Department to publish in the Federal Register a description of the item that has been classified, including performance levels or other technical characteristics, an explanation of whether the item is controlled under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations or the Export Administration Regulations, and the USML designation or ECCN under which the item has been designated or classified (exempting company names, prices and customers from disclosure) and requires the agencies to maintain on their websites an archive of the classifications published in the Federal Register.