The Obama administration is poised to propose legislation that would create a new export-control licensing entity, a senior official said recently.
The draft bill, if approved by Congress, would bring about the third and final aspect of the export-control reforms President Barack Obama set in motion in August 2009.
Michael Froman, deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, said recently in Washington that the draft legislation is “nearly ready to go.”
No concrete action is expected immediately, considering Congress is busy debating far-reaching deficit-cutting legislation before the coming August recess. Also, competing export-control bills have been posed by both the chairman and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Froman spoke generally about the administration’s pending export legislation at an event at the Hudson Institute think tank in Washington dubbed “Export Controls: What’s Ahead from the Obama Administration and Congress.”
Now controlled exports fall under different lists maintained by the State and Commerce departments and the Energy, State, and Commerce departments serve as licensing agencies.
“We envisage a single license agency, a merger of the two control lists, and a consolidation of two of our excellent enforcement units, all of which has to be done through legislation,” Froman said.
He declined to share details on the single new entity, saying: “I don’t want to spoil the surprise when we ultimately do release our legislation; I would simply say it does envisage taking licensing components from Commerce, State, and Treasury in a single place, not an existing agency.”
Froman said the administration still has “an enormous amount of work to do” on the second of three phases of the export-control reform effort, which it started last year.
As part of this second stage, the administration this month proposed a new rule for moving some technology exports–with low or no military or intelligence sensitivity–from the State Department’s U.S. Munitions List and to the more-flexible Commerce Control List, and retooling that Commerce list.
Administration officials have thoroughly examined moving items in one category on the State Department list–related to tanks and military vehicles–to the Commerce Department list. However, Froman said much work still needs to be done on 18 additional categories of exports on the U.S. Munitions List. The administration is also busy working on additional reforms to licensing procedures, he said.
“That’ll be our focus for much of the next year,” he said.