Concern Over Unintended Consequences of Export Control Reform at House Hearing
House lawmakers stressed concerns over revamped export controls potentially allowing defense materials to slip into the hands of unsavory countries -- while stressing the Obama administration’s reform initiative must craft simple, effective and job-creating controls -- at an April 24 hearing on the agenda for Export Control Reform.
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Multiple lawmakers at the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing wanted to know how the administration will ensure the reform effort allows for adequate monitoring: by Congress, when a major export of defense equipment is made, and of exports themselves. The State and Commerce Departments released the first final rules in U.S. Munitions List- Commerce Control List moves on April 15 (see 13041518).
Now that Commerce is controlling some USML items, “What will the administration do to ensure that these items do not reach irresponsible countries?” said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla. She and other Representatives at the hearing expressed concerns about new license exemption protocols -- which aim to ease restrictions on exports to trusted countries -- posing a potential “unintended threat,” allowing countries like Iran and North Korea to transship goods and therefore easily obtain controlled items.
Relaxed export controls on technology could also hurt the U.S. economy, said Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif. When moving items to the CCL, agencies should ask “Is the action you are about to take leading to off-shoring of production ... the decline of the U.S. industrial base, the decline of U.S. jobs?” Sherman said.
Controls should also not be relaxed to countries which restrict human rights, said Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J. He introduced the Global Online Freedom Act in February, a bill he has been pushing for seven years, he said. It blocks exports of goods to Internet-restricting countries. Read the bill (here). None of the witnesses took a position on the bill -- as Smith asked -- but Assistant Secretary for Export Administration Kevin Wolf and Thomas Kelly, acting assistant secretary for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at State, both said human rights are a concern in export control and arms transfer policy.
The ultimate goal of export control reform is to enhance national security, Wolf said multiple times at the hearing. Moving items to the CCL actually diverts more resources toward enforcement and follow-up on countries of concern, he said. The reform adds Commerce’s export enforcement authority on top of the additional system, which includes other agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI.
“Shouldn’t part of this discussion be increasing the number of export control agents?” said Rep. Theodore Deutch, D-Fla. “They’re the only ones doing this full time.”
President Obama’s 2014 budget proposal does include money for three new export control agents -- in Turkey, Europe and the United Arab Emirates. And there are other steps Congress can take to increase export control reform’s effectiveness, Wolf said. Lawmakers should extend BIS authorization for non-enforcement-related Export Administration Regulations under the Iran Sanctions Act of 2010, he said, and make the confidentiality protections of the Export Administration Act permanent.
Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., said a renewal of that Act is “long overdue.” It officially lapsed in 2001, and Presidents have extended export control regulations under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act since then; “life support,” Sherman said. “It’s about time Congress crafted legislation in this area.”
More Revised USML Categories Forthcoming; Administration Won't Put Timeline on Single Enforcement Agency Proposal
Proposed changes to 12 USML categories have been published in the Federal Register thus far, Kelly said. The seven remaining categories are either waiting or undergoing agency review. “[Our] goal it to publish the revised USML in its entirety throughout this year,” he said. The final phase of export control reform, creating a single list and a primary enforcement agency, will require Congressional legislation. Director of the Defense Technology Security Administration James Hursch, who also testified at the hearing, didn’t put a timeline on when that might happen. “We believe we need to get further down the road with [USML-CCL moves]” before submitting details of the unified list and agency proposal, he said. -- Jessica Arriens