Routed Export Rule Faces More Delays, Officials Say
The Commerce Department is still working on its long-awaited routed export rule and is unsure when it will be finalized, officials said this week. Kiesha Downs, chief of the Census Bureau’s Foreign Trade Division’s regulations branch, said Census is “still in a holding pattern” for the rule, which requires more work between Census and the Bureau of Industry and Security.
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The rule, which has faced several delays, is expected to include major changes to the process around assigning filing responsibilities to forwarders and address information sharing among parties in routed export transactions (see 2006020049 and 2012080046). Commerce hoped to finalize the rule last year but was hampered by a lack of political appointees at BIS (see 2108300025).
Although BIS has since sworn in some Senate-confirmed officials, including Assistant Secretary for Export Administration Thea Kendler and Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement Matthew Axelrod, the rule has again been delayed. Commerce has been occupied with an “unprecedented” amount of export control regulations over the last few weeks in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine (see 2203150056).
“Being on this call, it sounded like BIS has been very busy with a lot of rules that they are working on,” Downs said during a March 14 Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee meeting. “We're just in a holding pattern until we hear back.” Hillary Hess, BIS regulatory policy director, said the agency is working on it. “We have not abandoned it,” she said during the meeting. “But it has kind of been pushed back by events.”