Coming 1248 Report Necessary Before Satellite Export Legislation Moves Forward
A coming review of satellite export control changes by the U.S. departments of Defense and State is the necessary next step before legislation on the same issue makes headway, said industry and government officials. While HR-3288, introduced by House Foreign Affairs Ranking Member Howard Berman, D-Calif. last week (CD Nov 3 p13), created a vehicle for such a change, the final Section 1248 report will be a necessary step, they said. The bill would give the Executive Office of the President back the authority to remove commercial satellites and components from a munitions list closely regulated by the State Department.
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DOD and the State Department issued an interim 1248 report on the issue in May, and a final version is expected by the end of the year, said a Congressional staffer. The report is expected to give conditional support for the changes, as the interim report did, and a mark-up on the bill would likely follow, said the staffer. It’s unclear if the Senate would take up a similar measure in the meantime but it wouldn’t be surprising to see a “companion Senate bill or see a related amendment,” said the staffer. The Senate Foreign relations committee didn’t respond to a request for comment. The 1248 study is required under the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act.
HR-3288 already has some important distinctions from previous legislative efforts to relax the export controls. HR-2410, a State Department Reauthorization Bill that was introduced and died last Congress, included similar changes to satellite export laws. Because of the larger issues contained within that bill, the satellite issues weren’t a major issue, said an industry executive. HR-3288, meanwhile, is a stand-alone bill, and the satellite issues will be at the center of any review, said the executive.
Several tweaks to legislation may help make the bill more palatable to Democrats and Republicans, said executives. The bill is substantively very similar to the satellite export control provisions of HR-2410, said John Ordway, an export control lawyer at the Berliner Corcoran law firm. “This is most significant progress in this Congress” and the bipartisan interest and support “is encouraging and rare,” said Patricia Cooper, president of the Satellite Industry Association.
There are some small, but important, additions to the language of HR-2410, which should help the new bill gain as wide support as possible, Ordway said. For instance, HR-3288 specifies “commercial satellites” rather than just “satellites” as HR-2410 did, he noted. While small, the change makes clear on its face that HR-3288 does not apply to any military satellites, he said.
HR-3288 also adds a section prohibiting the transfer of satellites and their related components to, or launches into space by, Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Syria, or North Korea, as well as China. The previous bill contained this prohibition only with respect to China. This additional provision should help sell the bill to those members who are particularly focused on national security concerns in general, in addition to those with strong national security concerns with respect to China specifically, Ordway said.