White House Chief of Staff Praises Export Control Reform Efforts
President Barack Obama is fully supportive of the Export Control Reform effort to usher in a “new, synchronized” control framework that strikes a balance between trade facilitation, assistance to allies and preservation of U.S. national interest, said White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough at the Commerce Department’s Update conference on July 29 in Washington, D.C. The Obama administration endorses the creation of a single export control licensing agency, enforcement authority, commodity list and information technology portal, an objective outlined by Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security officials repeatedly in the past, McDonough said.
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The Export Control Reform (ECR) initiative, a staged process of transferring control of items from the U.S. Munitions List (USML) to the Commerce Control List (CCL), strengthens an archaic control framework that failed to address the current economic and national security climates, added McDonough. “Our effort to rewrite the State Department’s U.S. Munitions List has certainly been our primary and most public focus to date,” said McDonough. “It touches everything related to defense systems from an end-item weapons system to all its nuts, bolts and screws. This means our rewrite will have enormous impact on a huge number of people.” The State and Commerce departments have now finalized rules to transfer 15 of the 21 USML categories to the CCL (see 14070104). The administration aims to publish rules to transfer items from the remaining USML categories by the end of 2014.
Meanwhile, McDonough touted the increased industry use of license exceptions since the outset of the ECR initiative. High-ranking Commerce officials also praised the use of license exceptions, namely Strategic Trade Authorization, in remarks early in the day (see 14072918). “While this transition continues, we are already seeing an increase in license exceptions for shipments of less sensitive items, like spare aircraft parts and a wide range of other items which help our allies maintain U.S. origin systems,” said McDonough at the conference.