The Obama administration unveiled recently proposals for making it easier for U.S. companies to export some military aircraft equipment.
A defense-industry group hailed the publishing of the proposed export rule changes, in the Federal Register, as a “major milestone in export-control reform.”
The two connected proposals would move some items listed under Category VIII of the State Department’s U.S. Munitions List (USML)–the category covering aircraft and related articles–to the Commerce Department’s more-flexible Commerce Control List (CCL). The administration in July, as part of its multi-pronged export-control-reform initiative, unveiled its plans for moving items in Category VII of the USML–which includes tanks and military vehicles–to the CCL.
The new aircraft proposals from the State and Commerce departments are not final and are open for public comment until Dec. 22.
The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) trade group said the draft Category VIII changes “constitute a major milestone in the ongoing effort to control more appropriately exports to our allies of sensitive technology.”
“It’s imperative for the administration, Congress and industry to work together to streamline trade with our close allies and partners while continuing to deny access to sensitive U.S. technology by our adversaries,” AIA President and CEO Marion Blakey said in a statement recently.
The changes would move some items to the CCL while also retooling that list, and at the same time provide more specific regulatory guidelines for items remaining on the USML.
The State Department’s five-page proposed rule says it “narrows the types of aircraft and related items controlled on the USML to only those that warrant control under the stringent requirements of the Arms Export Control Act.”
Notably, many generic parts, components, accessories, and attachments specially designed for a military aircraft that now fall under USML Category VIII would become subject to new 600-series controls in Category 9 of the CCL.
The Commerce Department’s 16-page proposed rule published recently would create five new CCL export-control classification numbers for items moved to it from the USML and also reclassify some items on the Commerce list.
In addition, proposed changes to the USML “include moving similar articles currently controlled in multiple categories into a single category or subcategory,” the State Department proposal states. For example, inertial navigation systems for aircraft previously controlled under Category VIII(e) likely will be moved to controls either in Category XII or the CCL in future proposed rules, it says.
The State Department’s proposal acknowledges the administration’s ultimate plan to “make the USML and the CCL positive, tiered, and aligned so that eventually they can be combined into a single control list.” The administration also still intends to establish a so-called ”bright line” between the USML and the CCL “to reduce government and industry uncertainty regarding export jurisdiction by clarifying whether particular items are subject to the jurisdiction of the ITAR or the EAR,” the proposed rule states. Yet the proposal acknowledges those changes will not happen “in the near term.”
“In order to more quickly reach the national security objectives of greater interoperability with our allies, enhancing our defense industrial base, and permitting the U.S. government to focus its resources on controlling and monitoring the export and reexport of more significant items to destinations, end uses, and end users of greater concern than our NATO and other multi-regime partners, the administration has decided, as an interim step, to propose and implement revisions to both the USML and the CCL that are more positive, but not yet tiered,” the State Department proposal states.
Based in part on public feedback, the administration “has determined that fundamentally altering the structure of the USML by tiering and aligning them on a category-by- category basis would significantly disrupt the export control compliance systems and procedures of exporters and reexporters,” it says.
The administration will address structural changes later, after building the positive lists, it adds.