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Archive for September, 2010

Sep

9

Oh Happy Day

Posted by Clif Burns at 8:14 pm on September 9, 2010

Category: OFAC

OFAC website Last week, this blog reported OFAC’s announcement at the BIS Update that an electronic licensing system for agricultural and medical exports under the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 (“TSRA”) would debut “soon.” And by “soon” they meant “real soon,” because over the past several days the new system stealthily sneaked onto the OFAC site and is now, it would appear, ready to accept applications.

The new electronic licensing systems are on this page and include not only TSRA applications, but also license for Cuba travel can now be filed electronically. One of the interesting things is that the new electronic TSRA system does not require, as D-Trade and SNAP-R do, that an applicant register to use the system. At first glance, the system seems easy to use, but if readers have had a chance to use it yet, please share with us your experience and reactions to the system in the comments section.

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Sep

8

Sierra-November-Alpha-Foxtrot-Uniform

Posted by Clif Burns at 8:43 pm on September 8, 2010

Category: Export Reform

Military Computers One of the stated goals of export control reform is to unify the export licensing systems used by the Treasury, Commerce and State Departments. Each system — except, of course, for Treasury’s dead-tree system — has it advocates with some rooting for D-Trade, the system used by State, and others rooting for SNAP-R, the Commerce System, to prevail in this war of the Titans. In fact, the winning licensing system will not be any of these but is instead an electronic licensing system that likely is completely unfamiliar to 99.9 percent of exporters.

In the recently posted minutes of the July plenary session of the Defense Trade Advisory Group, Brian Nilsson, a member of the White House’s export control reform task force from the National Security Council, revealed the winner to the audience at DTAG. It is â€¦ (drum roll, please) â€¦ USXPORTS. Say what? USXwhat?

USXPORTS is a system developed by the DoD in 2003 to assist DOD’s internal processing of its review of export license requests at State and Commerce. Part of the goal of USXport was to enable DoD to receive electronic export application forms from State and Commerce, rather than requiring them to roll up paper copies and shoot them through pneumatic tubes to the Pentagon.

Forgive me for being cynical, but this doesn’t strike me as good news. If I were to select a government agency to develop a user-friendly electronic licensing interface, the Pentagon would be at the very bottom of my list. “User-friendly” and “Pentagon” go together about as well as “military” and “music” or “military” and “justice.” Expect something ugly, confusing, clunky and bureaucratic that requires a user to memorize military acronyms, numeric codes, and service jargon. Get used to the 24-hour clock and the military alphabet now before it is too late.

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Sep

7

Washington Times Lashes Out Against Export Reform

Posted by Clif Burns at 8:41 pm on September 7, 2010

As the troubled Washington Times enters into what may be its final days, unless it accepts the cold embrace and re-emergence of its founder, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the paper has turned its back on some of it former friends and given a forum to, of all people, Gary Milhollin of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms. Even though much of export reform is in areas that have nothing to do with Nuclear Arms, Mr. Milhollin — quelle surprise — is no fan of any export reform at all

Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, called the new policy a “defense industry bailout.”

“The financial industry and the auto industry had their bailouts, now it is the defense industry’s turn,” he said.

Mr. Milhollin also said the United States steadily relaxed arms-export controls since the end of the Cold War. “We have already reduced controls to the bone,” he said.

I can only imagine that Mr. Milhollin hasn’t glanced at the Commerce Control List or the United States Munitions List recently or even at all if he can say we have already reduced controls to the bone with a completely straight face.

The number of items on the CCL that have no business being there is, as most readers of this blog will know, significant. My favorite example, of course, is “horses by sea” controlled by ECCN 0A980. But no survey of the oddities of the CCL would be complete without mentioning controls on items easily obtainable throughout the world such as triethanolamine (ECCN C350.c.9) used in cosmetics such as shaving cream. Other unique oddities of the list include thumbcuffs, whips, cattle prods, fingerprint inks, pumps and valves, muzzle-loading pistols and rifles, and optical sights for BB guns.

And the USML has its own share of unnecessary controls, starting with, of course, its legendary controls on military railway trains which have pretty much gone the way of muzzle-loading pistols, catapults, jousting lances, and military calvary brigades as items of warfare. Others include weapons silencers, flash suppressors, rifle parts, body armor, powder bags, and cartridge casings, all of which are readily available outside the United States.

None of this sounds to me like these two lists have been “cut to the bone.”

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Sep

2

Alphabet Soup Title: DDTC Updates FAQs on CJs

Posted by Clif Burns at 9:24 pm on September 2, 2010

Category: DDTC

State Department Yesterday the Department of State’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (“DDTC”) updated the website page of frequently asked questions (“FAQs”) relating to the agency’s commodity jurisdiction (“CJ”) request procedure. Although this update occurs just days before the requirement that all CJ requests must be made on Form DS-4076 and submitted electronically, only one of the revised FAQs relates to this upcoming requirement.

One of the FAQs relating to electronic submission now clarifies the file formats that can be used for supporting documentation. Those formats are BMP, CSV, GIF, JPEG, JPG, PDF, PNG, RTF, TIF, TXT and XML. The other FAQ on electronic submission continues to say that once the CJ request is filed, the only way to submit additional information is by putting it on a CD (!!) and then delivering the physical copy of the CD by horse and buggy to the agency.

Most of the new FAQs deal with general issues that, while known to regular practitioners before the agency, have not previously been stated clearly by the agency. Key among them is the statement that a license is required to export each item subject to a CJ while the CJ is pending. Two new FAQs clarify that a request to change an item from the United States Munitions List to the Commerce Control List can be done by a new CJ request but that a request to change USML category should be made in general correspondence sent to the agency. The other new FAQ is the following:

Submitting Request for Similar or Like Items: I have several items that are very similar. May I submit one CJ covering those items, or a catalog of like items?

The CJ form addresses single items, not a group, family or catalog of items.

Although this is accurate as far as it goes, it does not address the problem of whether various models or configurations of an item are all “single items” or a “group, family or catalog” of items. In the past, DDTC has granted single CJ requests that cover multiple configurations of the same item. Certainly this is easier for the exporter and the agency than the submission of 100 CJ requests for each and every configuration of the same item. Presumably this will remain the case, particularly where the item has the same name but differing model numbers.

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