Export Control Reforms to Be Announced Today

President Obama will announce reforms to the U.S. export control system today according to a fact sheet released by the White House. The reforms are “a major step forward in the Administration’s efforts to fundamentally reform the export control system” and “will help strengthen our national security” according to the release.

Included in the reforms are overhauls of the State Department’s Munitions List and the Commerce Department’s Commerce Control List. They will be structured as “positive lists” that describe “controlled items using objective criteria … rather than broad, open-ended, subjective, catch-all, or design intent-based criteria,” which will “end most, if not all, jurisdictional disputes and ambiguities…”

The lists then will be split into three tiers, which the fact sheet explains as follows:

• Items in the highest tier are those that provide a critical military or intelligence advantage to the United States and are available almost exclusively from the United States, or items that are a weapon of mass destruction.
• Items in the middle tier are those that provide a substantial military or intelligence advantage to the United States and are available almost exclusively from our multilateral partners and Allies.
• Items in the lowest tier are those that provide a significant military or intelligence advantage but are available more broadly.

Licensing policies and export enforcement also will change. The White House said that it will continue to work with Congress and the export control community on its longer range goal of combining all of these activities “under a single licensing agency and single export enforcement coordination agency.”