ACCESSION NUMBER:00000
FILE ID:96032201.ECO
DATE:03/22/96
TITLE:22-03-96 HOUSE PANEL ADVANCES BILL REWRITING U.S. EXPORT-CONTROL LAW
TEXT:
(Similar attempts have failed for years) (890)
By Bruce Odessey
USIA Staff Writer
Washington -- A House of Representatives subcommittee has advanced
legislation, achieved with precarious balance, to revise the U.S.
export-control system, relaxing some controls and tightening others.
The bill was approved March 22 by voice vote in a House International
Relations subcommittee, moving it to consideration by the full
committee, tentatively March 29.
Republicans defeated three amendments offered by the subcommittee's
ranking Democrat that would have relaxed controls further. The Clinton
administration joined the Republicans in opposing two of the
amendments.
Still required for the bill to become law are passage by the full
House and Senate, a complicated task given the short, crowded
election-year legislative calendar.
Since the Cold War-era Export Administration Act (EAA) of 1979 expired
two years ago, U.S. export controls have been kept in place under
emergency law -- by fiat, critics have argued.
Attempts by Congress over six years to rewrite the EAA have foundered
on squabbles among the State, Defense and Commerce departments and
their related oversight committees in the House and Senate.
Representative Toby Roth, Republican chairman of the House
subcommittee, said he has finally worked out legislation acceptable to
the Clinton administration, Republican leaders in Congress and,
perhaps most importantly, the House National Security Committee, which
scuttled a 1994 bill.
He said crafting the bill required nearly weekly meetings for 14
months between his staff and White House staff.
"I am confident that we have a bill that will pass muster with the
National Security Committee," Roth said.
In line with the aims of multilateral non-proliferation regimes, the
bill would prohibit exports of any goods used in producing weapons of
mass destruction to any country not a member of, or cooperating with,
the following regimes: the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR),
the Australia Group for chemical and biological weapons, the Nuclear
Suppliers Group (NSG) and the new Wassenaar Arrangement for advanced
technology.
The bill also would generally prohibit unilaterally the export of any
controlled goods to identified terrorist countries.
Reflecting business complaints, however, the bill would impose strict
conditions on unilateral U.S. export controls. Such controls would
expire after 12 months unless they were adopted multilaterally,
incorporated in an embargo, or extended by the president under even
stricter conditions.
The bill would cut almost by half -- to 90 -- the number of days
allowed by the government to make a decision on most export-control
license applications. President Clinton already effected similar
streamlining changes in December by executive order.
In one move toward tightening, the bill would eliminate an existing
provision mandating removal of export controls on U.S. products found
to be widely available in the global market from non-U.S. suppliers.
It would establish a procedure, however, allowing an exporter to
petition the federal government to remove a control because of such
foreign availability.
One of the three defeated proposed amendments offered by ranking
Democrat Representative Sam Gejdenson concerned this right to
petition. He wanted to authorize petitions not only for foreign
availability, but also in conditions when the government could not
control sale of the good domestically and when a control placed a U.S.
producer at a disadvantage with a foreign competitor.
The administration supported this Gejdenson proposal, but Chairman
Roth persuaded his Republican colleagues to defeat it, arguing it
would cost the support of the National Security Committee needed for
the bill. One Republican argued that the proposed language would tempt
administration officials to consider such petitions on the basis of
politics, not security.
The administration opposed two other Gejdenson proposals that were
also voted down in the subcommittee although he indicated he might
resubmit them for consideration by the full International Relations
Committee.
One would mandate U.S. import sanctions against countries that violate
nuclear proliferation agreements; at present, the government has
authority to impose only export sanctions in such cases, to the
detriment mostly of U.S. business.
"We do have concerns," William Reinsch, under secretary of commerce,
said at his first glimpse of the proposal. "This is not an
insignificant expansion of sanctions. It's not a small issue -- it's a
big issue."
Republicans expressed some interest in the proposal, however, if it
could be reworded to give the president discretion on imposing
sanctions.
Gejdenson's other proposal would cap the licensing process at 30 days
plus 15 days more for the government to investigate previously unknown
foreign buyers.
Gejdenson argued that Roth's licensing timetable exceeded shelf life
for some rapidly changing technology and complained that the bill
lacked a deadline for contentious cases that were escalated to the
president for a final decision.
Roth argued that Gejdenson's proposal was unnecessary because already
97 percent of license applications are decided in 30 days or fewer. He
said the government needs more time to investigate more-complicated
cases, especially now that pariah states have begun to use dummy front
companies in third countries to purchase proscribed goods.
Roth's bill would also reauthorize controls on exports of all kinds of
goods in short supply to U.S. industry, not just those used for
weapons. And it would continue to prohibit U.S. businesses from
complying with foreign boycotts like the Arab League secondary boycott
of Israel.
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