Industry and Security Bureau – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This rule amends the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) by adding fifteen persons to the Entity List (Supplement No. 4 to Part 744) on the basis of section 744.11 of the EAR. The persons who are added to the Entity List have been determined by the U.S. Government to be acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States. These fifteen persons will be listed under the following four destinations on the Entity List: China, Hong Kong, Iran and Singapore. The Entity List provides notice to the public that certain exports, reexports, and transfers (in-country) to parties identified on the Entity List require a license from the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) and that availability of license exceptions in such transactions is limited.

In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 4314(c)(4), the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), Department of Commerce (DOC), announce the appointment of those individuals who have been selected to serve as members of BIS's Performance Review Board. The Performance Review Board is responsible for (1) reviewing performance appraisals and rating of Senior Executive Service (SES) members and (2) making recommendations to the appointing authority on other performance management issues, such as pay adjustments, bonuses and Presidential Rank Awards for SES members. The appointment of these members to the Performance Review Board will be for a period of twenty-four (24) months.

This rule updates the Code of Federal Regulations legal authority citations for the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to include the citation to the President's Notice of August 12, 2011 Continuation of Emergency Regarding Export Control Regulations.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) publishes this final rule to amend the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to implement a decision based on a proposal that was discussed at the 2010 Australia Group (AG) Plenary and adopted under the AG intersessional silent approval procedures in November 2010. Specifically, this rule amends the Commerce Control List (CCL) entry in the EAR that controls human and zoonotic pathogens and ``toxins,'' consistent with the intersessional changes to the AG's ``List of Biological Agents for Export Control.'' First, this rule clarifies the scope of the AG- related controls in the EAR that apply to ``South American haemorrhagic fever (Sabia, Flexal, Guanarito)'' and ``Pulmonary and renal syndrome- haemorrhagic fever viruses (Seoul, Dobrava, Puumala, Sin Nombre)'' by revising the list of viruses in this CCL entry to remove these two fevers and replace them with ten viral causative agents for the fevers. These changes are intended to more clearly identify the causative agents that are of concern for purposes of the controls maintained by the AG. Second, this rule alphabetizes and renumbers the list of viruses in this CCL entry, consistent with the 2010 intersessional changes to the AG control list. Finally, this rule makes an editorial change to the CCL entry that controls human and zoonotic pathogens and ``toxins.'' To assist exporters to more easily identify the bacteria and ``toxins'' that are controlled under this CCL entry, this rule alphabetizes and renumbers the lists of bacteria and ``toxins'' in the entry.

This rule amends the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) by adding fifteen persons under twenty entries to the Entity List (Supplement No. 4 to Part 744) on the basis of section 744.11 of the EAR. The persons being added to the Entity List have been determined by the U.S. Government to be acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States. These persons will be listed under the following six destinations on the Entity List: Cyprus, Greece, Iran, Syria, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom (U.K.). In addition, this rule amends the EAR to implement modifications to the Entity List on the basis of the annual review of the Entity List conducted by the End-User Review Committee (ERC), which the ERC conducts to determine if any entities on the Entity List should be removed or modified. This rule implements the results of the annual review for entities located in Syria. Lastly, this rule makes a clarification to an existing entry located in China to clarify the relationship of a listed alias to the existing entry and to provide additional information on the alias.

This rule amends the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) by adding eight persons to the Entity List (Supplement No. 4 to part 744) on the basis of section 744.11 of the EAR. The persons who are added to the Entity List have been determined by the U.S. Government to be acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States. These eight persons will be listed under the following three destinations on the Entity List: France, Iran and the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.). The Entity List provides notice to the public that certain exports, reexports, and transfers (in-country) to parties identified on the Entity List require a license from the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) and that availability of license exceptions in such transactions is limited.

This final rule revises the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to implement changes made to the Wassenaar Arrangement's List of Dual Use Goods and Technologies (Wassenaar List) maintained and agreed to by governments participating in the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual Use Goods and Technologies (Wassenaar Arrangement, or WA) at the December 2009 WA Plenary Meeting (the Plenary) that relate to Export Control Classification Number (ECCN) 4A003. These changes agreed to at the Plenary pertain to raising the Adjusted Peak Performance (APP) for digital computers in ECCN 4A003. In accordance with the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 1998, the President's report for High Performance Computers was sent to Congress on February 7, 2011, to identify and set forth a justification for the new APP. This rule also makes corresponding revisions to License Exception APP, the de minimis rule, and post shipment verification reporting requirements in the EAR. Additionally, this rule moves Albania and Croatia from Computer Tier 3 to Computer Tier 1 in the section of the EAR dedicated to export control requirements for high performance computers. The Administration believes Albania and Croatia are eligible to be treated as Computer Tier 1 countries because their governments have made the necessary reforms to allow the countries to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and have adopted accepted global standards in export controls.

This document corrects errors in a final rule published by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) in the Federal Register on Friday, May 20, 2011 that revised the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) by amending entries for certain items that are controlled for national security reasons in Categories 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Parts I & II, 6, 7, 8, and 9; adding and amending definitions to the EAR; and revising reporting requirements. That final rule contained errors concerning radial ball bearings, as well as editorial mistakes.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is removing from the scope of items subject to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) ``publicly available'' mass market encryption object code software with a symmetric key length greater than 64-bits, and ``publicly available'' encryption object code classified under Export Control Classification Number (ECCN) 5D002 on the Commerce Control List when the corresponding source code meets the criteria specified under License Exception TSU. This change is being made pursuant to a determination by BIS that, because there are no regulatory restrictions on making such software ``publicly available,'' and because, once it is ``publicly available,'' by definition it is available for download by any end user without restriction, removing it from the jurisdiction of the EAR will have no effect on export control policy. This action will not result in the decontrol of source code classified under ECCN 5D002, but it will result in a simplification of the regulatory provisions for publicly available mass market software and specified encryption software in object code.

This document corrects a typographical error in the address for submitting e-mail comments that appeared in a proposed rule, ``Export Control Modernization: Strategic Trade Authorization License Exception,'' published on December 9, 2010.

This rule updates the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) legal authority citations for the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to replace citations to the President's Notice of November 6, 2009, Continuation of Emergency Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, with citation to the President's Notice of November 4, 2010 on the same subject. This rule also updates the authority citation for one executive order to reflect the compilation of that executive order into title 3 of the CFR. BIS is making these changes to keep the CFR's legal authority citations for the EAR current.

As part of the President's export control reform initiative, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) seeks public comments on how the descriptions of items controlled on the Commerce Control List (CCL) of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) could be more clear and positive and ``tiered'' in a manner consistent with the control criteria the Administration has developed as part of the reform effort. The request for comments on how items on the CCL could be tiered includes a request for comments on the degree to which a controlled item provides the United States with a critical, substantial, or significant military or intelligence advantage; and the availability of the item outside certain groups of countries.

The Department of Commerce, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, invites the general public and other Federal agencies to take this opportunity to comment on proposed and/or continuing information collections, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is proposing to implement an on-line registration process for obtaining an account to submit license applications and similar documents electronically. The current registration process requires paper and facsimile submissions. This proposed rule sets forth the information that parties registering on-line would be required to provide to BIS and sets forth the duties that registered parties would have with respect to keeping information in their accounts current.