Industry and Security Bureau August 2005 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

On July 18, 2005, President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced the completion of the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership (NSSP) with India. The proposed cooperation outlined in the NSSP has progressed through a series of reciprocal steps that built on one another, including steps related to creating the appropriate environment for successful high-technology commerce. This rule implements two steps the United States has agreed to take as part of the final phase of NSSP, namely, the removal of license requirements for exports and reexports of items controlled unilaterally by the United States for nuclear nonproliferation reasons to India and the removal of six Indian entities from the Entity List.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is publishing this final rule to amend the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to implement the understandings reached at the April 2005 plenary meeting of the Australia Group (AG). Specifically, this final rule amends the EAR to implement changes to the AG ``Control List of Dual-Use Chemical Manufacturing Facilities and Equipment and Related Technology'' by revising the Commerce Control List (CCL) entry that controls certain pumps that can be used to make chemical weapons or AG-controlled precursor chemicals. This rule also amends the EAR to implement changes to the AG ``Control List of Dual-Use Biological Equipment'' by revising the CCL entry that controls equipment capable of use in handling biological materials to add certain spraying or fogging systems, spray booms or arrays of aerosol generating units, and components therefor. In addition, this rule amends the CCL entry that controls certain genetic elements and genetically modified organisms by revising the Technical Note in the entry to clarify the scope of the controls on genetic elements and genetically modified organisms that contain nucleic acid sequences associated with the pathogenicity of any AG- controlled microorganisms, consistent with the AG ``Control List of Biological Agents,'' the AG ``Control List of Animal Pathogens,'' and the AG ``Control List of Plant Pathogens.'' This rule also amends the EAR to reflect the addition of Ukraine to the Australia Group and updates the definition of ``Australia Group'' in the EAR to include a current listing of all participating countries. Finally, this rule updates the list of countries that currently are States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) by adding ``Niue,'' which recently became a State Party. As a result of this change, the CW (Chemical Weapons) license requirements and policies in the EAR that apply to Niue now conform with those applicable to other CWC States Parties. This rule also clarifies the entry for the ``Netherlands'' on the list of CWC States Parties by adding a footnote to this entry to indicate that, for CWC purposes only, the Netherlands includes ``Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles.'' This rule further updates the list by removing ``Yugoslavia (Federal Republic of)'' and replacing it with ``Serbia and Montenegro.''