Industry and Security Bureau December 2009 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This final rule amends title 15 of the Code of Federal Regulations, part 701, which implements Section 309 of the Defense Production Act of 1950 (``Section 309''), as amended. The Bureau of Industry and Security (``BIS'') is amending part 701 to update and provide clarification with regard to the information U.S. firms are required to submit each year to BIS to support BIS's preparation of the annual report to Congress on offsets in defense trade.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is publishing this final rule to amend certain requirements in the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) that apply to Albania and Croatia. These changes are based upon the accession of Albania and Croatia to formal membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on April 1, 2009. Consistent with the EAR license requirements and licensing policies that apply to members of NATO, this final rule amends the EAR to remove certain crime control (CC), national security (NS), and regional stability (RS) license requirements for these two countries. A license continues to be required for exports and reexports to Albania or Croatia of items on the Commerce Control List (CCL) controlled for national security or regional stability reasons that are identified as requiring a license to destinations indicated under NS Column 1 (also NS Column 2, for Albania) or RS Column 1, respectively, on the Commerce Country Chart. Certain restraint devices, discharge type arms, and related technology described on the CCL continue to require a license for crime control reasons to Albania or Croatia. A license also continues to be required for specially designed implements of torture described on the CCL. Furthermore, this rule does not affect any license requirements that apply to these countries based on other reasons for control identified in the EAR. This final rule also removes the EAR prohibition that applied to certain in transit shipments through Albania, removes Albania from Country Group D, and adds Albania to Country Group B. Croatia has already been designated in the EAR as a Country Group B country. In addition, this rule amends the provisions of License Exception APR (Additional Permissive Reexports) that apply to reexports of certain thermal imaging cameras to include Albania and Croatia among the list of eligible destinations. Finally, this rule amends the definition of ``NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)'' in the EAR to include Albania and Croatia.

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 eliminate the use of most paper documents that it sends to parties having business before the agency. The documents that would be affected by this proposed rule are: Export and reexport licenses, notices of denial of license applications, notices of return of a license application without action, classification results, License Exception AGR notification results and encryption review request results. This proposed rule would modify the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to implement those changes. This proposed rule also would make changes to the recordkeeping requirements associated with the elimination of paper documents. BIS is proposing to make these changes to reduce mailing costs and to free up staff time currently devoted to mailing these documents for use in other tasks.