International Law Advisory - BIS Establishes Technical Advisory Committee on Emerging Technology and Research

The Department of the Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) today announced the creation of a new Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) and invited public and private sector experts to apply for membership. See 73 Fed. Reg. 101 at 30048-30049.  The new Emerging Technology and Research Advisory Committee (ETRAC) has a mandate to identify emerging technologies and research and development activities that may be of interest from a dual-use perspective, prioritize new and existing controls related to deemed exports to determine which are of greatest consequence to national security, and examine how research is performed to understand the impact that the Export Administration Regulations have on academia, federal laboratories, and industry.

By way of background, BIS’s TACs advise the Department of Commerce (the “Department”) on the technical parameters for export controls applicable to dual-use commodities and technology and on the administration of those controls.  The TACs are composed of representatives from industry and Government and ideally represent diverse points of view on the concerns of the exporting community.  Industry representatives are selected from firms producing a broad range of goods, technologies, and software presently controlled for national security, foreign policy, nonproliferation, and short supply reasons or that are proposed for such controls. 

 The ETRAC was formed under the terms of section 5(h) of the Export Administration Act of 1979, as amended, 50 U.S.C. app. 2401-2420 (2000), the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, 50 U.S.C. 1701-1707 (2007), and the Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C. app. 2 (2005)).  It was established on the basis of public comments submitted to BIS last year regarding the Commerce Control List (“CCL”), the report recently issued by the Deemed Export Advisory Committee (charged with making recommendations to the Secretary of Commerce regarding BIS’s deemed export policy), and a new Presidential directive calling for BIS to regularly reassess and update the CCL. 

 The ETRAC will advise the Department and other agency officials on (i) identifying emerging technologies and research and development activities that may be of interest from a dual-use perspective; (ii) prioritizing new and existing controls to determine which are of greatest consequence to national security from a deemed export perspective; and (iii) addressing the implications of dual-use export control requirements on research activities.  Interested private and public sector persons are invited to apply for membership by June 24, 2008.

Please contact Ed Krauland at 202.429.8083 or ekrauland@steptoe.com in our Washington , DC office if you have any questions regarding ETRAC, other TACs, or related matters.