Comments Requested on the ITAR and DDTC Guidance
On July 14, the Department of State published a notice (82 FR 32493) “seeking comments on Department regulations, guidance documents, and collections of information that you believe should be removed or modified to alleviate unnecessary burdens.”
This is a part of the Department’s implementation of the President’s January 30, 2017 Executive Order 13771, “Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs” and an important opportunity to help make the ITAR and State Department guidance work better for everyone. This includes any guidance on the DDTC website, https://www.pmddtc.state.gov/.
This is an open-ended chance to influence the future of the ITAR and DDTC guidance. Consider any area that poses challenges to your company, including the questions addressed to DTAG below.
Comments may be submitted by internet at www.regulations.gov (Docket No. DOS–2017–0030) or by email to RegsReform@state.gov through August 14, 2017.
DTAG Recommendations Requested
Separately, the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) has asked the Defense Trade Advisory Group (DTAG) to make recommendations about the following topics at the upcoming plenary sessions:
- Whether industry would benefit from a single interagency form for DDTC, BIS, and OFAC.
- Would a single form simplify company processes or is there concern that it would become unmanageably complex?
- Whether batch filing should be expanded to registration, notifications, Commodity Jurisdiction requests, etc. and priorities for this expansion.
- Does your company currently use batch filing? If so, how would expansion help?
- Whether access/authentication methods other than IdenTrust certifications should be considered.
- Does your company have a positive experience with other certifications that should be considered?
- Key areas of concern regarding the 2015 proposed revision of the definition of defense services.
- The originally proposed revision can be found here: 80 FR 31525, June 3, 2015.
- An effective definition of “manufacturing” distinguished from assembly, integration, etc.
- This is in the context of possible revisions of Categories I-III removing most commercial firearms from the ITAR. Are there any changes to the definition that would be more workable?
- Identify alternative, workable methods to control releases of technical data to foreign dual-nationals.
- If releases to foreign dual-nationals are a challenge, what could be improved?
- Assessment of whether new agreements should have a standard expiration date of ten years from the date of approval. The current company-based expiration dates were designed to smooth out DDTC’s workload, but may have the opposite effect on individual companies.
- Do the company-based expiration dates unnecessarily complicate your business?
- For companies that do not always request the full ten years, would a standard expiration date complicate business?
DDTC’s DTAG letter may be found here. DTAG will meet September 8, 2017 to review these recommendations. Many of these questions would also fall under the regulatory reform comment request.