Commerce Revises CCL to Reflect Wassenaar Plenary
On May 23, 2019, the Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) published a rule (84 FR 23886) which amends the Commerce Control List (CCL) to reflect changes made to the Wassenaar Arrangement List of Dual-Use Goods and Technologies at the December 2018 Plenary meeting.
The Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies is a global multilateral export control regime, covering both conventional weapons and sensitive dual-use goods and technologies. Participants agree to control exports and retransfers of items on a control list of dual-use goods and technologies and munitions. Its Plenary meeting normally occurs once a year in December in Vienna, Austria. CCL revisions take effect when officially amended through a Federal Register notice. (Click here for last year’s updates.)
The new rule revises four Export Control Classification Numbers (ECCNs) and adds one new ECCN as follows:
- 3A001 Electronic Items – Adds paragraph b.3.f. to control discrete microwave transistors “rated for operation with a peak saturated power output greater than 5 W (37.0 dBm) at all frequencies exceeding 8.5 GHz up to and including 31.8 GHz”.
- 3D005 Continuity of Operation Software – Creates a new ECCN for software that ensures continuity of operation when electronics are exposed to Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) or Electrostatic Discharge (ESD).
- 5A002 Information Security Systems, Equipment, and Components – Revises Technical Notes following 5A002.a.4 to address certain post-quantum asymmetric algorithms.
- 6A001 Acoustic Systems, Equipment and Components – Revises paragraph a.2.a.6 to add “and having a ‘hydrophone sensitivity’ better than -230 dB below 4 kHz” to remove transducers or hydrophones that are not of strategic concern, moves and revises two notes, and corrects availability of the License Exception Low Value Shipment (LVS)
- 9A004 Space Launch Vehicles and Spacecraft – Adds paragraph .g to control aircraft specially designed or modified to be air-launch platforms for space launch vehicles.
Venezuela
The following day, May 24, 2019, BIS published a rule (84 FR 24018) removing Venezuela from Country Group B and moving it to Country Group D:1, as well as D:2, D:3, and D:4.
Country Group B provides favorable treatment for exports of some National Security-controlled items through the GBS license exception (EAR §740.4), while Country Group D identifies countries of concern:
D:1 National security
D:2 Nuclear
D:3 Chemical & Biological
D:4 Missile Technology
D:5 U.S. Arms Embargoed Countries
The move from Group B to Group D makes some exports, reexports, and transfers ineligible for license exceptions and updates the published BIS licensing policy towards Venezuela to a more restrictive position.
Before this change, Venezuela was already listed as a D:5 U.S. arms embargo country based on its status as a prohibited destination under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) §126.1. Venezuela was also already subject to EAR restrictions for military end users under §744.21 and significant financial sanctions through the Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
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