Combating Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction

controlled items, the Commerce Control List, in consultation with other U.S. Governmentagencies, and formulating and implementing export license policy. EA promulgates theExport Administration Regulations (EAR) which implement this policy.Since 1991, EA has worked to refine the Commerce Control List to reflect the shift fromEast-West controls to controls based on the non-proliferation efforts of the U.S. Manycommodities were decontrolled based on advances of technology and there was arealignment of remaining controls along the proliferation-related regimes. In 1994, EAunderwent a major reorganization to reflect the state of export controls in the post-ColdWar period. This reorganization reflected changing U.S. national security, foreign policy,non-proliferation and economic security objectives. In 1991, EA undertook a major effortto implement these new objectives and rewrote the Export Administration Regulationsentirely to streamline the export licensing process.Export Administration is now divided into five offices, four of which are devoted largely orexclusively to activities related to combating proliferation: 21• Office of Exporter Services• Office of Strategic Trade and Foreign Policy Controls• Office of Nuclear and Missile Technology• Office of Chemical and Biological Controls and Treaty ComplianceThere are approximately 140 employees in these four offices.EA receives, reviews, and decides export license applications for items on the CommerceControl List. EA received about 11,000 export license applications in fiscal year 1998.Processing requires assessing the potential proliferation and strategic uses of an item,verifying the end-use and end-user, and consulting with other agencies who review theseapplications, including the Departments of State, Defense (DoD), Energy (DOE), and theDCI Nonproliferation Center (NPC) (as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation forencryption and foreign national technology transfer cases).In 1998, to comply with the provisions of the NDAA regarding the export of highperformancecomputers, EA revised the EAR to reflect the new ten-day notificationrequirement prior to the export of HPCs to Tier 3 countries, which include most countriesof proliferation concern. This change resulted in about a ten percent increase in thenumber of applications received by EA.21The Office of Strategic Industries and Economic Analysis is tangentially related to proliferation by workingto assure the competitiveness of U.S. defense industries.80