ACCESSION NUMBER:328605 FILE ID:ECO405 DATE:02/24/94 TITLE:CLINTON ADMINISTRATION SUBMITS EXPORT-CONTROL REFORM BILL (02/24/94) TEXT:*94022405.ECO ECEXPOLD EXP CONTROLS /te CLINTON ADMINISTRATION SUBMITS EXPORT-CONTROL REFORM BILL (Also announces easing of computer export controls) (790) By Bruce Odessey USIA Staff Writer Washington -- The Clinton administration has submitted long-awaited legislation for reforming the U.S. export-control system, but exporters called the proposal far from adequate. At the same time, the administration announced significant relaxation of controls on exports of computers. The legislation offered February 24 involves the Export Administration Act (EAA), expiring June 30 and last overhauled in 1979. The EAA aimed to prevent export of advanced technology to the former Soviet Union and Soviet bloc countries. Two goals -- difficult to reconcile -- permeate the EAA legislative proposal: moving away from the Cold War threat to the present threat of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, while not putting U.S. industry at a disadvantage with foreign competitors. According to Barry Carter, acting under secretary of commerce, the administration bill would use multilateral controls where possible, especially working through the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Australia Group (concerned with chemical and biological weapons) and the Nuclear Suppliers Group. The bill would continue use of unilateral controls "when absolutely necessary," however, Carter said, to promote such U.S. foreign-policy goals as anti-terrorism, human rights and stability in unstable regions of the world. 1 Industry groups complained especially about continued use of unilateral controls "where the only entity harmed are American companies, not the targeted country," said Willard Workman, vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Under the administration proposal, unilateral controls would have to be reviewed annually and extended only if they were deemed likely to continue to make substantial progress toward achieving certain goals: -- modifying or constraining the undesirable conduct of policies of the target country. -- denying the target country access to controlled items from all sources. -- substantially assisting efforts to achieve multilateral cooperation to deny the target country access to controlled items from all sources. Industry groups favor a competing bill that would essentially remove all unilateral controls except under much stricter conditions. Industry spokesmen complained also that often multilateral controls amount to unilateral controls because only the United States bothers to enforce them. In rebuttal, administration officials defended the non-proliferation regimes as working well and growing stronger all the time. The 100-page administration bill contains these other elements: -- tighter deadlines for decisions in export-control licensing disputes. Such disputes would have to be resolved within 90 days of filing of the application or be referred to the president for resolution. -- more rights for petition by exporters for relief from export controls when goods are available elsewhere in the world or expected to become available soon, when the U.S. control places the U.S. company at a disadvantage to a foreign competitor, or when the government is unable to enforce the controls effectively. -- making more consistent the sanctions for violation of export controls on missile technology, chemical weapons and biological weapons. Also February 24 the administration raised, once again, the threshold for requiring a license on many computer exports. Only in October the Commerce Department raised the threshold from 12.5 million theoretical operations per second (MTOPS), equivalent to an Apple Macintosh personal computer, to 195 MTOPS, a low-end computer workstation. Now the department has raised the threshold to 260 MTOPS for most COCOM-proscribed countries such as Russia, to 500 MTOPS for developing countries for which there is a nuclear proliferation concern, and to 1,000 MTOPS for most other developing countries. The department raised the threshold definition for a supercomputer from 195 to 1,500 MTOPS, eliminating the need for rigorous safeguard conditions on many exports. Also February 24, Lynn Davis, under secretary of state, testified before a Senate Banking subcommittee about resistance to the U.S. proposal for a successor regime to the Cold War export-control alliance, the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM). The members -- Australia, Japan and the NATO countries except Iceland -- agreed in December to put COCOM out of business March 31. She said the United States wanted most that a successor regime ensure stability in the Middle East and South Asia and prevent acquisition of dangerous technology by states such as North Korea, Libya, Iraq and Iran. 1 One difficulty, she said, was getting all the COCOM members to agree that Iran should be considered one of the dangerous proscribed countries. Another, she said, was gauging Russia's willingness to join the successor regime as a full participant. If negotiations fail to achieve agreement before March 31, she said, the present COCOM members have agreed to continue enforcing the controls, albeit with more national discretion. They also agreed to continue preventing exports of certain sensitive technology to Russia, China and other former Soviet bloc countries, she said. NNNN .