ITAR Amendment: Revision of U.S. Munitions List Category XV and Definition of “Defense Service”
Revision of Category XV: Public Law 105-261, the Strom Thurmond National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999, required that space-related items, including all satellites, were to be controlled as defense articles and removed the President’s authority to change their jurisdictional status.
Section 1248 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (Pub. L. 111-84) provided that the Secretaries of Defense and State carry out an assessment of the risks associated with removing satellites and related components from the USML. The Departments of Defense and State conducted this review and identified certain satellites and related items that do not contain technologies unique to the United States, are not critical to national security, and are more appropriately controlled by the EAR, which allows for the creation of license exceptions for exports to certain destinations and complete controls for exports to others. This report was provided to the Congress in April 2012.
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 (Pub. L. 112-239), in section 1261, effectively returned to the President the authority to determine which regulations govern the export of satellites and related articles. With this authority, and pursuant to the President’s Export Control Reform effort, the Department proposes the following revisions to USML Category XV.
Paragraphs (a) and (e) are to be revised to more specifically describe the articles controlled therein.
Paragraph (b) is to be revised to limit its scope to ground control systems and training simulators specially designed for telemetry, tracking, and control of spacecraft in paragraph (a).
The articles currently covered in paragraph (c), certain Global Positioning System receiving equipment, are proposed to be controlled on the USML under Category XII. Until a revised USML Category XII is implemented, these articles will continue to be covered in USML Category XV(c).
The articles currently covered in paragraph (d), certain radiation-hardened microelectronic circuits, are to be controlled on the CCL in new ECCN 9A515.d.
Additionally, articles common to the Missile Technology Control Regime Annex and the USML are to be identified on the USML, including in USML Category XV, with the parenthetical “(MT)” at the end of each section containing such articles.
A new “(x) paragraph” has been added to USML Category XV, allowing ITAR licensing for commodities, software, and technical data subject to the EAR provided those commodities, software, and technical data are to be used in or with defense articles controlled in USML Category XV and are described in the purchase documentation submitted with the application.
Although the proposed revisions to the USML do not preclude the possibility that satellites and related items in normal commercial use would or should be ITAR-controlled because, e.g., they provide the United States with a critical military or intelligence advantage, the U.S. Government does not want to inadvertently control items on the ITAR that are in normal commercial use. The public is thus asked to provide specific examples of satellites and related items, if any, that would be controlled by the revised USML Category XV that are now in normal commercial use.
