Amid Delays, BIS Intends to Hold First ETTAC Meeting in Spring

The Commerce Department plans to hold the first meeting of its Emerging Technology Technical Advisory Committee this spring amid several delays in issuing prospective members their security clearances. A Bureau of Industry and Security spokesperson said the agency remains “on target” to hold the meeting before the summer despite Commerce officials originally scheduling the meeting for December, and then January, before pushing it back each time (see 2001290032).

Some ETTAC applicants are growing impatient with the delay and the absence of a clear explanation from BIS officials, according to a trade lawyer with clients who applied to the committee. BIS has recruited members for ETTAC since at least August 2018 and issued another notice of recruitment in December (see 1912300022). “The security clearances keep getting longer and longer,” the lawyer said, adding that perhaps BIS’s ETTAC security clearances are not a priority for the administration. “People who applied are frustrated that it’s taking a long time.”

Several trade lawyers said they have heard little from BIS. Adrienne Braumiller, a trade lawyer with Braumiller Law Group and a member of BIS’s Regulations and Procedures TAC, said she has “no clear understanding” of why the process has taken so long, calling it “rather protracted and lengthy.” Doug Jacobson of Jacobson Burton Kelley said he has heard about “numerous delays in the process” but has not heard why. Kevin Wolf, an Akin Gump trade lawyer and Commerce's assistant secretary for export administration from 2010 to 2017, said he didn’t realize BIS had not yet held the first meeting. “I have not heard a thing,” he said.

Once its first meeting is held, the ETTAC’s “primary focus” will be to identify emerging technologies with dual-use applications, according to its charter. Those efforts will aid and inform Commerce’s effort in restricting sales of emerging technologies, which has also faced a series of delays (see 2002040057). So far, Commerce has released two sets of controls on emerging technologies (see 2001030024 and 1905220051) without input from an ETTAC.

Wolf said that TACs were “enormously helpful” during his time at Commerce, but said there is “no magic rule” for how to best use them. “It’s all about how they’re used and how often they meet and how often BIS solicits advice,” he said. “It’s truly a function of how much BIS wants to work with them.”

TACs can be “very helpful” for BIS officials who want to draw from industry knowledge, said Peter Lichtenbaum, a Covington & Burling trade lawyer who was assistant secretary of Commerce for export administration from 2003 to 2006. Although BIS tends to have a “pretty good understanding” of the regulated sector, Commerce “doesn’t always have complete data,” Lichtenbaum said. “These people are best able to tell you where the technology roadmap is going.”