Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 4653 - Export Facilitation Act of 1990

(House)
(Gejdenson (D) Connecticut and 28 others)

H.R. 4653 contains provisions that raise serious constitutional or policy concerns and impinge significantly on the President's flexibility to respond rapidly to evolving national security and foreign policy needs. If the bill were presented to the President in its current form, his senior advisers would recommend that he veto it.

The Administration shares the goal of modernizing the export control system in recognition of recent political and economic developments in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. However, H.R. 4653 is severely flawed because it:

—  constrains and impermissibly infringes upon the President's authority to negotiate effectively multilateral controls that would permit legitimate civil exports while safeguarding strategic security concerns;

—  is incompatible with policy decisions by the President and undermines critical negotiations with our allies beginning with the June High Level COCOM meeting;

—  requires disclosure of U. S. proposals to COCOM which is inconsistent with the secrecy with which the President may wish to conduct negotiations;

—  introduces administrative rigidities into the export control system;

—  dictates internal Executive branch procedures and decision processes, including setting a time limit on Presidential resolution of inter-agency disputes. Such provisions are inconsistent with the Constitution's grant of authority to the President to manage the internal operations of the Executive branch;

—  equates the U. S. Munitions List with the COCOM International Munitions List, thereby reducing Presidential discretion to determine what items should be considered "munitions" and whether certain items or technologies should be exported to unstable regions, such as the Middle East;

—  makes the provisions of the EAA self-executing which denies the responsible agencies the ability to implement the EAA in a balanced, effective, and integrated way. This limits the President's ability to balance competing national security and foreign affairs concerns; and

—  unnecessarily expands judicial review to all actions relating to the administration of the EAA. The courts can already consider actions relating to any illegal administration of the EAA. However, the bill inappropriately substitutes the courts for the Executive in resolving export control issues which require the evaluation and balancing of complex foreign affairs concerns.

The Administration urges Congress to enact only a simple one-year extension of the Export Administration Act.