On May 20, 2008, the House Foreign Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade held a hearing on "Export Compliance: Ensuring Safety, Increasing Efficiency."
The Bureau of Industry and Security has issued a reminder of the obligations of U.S. industry to report to the BIS, no later than June 15th of each year, offsets agreement and transaction data for the previous calendar year.
At the April 2008 National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America's Annual Conference, U.S. government officials discussed the Automated Export System (AES) and other export related issues.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is requesting comments by August 18, 2008 on two recommendations made by the Deemed Export Advisory Committee in 20071 with respect to BIS' deemed export licensing policy, as follows:
At the April 2008 National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America's Annual Conference, an Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) official discussed a variety of export-related issues. Highlights of her remarks include the following points:
The Census Bureau has issued a press release announcing that the U.S.' international deficit in goods and services decreased to $58.23 billion in March 2008 from $61.7 billion (revised) in February, as imports decreased more than exports. (Census press release, dated 05/09/08, available at http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/current_press_release/ft900.pdf)
Washington Trade Daily reports the Secretary of Agriculture Schafer as acknowledging that Congress may have enough votes to override a Presidential veto of the conference version of the Farm Bill. (WTD, dated 05/12/08, www.washingtontradedaily.com )
The House Agriculture Committee reports that on May 8, 2008, Congressional negotiators announced a final Farm Bill conference agreement. According to a Committee fact sheet, the conference agreement includes, among many other things, a provision to make country-of-origin labeling for meat and produce mandatory. (House Agriculture Committee statement available at http://agriculture.house.gov/inside/FarmBill.html; Fact Sheet on conference agreement summary available at http://agriculture.house.gov/inside/Legislation/110/FB/Conf/FarmBillOnePager.pdf.)
President Bush has issued Executive Order (EO) 13464, effective May 1, 2008 at 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time, expanding the Burma (Myanmar) sanctions by blocking the property or interests in property of additional "persons" (i.e. individuals or entities).
The General Services Administration has posted to its RegInfo.gov Web site the Spring 2008 semi-annual regulatory agendas for Federal government agencies.