“Regulating the export of these thousands of ‘dual-use’ items poses a particularly vexing challenge for our country, and is a core responsibility of the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS). For this reason, President Bush recently announced a number of historic initiatives to make our export licensing process smarter and more efficient – and one better suited to ensure proper levels of visibility and control over dual-use technologies that could one day be used to harm our nation or her friends.

“But we can and should do more. To complement these regulatory efforts, Congress should move quickly to provide our law enforcement agents with the full range of statutory authorities they need to more effectively combat illegal trade in these goods.

“Since 2001, our nation’s bedrock dual-use export control law, the Export Administration Act (EAA), has been in lapse. And since then, this Administration has worked to bring it back into force.”

Currently, the agency uses temporary, emergency powers granted by the President under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. “The temporary authorities we now have are useful, but they do not eliminate the need for the full set of tools the new EEA would provide. As technology know-how, supply chains and markets become more global, effectively denying the sale of sensitive U.S. technologies to those who would harm us has become more difficult—and urgent. Foreign locations now increasingly serve as the venue of commercial activities that pose a threat to U.S. national security, and we need to enhance our law enforcement capabilities to investigate, uncover and stop these activities wherever they may occur.”