OMB Approves BIS Marine Toxics Request for Comments

Yesterday the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had approved a request for comments from the DOC’s Bureau of Industry and Security for “Commerce Control List: Proposed Controls on Certain Marine Toxins”.  According to the Fall 2021 Unified Agenda listing for this rulemaking:

“The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is publishing this final rule to amend certain Export Control Classification Numbers (ECCNs) on the Commerce Control List (CCL) to reflect recent updates to the Australia Group (AG) Common Control Lists.”

As I noted when this RFC was sent to OIRA, it looks like BIS is going to continue to use these RFC’s as a substitute for ‘notices of proposed rulemaking’ where they are authorized to use a direct rulemaking process. It drags out changes to the CCL (making for some export/import coordination issues), but it should help BIS avoid some of the problems they have been having with their direct rulemaking process.