The United States has employed export control laws continuously since 1940. The first controls aimed to avoid scarcity of critical commodities during World War II. Cold War-era controls aimed mostly at preventing diversion of advanced technology to the Soviet bloc and China. Later, more and more controls aimed at changing behavior of foreign countries.

Following is a list of U.S. export-control laws. The number in parentheses is the date on which the law went into effect.

Export Administration Act of 1979 (EAA) (September 29, 1979)

The Export Administration Act (EAA) authorizes the president to control exports of U.S. goods and technology to all foreign destinations, as necessary for the purpose of national security, foreign policy, and short supply.

The Commerce Department administers the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), which implement the EAA, even though the EAA expired in August 1994. President Clinton has kept the EAA export controls in force since then by executive order under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Although this use of emergency powers has faced legal challenge from time to time, no challenge has succeeded yet.

Regulated by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Export Administration (BXA) are exports of "dual-use" advanced technology and materials having both military and civilian applications.

Congress has failed five times over seven years to reform the Cold War-era EAA because of persistent differences between defense and commercial interests. Now Congress will tackle EAA once more, starting with an October hearing in a House subcommittee.

Reflecting their Cold War origin, Commerce's export controls make distinctions between those imposed for national security and those for foreign policy reasons.

The objective of national security controls was to maintain a qualitative weapons advantage for the United States against the former Soviet bloc and China. The countries still subject to national security controls are the former republics of the Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria, China, Cuba, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, North Korea, Romania, and Vietnam.

The objective of the foreign policy controls was to promote change in behavior by other countries. Most of the controls aim at halting proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and reducing support for terrorism.

Two years ago President Clinton submitted a legislative proposal for EAA reform that would have departed from the distinction between national security and foreign policy controls. Instead, it would have made a basic distinction between multilateral and unilateral controls.

By executive order in 1990, President Bush vastly increased the scope of export controls aimed at halting proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and missiles. Bush's Enhanced Proliferation Control Initiative (EPCI) is a catch-all provision requiring an exporter to apply for a Commerce Department license on shipment of any goods that he or she knows would be used for proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, whether or not the items are controlled otherwise.

The Commerce Department regulations also control exports of commodities in short supply. The export of crude oil carried on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline is controlled, as is that of crude oil and western red cedar harvested from federal or state lands.

International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) (October 28, 1977)

IEEPA gives the president broad authority in peacetime to regulate a comprehensive range of financial and commercial transactions with foreign countries, but only after declaring a national emergency.

Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Clinton have declared national emergencies to keep EAA controls in force when the EAA lapsed in 1983, 1984, and since mid-1990 except for a few months in 1994.

Following are recent developments in a few current issues on export controls covered by IEEPA:

Encryption: A bill opposed by the Clinton administration for de-controlling exports of encryption software has been approved in two House committees, Judiciary and International Relations. Two other House committees with partial jurisdiction, National Security and Intelligence, approved amendments to the bill that essentially overturn its original intent, including some provisions that would actually increase domestic and export controls on encryption. A fifth committee, Commerce, has until September 26 to act on the bill. After that the House Rules Committee will have to sift through the different versions of the legislation to fashion a base bill and amendments for consideration by the full House. Action by the full House in the current session is considered unlikely.

A rival bill favored by the administration has been approved in the Senate Commerce Committee. It would relax export controls somewhat but would require adoption by industry of the administration's key recovery system giving law enforcement and intlligence agencies some means, under court order, to unscramble scrambled messages. No bill has yet been considered by the full House or Senate.

Meanwhile, a judge in a U.S. district court in San Francisco has ruled that export controls on encryption are unconstitutional. The judge ruled that the federal government decision barring a University of Illinois computer science professor from publishing a version of his encryption software over the Internet infringed his First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Another U.S. district court, one in Washington, D.C., had upheld the constitutionality of the same regulations in 1996. The Justice Department said the export controls will remain in place until the issue is resolved.

Computers: Although the House passed by 332-88 legislation reimposing stricter export controls on U.S. supercomputers sales to 50 countries, including China and Russia, the Senate decisively rejected similar legislation. Resolution of the opposite approaches could emerge from the House-Senate conference on the underlying Defense Department spending bill, which needs to go to President Clinton for signature or veto by October 1.

Weapons Proliferation: The Commerce Department has published the names of weapons research institutes in India, Pakistan, Israel, Russia, and China, listing them as proliferation risks subject to strict U.S. export controls. India has protested the department's publication of the list. The department has said it will add more names to its "entity list."

Arms Export Control Act (AECA) (October 22, 1968)

Direct commercial sales of U.S.-origin defense products, components, technologies, and services are controlled by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which are administered by the State Department to implement the Arms Export Control Act. Those items requiring export licenses from the State Department's Office of Defense Trade Controls (DTC) appear in the U.S. Munitions List in the ITAR. The Defense Department's Defense Technology Security Administration (DTSA) also reviews many of the applications.

Any item on the Munitions List requires a license for export to all countries (with a few exceptions for exports to Canada). Under current regulations, licenses are denied for defense goods and services exports to Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Serbia-Montenegro, Syria, Tajikistan, and Vietnam. They are denied also to countries currently subject to U.S. arms embargoes: Burma, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Liberia, Rwanda, Somalia, and Sudan.

Atomic Energy Act (August 1, 1946)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is responsible for licensing both exports and imports of nuclear facilities and materials under the Atomic Energy Act, as amended by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978 and the Energy Policy Act of 1992. It also has authority to license exports of nuclear components and other substances or items that are deemed significant for nuclear explosions.

NRC issues about 100 specific export licenses or license amendments a year. No specific license is required for reactor equipment exports destined for use in Canada, Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan.

Other agencies also have some jurisdiction under the law. The Commerce Department controls nuclear-related dual-use items; the Energy Department controls nuclear technology transfers; the State and Energy departments negotiate agreements for peaceful nuclear cooperation.

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SOURCES: U.S. Department of Commerce; U.S. Department of State; Nuclear Regulatory Commission; U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee; Practising Law Institute