Feb
10
Oh Where, Oh Where, Has My CCL Gone?
Posted by Clif Burns at 9:23 pm on February 10, 2011
Category: BIS • CCL
Let’s say that you were an agency like the Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) and you had a huge and complex list of sensitive items that needed a license for export. Now, unless your administrative goal was to collect a bunch of fines for illegal exports, you would make that list easily and readily available, wouldn’t you? You would think.
But sometime in the past several days our friends at BIS removed the old Commerce Control List (“CCL”) that was linked on their site, and replaced it with a new one that is, kindly put, an unusable mess. Imagine the CCL as one big file with all the ECCN’s smushed together with no index, no table of contents, no links, no page numbers, no bookmarks, nothing but a gigantic run-on webpage. Well, you don’t have to imagine. Click here and behold the new format of the CCL on the BIS website
One mortified exporter, who was kind enough to bring this mess to my attention called BIS, imagining that this was just some temporary mistake that would soon be fixed. The exporter spoke with a BIS Export Counselor who explained that the new format was here to stay. He also conceded that the new format was less easy to use for people trying to classify items. Oh, great.
However, all is not lost. You can find the CCL in its original online format here at Export Law Blog by clicking on the link to the EAR in the right column or clicking here. We can’t guarantee how long the GPO will keep this version of the EAR up-to-date, but for the moment you can still consult the CCL in the format you’ve come to know and love. You can also, for a paltry $191, buy the 2010 dead tree edition from GPO here. Having a hard copy of the entire EAR in your office is sure to impress your friends who probably have no idea just exactly how large it is.
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Copyright © 2011 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
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8 Comments:
Ooh, Clif, I am so glad to hear from you on this. I don’t think I live under a rock, but I never saw this coming. At least not in this format. I’d been seeing the message at the old CFR site (http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/cfr-table-search.html#page1) that says, “Time is running out on GPO access… The next generation of online Government information is here. FDSYS Federal Digital System: America’s Authentic Government Information. GPO Access becomes archive only in March 2011â€. But the damn thing is that they never give you a link to that “next generationâ€.
I perused the “e-CFR†briefly to day, and not extensively, but I have grave concerns. It looks just like the International Trade Commission’s “next generation†of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS)( http://hts.usitc.gov/). Even though there’s always been the disclaimer that the old pdf versions of the EAR, HTSUS, ITAR, FCSR, alphabet soup ad nauseum, do not have the same legal authority of the official printed regulations, I took comfort in having that electronic facsimile of the real thing at my fingertips. But the “next generation†is not even a reasonable electronic facsimile. It’s a step in the wrong direction.
Here’s what I discovered about the “next generation†HTSUS: One is supposed to follow the General Rules of Interpretation, the first one of which says, in part, “…classification shall be determined according to the terms of the headings and any relative section or chapter notes…†OK, suppose you’re in, say, Chapter 84, of the “next generation†HTSUS, and you click on “Notes”. It takes you to the start of what used to be the old PDF of Chapter 84. And since Chapters 84 and 85 are in Section XVI, you see both the Section XVI Notes and the Chapter 84 Notes. But if you’re in, Chapter 85 and click on “Notes”, it takes you to the start of what used to be the old PDF of Chapter 85, which is ONLY the Chapter Notes to Chapter 85 – you don’t see the Section Notes to Section XVI. It actually requires you to do some creative clicking around to find the chapter notes.
When I research these things, I like to have multiple pdfs or multiple browser windows open simultaneously, so I can make quick comparisons, and copy and paste necessary details to document my findings. But in the “next generation†HTSUS, you can’t do that so easily, because the web page is in frames. If you right-click and open in a new window, it opens that frame by itself, without the other frames that contain navigation buttons.
By the way Clif, about that link to the EAR web site you include in your blog post, I understand its days are just as numbered as the CFR web site.
This is forming a huge knot in my stomach. I think I’d rather buy the $191 paper copy. Hey, maybe that’s how they want to offset the federal budget deficit.
If anyone inside the beltway in the public sector gives a hoot, please, please, PLEASE, do not pull the plug on the old systems we have come to know and love, and keep us all compliant.
Jim Dickeson
Import Export Geeks
Import Export Compliance Training
Clif,
I meant to say, “It actually requires you to do some creative clicking around to find the chapter notes.” If you could correct that, I’d be most appreciative.
No, I meant to say, “It actually requires you to do some creative clicking around to find the SECTION notes.” See how befuddled this has made me?
We should thank our government masters that they tossed us a bone and used periods and occassional paragraph breaks instead of run-on senetences without any breaks. See; the glass is half full! But is it really impossible for them to discover the indentation feature that the rest of us have been using since….Gutenberg???
Thanks for all you do Clif to keep us informed. Your quick wit is always appreciated in this otherwise cloistered and mundane field.
We should thank our government masters that they tossed us a bone and used periods and occassional paragraph breaks instead of run-on sentences without any breaks. See; the glass is half full! But is it really impossible for them to discover the indentation feature that the rest of us have been using since….Gutenberg???
Thanks for all you do Clif to keep us informed. Your quick wit is always appreciated in this otherwise cloistered and mundane field.
It is incumbent upon ALL OF US IN THE EXPORT COMMUNITY to make our voices heard on this. BIS has a contact form on their website. I strongly suggest everyone use it.
If you’re on industry related message boards, blogs, social networking sites or mailing lists, get the word out.
The new format is far from “user friendly” and very far from being “new and/or improved”.
Get the word out.
“But the damn thing is that they never give you a link to that “next generationâ€.”
Just type FDSYS.gov and it will redirect automatically to
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/home.action
I contacted BIS (West) via the webform. I had a response from Larry Sullivan within 30 minutes.
