Decisions are made at the OC by the Chair, a senior Commerce Department civil servant, usually on the basis of interagency consensus. The ACEP is chaired by the Commerce Assistant Secretary for Export Administration, but decisions are made by majority vote. Cases can even be escalated beyond the EARB to the President. The EARB is chaired by the Secretary of Commerce, and decisions are likewise made by majority vote. These Commerce actions are generally accomplished in the first 9-days of the license application process.
All agencies receive referral cases simultaneously.
Unless they choose otherwise, the participating agencies receive all cases. The Department of Energy has chosen to concentrate its efforts and expertise on nuclear cases, so it receives fewer referral cases than the other agencies. Second, it encourages decision rather than indecision. But in dealing with commercial transactions, delay or indecision can easily constitute denial. To deal with that problem, Congress enacted specific but flexible time limits for dual use export control decisions.