Export Controls: Proposed Reforms Create Opportunities to Address Enforcement Challenges
Released: 2012-03-27T00:00:00

Letter

Background

Actions can also include compliance and monitoring, such as reviewing disclosures by exporters of possible export control violations, prelicense checks, and postshipment verifications. See GAO, Export Controls: Post-Shipment Verification Provides Limited Assurance That Dual-use Items Are Being Properly Used, GAO-04-357 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 12, 2004); and Defense Trade: Arms Export Control System in the Post 9/11 Environment, GAO-05-234 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 16, 2005). investigate, and take punitive action against potential violators of U.S. export control laws. These authorities provide the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Immigration and customs Enforcement (ICE) with overlapping jurisdiction to investigate defense potential violations, and FBI, ICE, and Commerce’s Office of Export Enforcement (OEE) with overlapping jurisdiction to investigate dual-use potential violations.

Inspections of items scheduled for export are routinely conducted at U.S. air, sea, and land ports, as part of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer’s responsibilities for enforcing U.S. import and export control laws and regulations at our nation’s ports of entry. CBP’s enforcement activities include inspection of outbound cargo through a risk-based approach using CBP’s automated targeting systems to assess the risk of each shipment, review and validation of documentation presented for licensable items, detention of questionable shipments, and seizure of shipments and issuance of monetary penalties for items that are found to be in violation of U.S. export control laws. According to CBP officials, almost 3 million shipments per month are exported from the United States.

Investigations of potential violations of export control laws for dual-use items are conducted by agents from OEE, ICE, and FBI. Investigations of potential export control violations involving defense items are conducted by ICE and FBI agents. OEE and ICE are authorized to investigate potential violations of dual-use items. ICE is also authorized to investigate potential violations of defense items. The FBI has authority to investigate any criminal violation of law not exclusively assigned to another agency, and is mandated to investigate and oversee export control violations with a counterintelligence concern. The investigative agencies have various tools for investigating potential violations (see table 2) and establishing cases for potential criminal or administrative punitive actions.

Punitive actions, which are either criminal or administrative, are taken against violators of export control laws and regulations, and may involve U.S. or foreign individuals and companies. Criminal violations are those cases where the evidence shows that the exporter willfully violated export control laws. U.S. Attorneys’ Offices prosecute export control enforcement criminal cases in consultation with Justice’s National Security Division. These cases can result in imprisonment, fines, forfeitures, and other penalties. Punitive actions for administrative violations can include fines, suspension of an export license, or denial or debarment from exporting, and are imposed primarily by State or Commerce, depending on whether the violation involves the export of a defense or a dual-use item. For example, Commerce can impose the administrative sanction of placing parties acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United State on a list that prevents their receipt of items subject to Commerce controls. The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) administers and enforces economic sanctions programs primarily against countries and groups of individuals, such as terrorists and narcotics traffickers. The sanctions can be either comprehensive or selective, using the blocking of assets and trade restrictions to accomplish foreign policy and national security goals. In some cases, both criminal and administrative penalties can be levied against an export control violator. In fiscal year 2010, Justice data showed that 56 individuals or companies were convicted of criminal violations of export control laws.and Commerce reported more than $25.4 million in administrative fines and penalties for fiscal year 2010. In 2011, over a third of the major U.S. export control enforcement and embargo-related criminal prosecutions involved the illegal transfer of U.S. military, nuclear, or technical data to Iran and China.

Agencies Use a Risk- Based Approach to Allocate Resources but Do Not Fully Track Those Used For Export Control Enforcement

Agencies use some form of a risk-based approach when allocating resources to export control enforcement as their missions are broader than export controls. As agencies can use these resources for other activities based on need, tracking resources used solely on export control enforcement activities is difficult. Only OEE allocates all of its resources exclusively to export control enforcement as that is its primary mission, and State and the Treasury have relatively few export control enforcement staff to track. Agencies’ risk-based resource allocation approach incorporates a variety of information, including workload and threat assessment data, but has not generally included data on resources used for export control enforcement activities as agencies did not implement systems to fully track this information until recently. Given the overlapping jurisdiction of several enforcement agencies, in some cities agencies have voluntarily created local task forces that bring together enforcement resources to work collectively on cases—informally leveraging resources.

Most Agencies—Whose Missions Are Broader Than Export Controls—Have Limited Data on Resources Used for Export Control Enforcement

Agencies determine their missions based on statutes, policy, and directives, and articulate their fundamental mission in their strategic plans.with senior agency officials, agencies with primary export control enforcement responsibility have multiple missions that extend beyond export controls as shown in table 3, except for OEE. As such, these agencies are faced with balancing multiple priorities when allocating staff resources.

Based on our review of these documents as well as discussions enforcement, and as such, is the only agency that has been able to fully track the resources used on these activities. To formulate its budget and allocate its investigators, OEE conducts threat assessments with a priority related to weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and unauthorized military use; and analyzes export control enforcement case workload, including the prior year’s investigative statistics of arrests, indictments, and convictions. OEE also recently completed a field office expansion study to decide which cities would be the best locations for additional OEE field offices. In this study, OEE considered the volume of licensed and unlicensed exports and the type of high-tech items exported from different areas of the United States, and concluded that Atlanta, GA; Cincinnati, OH; Phoenix, AZ; and Portland, OR, were optimal locations, but has not received budget approval for expansion.

CBP reemphasized outbound operations in the creation of its Outbound Enforcement Division in March 2009 to help prevent terrorist groups, rogue nations, and other criminal organizations from obtaining defense and dual-use commodities; enforce sanctions and trade embargoes; and increase exporter compliance. CBP determines the number of staff to allocate to outbound inspections through a risk- based approach based on prior workload and a quarterly threat matrix—which includes the volume of outbound cargo and passengers, port threat assessments, and the numbers and types of seizures and arrests at the ports for items such as firearms and currency. As of fiscal year 2010, CBP had allocated approximately 660 officers for outbound enforcement activities, but these officers can be used for other than export control-related activities at any time, when needed. For example, the Port of Baltimore has officers assigned to perform outbound activities at both the airport and seaport, some of which focus on the enforcement of controlled shipments in the seaport environment. According to the Port Director, any of these officers can be redirected at any time and often are assigned to the airport during the busy airline arrival times, to perform inbound inspection duties—based on priorities. Further, CBP does not track the hours that its officers across the country spend on export control enforcement activities, but is in the process of implementing a system to do so. CBP officials stated that determining the right mix of officers is complex and changes to its tracking system should allow for better planning and accounting for resources used for outbound activities in the future. ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations, Counter-Proliferation Investigations Unit focuses on preventing sensitive U.S. technologies and weapons from reaching the hands of adversaries and conducts export control investigations. To determine how many investigators it should allocate to this unit, ICE uses information including operational threat assessments and case data from the previous year, by field office, on total numbers of arrests, indictments, convictions, seizures, and investigative hours expended on export control investigations. For example, it assigns a tier level for each of its 70 field offices, based on threat assessments—ranging from 1 for the highest threat, resulting in a larger number of agents assigned to these offices; to 5 for the lowest threat, with a lower number of agents assigned. To further prioritize resources, in 2010, ICE established Counter Proliferation Investigations Centers in selected cities throughout the United States, with staff focused solely on combating illegal exports and illicit procurement networks seeking to acquire vital U.S. technology. ICE concluded that it needed to form these centers to combat the specialized nature of complex export control cases and determined that its previous method of distributing resources needed refinement, noting that some ICE field office managers had difficulty in balancing numerous competing programmatic priorities and initiatives. According to ICE officials, they plan to mitigate these concerns by having staff and facilities focused solely on export control enforcement cases, which will allow ICE to track and use this information to better determine future resource needs.

The FBI, with both an investigative and intelligence mission, does not allocate resources solely for export control enforcement and officials told us they view these activities as a tool to gain intelligence that may lead to more robust cases. Nevertheless, cases involving export controls are primarily led by agents within the Counterintelligence Division. To determine the number of agents to allocate to this division, the FBI uses a risk management process and threat assessments. Several years ago, the FBI established at least one Counterintelligence squad in each of its 56 field offices. In July 2011, the FBI established a Counterproliferation Center, merging its Counterintelligence Division and its Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate to better focus their efforts and resources. The FBI is in the process of implementing new codes within its resource tracking system to obtain better information on agents’ distribution of work, which will include time spent on investigations of defense and dual- use items.

U.S. Attorneys’ Offices have discretion to determine the resources that they will allocate to export control enforcement cases, based on national priorities and the individual priorities of the 94 districts. These priorities include law enforcement concerns for their district and leads from investigative agencies. In response to the risk associated with national security, which includes export control enforcement cases, staffing for national security activities has increased and several districts have created national security sections within their office. In 2008, the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys provided codes for charging time and labeling cases to obtain better information on the U.S. Attorneys’ Office distribution of work and those resources used for export control enforcement. However, some Assistant U.S. Attorneys told us that the time-keeping system is complicated as there are multiple codes and sub-categories in the tracking system and determining the correct codes is often subjective, making it difficult to track time spent on export control enforcement cases. Senior agency officials acknowledged this concern and are working with the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices to provide better guidance to improve the accuracy of attorney time charges.

Other offices, such as State’s Office of the Legal Adviser for Political- Military Affairs and Commerce’s Office of the Chief Counsel for the Bureau of Industry and Security assist the enforcement agencies by providing legal support. For example, Commerce’s Office of the Chief Counsel pursues administrative enforcement actions against individuals and entities, but also reviews and advises on OEE recommendations for other administrative actions, such as temporary denials of licenses. In addition, DDTC and OFAC pursue administrative enforcement actions against violators. For example, OFAC administers and enforces U.S. economic and trade sanctions against designated foreign countries. While not all of staff in these offices are allocated to export control enforcement, these offices have relatively few staff to track.

In addition to a domestic presence, most export control enforcement agencies also allocate resources overseas, but only Commerce allocates resources exclusively to export control enforcement. For example, Commerce maintains Export Control Officers in six locations abroad; Beijing and Hong Kong, China; Abu Dhabi, UAE; New Delhi, India; Moscow, Russia; and Singapore, to support its dual-use export control enforcement activities. Given that these officers have regional responsibilities, they cover additional locations. For example, the Export Control Officer assigned to Singapore also covers Malaysia and Indonesia. While other agencies have field locations in many overseas locations, these resources are to support the agencies’ broader missions and can be used for other duties based on the overseas mission priorities. For example, ICE has 70 offices in 47 foreign countries with more than 380 government and contract personnel which support all ICE enforcement activities, including export control. They can also be called upon to support various other DHS mission priorities. Specifically, the ICE agents we met with at the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi also conduct activities in support of the full DHS mission and a great portion of their time is spent on visa security and a lesser amount on export control enforcement activities.

Agencies Informally Leverage Enforcement Resources through Local Task Forces

The export control enforcement investigative agencies often have offices located in the same cities or geographic areas. In many of these cities, agencies’ officials said that they informally leverage each others’ tools, authorities, and resources to coordinate investigations and share intelligence through local task forces allowing them to use resources more efficiently and avoid duplicating efforts or interfering with each other’s cases. In 2007, Justice’s National Export Enforcement Initiative encouraged local field offices with a significant export control threat to create task forces or other alternatives to coordinate enforcement efforts in their area. Since then, almost 20 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices have created task forces of their own initiative or in conjunction with another enforcement agency, primarily in cities where these agencies are co- located to facilitate the investigation and prosecution of export control cases. Figure 1 shows the location of investigative agencies’ major field offices, as well as the location of export control enforcement task forces.

Most of the task force members we met with in Baltimore, Los Angeles, and San Francisco stated that they see benefits beyond the coordination of cases, including investigating cases together and sharing resources.

Baltimore’s Counterproliferation Task Force: ICE and the U.S. Attorneys’ Office created this Task Force in 2010 and it has representatives from each of the enforcement agencies located in the area, as well as the defense and intelligence communities. Task force officials stated that they develop and investigate export control cases together and, to enhance interagency collaboration, ICE has supplied work space, allowing agents from other agencies to work side-by-side to pursue leads and conduct investigations. Officials emphasized that the task force enables smaller agencies with fewer resources to leverage the work and expertise of the others to further their investigations and seek prosecutions. Sometimes the task force structures reap benefits that individual agencies cannot reach on their own, as exemplified by the Baltimore Counterproliferation Task Force. Among successes was a Maryland man sentenced to 8 months in prison followed by 3 years of supervised release for illegally exporting export-controlled night vision equipment.

Los Angeles’ Export and Anti-proliferation Global Law Enforcement (EAGLE) Task Force: The U.S. Attorney established this Task Force in 2008 as a result of Justice’s counter-proliferation initiatives. Its purpose is to coordinate and develop expertise in export control investigations. Currently, there are over 80 members from 17 Los Angeles-based federal agencies. According to a task force official, the EAGLE task force has resulted in increased priority on export control investigations and improved interagency cooperation since it was established. For instance, the enforcement agencies are now more effectively sharing information in their respective databases. A task force official noted that enhanced access to these databases allows agencies to reduce duplication of license determination requests and to easily retrieve information on a particular person or commodity’s history using the search options. Additionally, through the task force structure, ICE and OEE agents have worked together to conduct additional outreach to industry affiliates.

San Francisco’s Strategic Technology Task Force: According to officials, this task force was formed by FBI in 2004, with a primary focus on conducting joint export control outreach activities to academia and industry with the other investigative agencies (ICE and OEE). This task force also includes participation by the military service intelligence units and other law enforcement agencies. FBI task force leaders stated that this task force has helped to coordinate outreach activities as well as to generate investigative leads. According to an agent from the FBI’s San Jose field office, that office has a performance goal to conduct 90 percent of their export control-related investigations jointly with investigative agencies at ICE and Commerce.

Although successful cases of joint collaboration among agencies can yield positive enforcement outcomes, as reported by the offices in the three cities we visited, the extent to which these alliances are effective is primarily dependent on personal dynamics of a given region, agency, and law enforcement culture. In addition, these local agency task forces for export control enforcement vary in structure, are voluntary, and do not exist nationwide. For example, while multiple investigative agencies have local offices in Chicago and Dallas with export control enforcement agents, agencies do not have a local task force in these cities to regularly coordinate on export control cases. While agency officials shared examples of agencies informally leveraging each other’s resources, officials told us that they do not factor in such resources when planning their own agency allocations for a variety of reasons, including each agency’s separate budgets and missions, which do not generally consider those of other agencies.

Reform Initiatives May Help Address Challenges In Investigating Illicit Transshipments But Detailed Plans Are Unknown

Enforcement agencies face several challenges in investigating illicit transshipments, both domestically and overseas—including license determination delays; limited access in some overseas locations; and a lack of effectiveness measures that reflect the complexity and qualitative benefits of export control cases. Recognizing broader challenges in export control enforcement, the President announced the creation of a national export enforcement coordination center, which may help agencies address some of the challenges described below, but detailed plans to do so have yet to be developed.

Investigators Face Several Challenges in Investigating Illicit Transshipments— Both Domestically and Overseas

The current export control enforcement system poses several challenges that potentially reduce the effectiveness of activities and limit the identification and investigation of illicit transshipments. Export control enforcement agencies seek to keep defense and dual-use items from being illegally exported through intermediary countries or locations to an unauthorized final destination, such as Iran, but agencies face challenges that can impact their ability to investigate export control violations, both domestically and overseas. First, license determinations—which confirm whether an item is controlled and requires a license, and thereby help confirm whether an export control violation has occurred—can sometimes be delayed, potentially hindering investigations and prosecutions. Second, investigators have limited access to secure communications and cleared staff in several domestic field offices, which can limit their ability to share timely and important information. Third, agencies have limited access to ports and facilities overseas. Fourth, agencies lack consistent data to quantify and identify trends and patterns in illicit transshipments of U.S. export-controlled items. Lastly, investigative agencies lack measures of effectiveness that fully reflect the complexity and qualitative benefits of export control cases.

License Determination Delays. To confirm whether a defense or dual-use item is controlled and requires a license, inspectors, investigators, and prosecutors request license determinations from the licensing agencies of State and Commerce. These license determinations are integral to enforcement agencies’ ability to seize items, pursue investigations, or seek prosecutions. DHS’s Exodus Command Center operates the Exodus Accountability Referral System—an ICE database that initiates, tracks, and manages enforcement agency requests for license determinations from the licensing agencies.identifies three different levels of license determinations: initial (to seize an item or begin an investigation), pre-trial (to obtain a search warrant, among other things), and trial (to be used during trial proceedings). The Exodus Command Center has established internal timeliness goals for receiving responses to requests for initial determinations within 3 days; pre-trial certifications within 45 days; and trial certifications within 30 days. However, as shown in table 5, these goals are often not met, which can create barriers for enforcement agencies in seizing shipments before they depart the United States; obtaining search warrants; and making timely arrests.

Conclusions

Given the wide-ranging mission of most of the agencies involved in export control enforcement, it is essential that agencies track resources expended on export control inspections, investigations, and prosecutions to assess how these resources are contributing to fulfilling their missions and are focused on the highest priorities in export control enforcement. While agencies, such as DHS and Justice, have recognized the need to better track their resources, a more comprehensive approach, including enhanced measures of effectiveness, could help these and other enforcement agencies assess workload and efficiency in making resource allocations and in determining whether changes are warranted. The creation of the Export Enforcement Coordination Center presents such an opportunity for the entire export control enforcement community. The center has the potential to become more than a co-location of enforcement agencies, but can be a conduit to more effectively manage export control resources. As the center’s operation progresses, it has the opportunity to address ongoing challenges in export control enforcement, including reducing potential overlap in investigations, and help agencies to work as efficiently as possible, maximize available intelligence and agency investigative data, and measure the effectiveness of U.S. export control enforcement activities. Challenges presented by delays in license determinations can affect the inspection, investigation, and prosecution of export control cases but may be outside of the mission of the center since they primarily involve the licensing agencies. Having goals for processing license determinations can help establish transparency and accountability in the process. Given that the licensing agencies and the Exodus Command Center have not agreed to timeliness goals for responding to such requests, these agencies may benefit from collaborating to help improve the effectiveness of the process.

Recommendations for Executive Action

To better inform management and resource allocation decisions, effectively manage limited export control enforcement resources, and improve the license determination process, we are making the following four recommendations: We recommend that the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Attorney General, as they implement efforts to track resources expended on export control enforcement activities, use such data to make resource allocation decisions.

We recommend that the Secretaries of Commerce and Homeland Security as they develop and implement qualitative measures of effectiveness, ensure that these assess progress towards their overall goal of preventing or deterring illegal exports.

We recommend that the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the departmental representatives of the Export Enforcement Coordination Center, including Commerce, Justice, State, and the Treasury leverage export control enforcement resources across agencies by building on existing agency efforts to track resources expended, as well as existing agency coordination at the local level; establish procedures to facilitate data sharing between the enforcement agencies and intelligence community to measure illicit transshipment activity; and develop qualitative and quantitative measures of effectiveness for the entire enforcement community to baseline and trend this data.

We recommend that the Secretaries of Commerce and State, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and other agencies as appropriate, establish agreed upon timeliness goals for responding to license determination requests considering agency resources, the level of determination, the complexity of the request, and other associated factors.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

We provided a draft copy of this report to Commerce, DHS, DOD, Justice, State, and Treasury for their review and comment. Commerce, DHS, Justice, and State concurred with the report’s recommendations and, along with DOD, provided technical comments which we incorporated as appropriate. Treasury did not provide any comments on the report.

As multiple agencies have responsibilities for export control enforcement, several of our recommendations call for these agencies to work together to effectively manage limited export control enforcement resources and to improve the license determination process. In their comments, Commerce and State agreed to work in consultation with DHS and Justice to establish timeliness goals for license determinations. In its comments, DHS stated its intent to work with the other agencies to improve the license determination process as well as take steps to deploy its resources in the most effective and efficient manner and provided target dates for completing these actions. In particular, DHS noted that ongoing tracking efforts by CBP and ICE will be used to improve their knowledge of resources expended on export control enforcement activities and that they will periodically review this information to determine the overall direction of the export control program. Additionally, DHS stated its intent to establish a working group with other agencies to develop performance measures related to export control enforcement to help estimate the effectiveness of all associated law enforcement activity. Written comments from Commerce, DHS, and State are reprinted in appendixes II, III, and IV, respectively.

We are sending copies of this report to interested congressional committees, as well as the Secretaries of Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, State, and Treasury as well as the Attorney General. We will also make copies available to others upon request. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on GAO’s Web site at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions on matters discussed in this report, please contact me at (202) 512-4841 or martinb@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff that made key contributions to this report is listed in appendix V.

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

To determine how agencies allocate staff resources for export control enforcement activities, we interviewed cognizant officials and examined relevant documents such as agencies’ budgets, strategic plans, memorandum, and other documentation on resources. We interviewed officials about their resources at the headquarters of Commerce, DHS, Justice, State, and the Treasury. We also discussed with DOD officials their role in providing investigative support to agencies responsible for export control enforcement. We developed and used a set of structured questions to interview each agency’s resource planners to determine how they allocate resources, what information and factors they consider in resource allocation decisions, what their enforcement priorities are, whether they track resources expended on enforcement, if they had conducted an analysis of their resource need, and if they consider or leverage other agencies’ resources. We obtained applicable criteria including the Office of Management and Budget Circular A-11 and departmental guidance on resource allocation and tracking. We also reviewed previous GAO and inspector general reports regarding the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), as amended, and resource management for enforcement programs. To determine current resource levels, we obtained geographic locations of all domestic staff conducting export control enforcement, actual expenditures on export control enforcement activities, and information on staffing levels from each agency for fiscal years 2006 through 2010. We did not independently verify the accuracy of agency information on expenditures and staffing levels obtained, but we corroborated this information with cognizant agency officials. We considered agencies’ overall resources for the broad enforcement authorities and the resources allocated to export control enforcement specifically. Finally, we analyzed agencies’ budget requests, expenditures, and staff hours to determine agencies current resource commitment and how agencies have allocated resources to export control enforcement activities.

To determine challenges that agencies face in investigating illicit transshipments and the potential impact of export control reform initiatives on enforcement activities, we interviewed cognizant officials, examined and analyzed relevant export control documents and statutes, and conducted sites visits both domestically and overseas. We interviewed officials about their enforcement priorities at the headquarters of Commerce, DHS, Justice, and State. We also discussed with DOD officials their role in providing license determination support to agencies responsible for export control enforcement. We developed and used a set of structured questions to interview enforcement agency officials in selected domestic and overseas locations and observed export enforcement operations at those locations that had air, land, and seaports. We selected sites to visit based on various factors, including geographical areas where all enforcement agencies were represented with a large percentage of investigative caseload; areas with a mix of defense and high-tech companies represented; ports with a high volume of trade of U.S. commodities; a large presence of aerospace, electronics, and software industries, and based on headquarters officials’ recommendations on key areas of export control enforcement activities both domestically and abroad. On the basis of these factors, we visited Irvine, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, CA; Washington, D.C.; and Baltimore, MD domestically. Internationally, we interviewed United States Embassy and Consulate officials and host government authorities in Hong Kong, Singapore, and in Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). We received briefings on the export control systems from the Hong Kong Government’s Trade and Industry Department, Customs and Excise Tax Department, from Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Singapore’s Immigration and Customs Authority; as well as toured ports at these locations. We also received a briefing from the Hong Kong Customs Airport Command on air cargo and air-to-air transshipment of strategic commodities and visited the DHL Hub at the Hong Kong International Airport. In the UAE, we visited the Government of Sharjah, Department of Seaports & Customs, Hamriyah Free Zone Authority and met with the Director and Security and Safety Manager to discuss the Hamriyah Free Zone. We reviewed the findings and recommendations of past GAO reports, documentation from enforcement agencies, and interviewed U.S. government officials from these agencies as well as their field offices. We also met with several agency representatives of the Export Control Reform Task Force and reviewed recent White House press releases on the export reform initiatives. Further, we examined Federal Register notices on changing regulations related to the export control reform initiative.

We conducted this performance audit from February 2011 through March 2012, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Commerce

Appendix III: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security

Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of State

Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Belva Martin, (202) 512-4841 or martinb@gao.gov.

Staff Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact names above, John Neumann, Assistant Director; Lisa Gardner; Desiree Cunningham; Jungjin Park; Marie Ahearn; Roxanna Sun; Robert Swierczek; and Hai Tran made key contributions to this report.