Implementation of Additional Export Controls Against Russia and Belarus Under the Export Administration Regulations (EAR); and Clarifications

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>Bureau of Industry and Security</SUBAGY> <CFR>15 CFR Parts 744 and 746</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 241028-0281]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0694-AJ93</RIN> <SUBJECT>Implementation of Additional Export Controls Against Russia and Belarus Under the Export Administration Regulations (EAR); and Clarifications</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Bureau of Industry and Security, Department of Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this final rule, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) makes changes to the export controls against Russia and Belarus under the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). This final rule expands the scope of the Russian and Belarusian Industry Sector Sanctions by imposing controls on nine key precursors for riot control agents and a chemical weapon that Russia has deployed against Ukraine in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). This final rule also makes adjustments to exclusions, exceptions, and licensing policy for exports, reexports, or transfers (in-country) to certain components of the governments of Country Group A:5 and A:6 destinations that are in Russia and Belarus. Lastly, this final rule clarifies that the Russia/Belarus-Military End User and Procurement Foreign-Direct Product (FDP) rule and the EAR's other Entity List FDP rules' license requirements extend to or within any destination or to any end user or party that otherwise meets the criteria. This final rule is being published concurrently with a BIS final rule, “Additions and Revisions of Entities to the Entity List” (RIN 0694-AJ94), which includes additional changes related to export controls related to Russia and Belarus. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective November 1, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For general questions on this final rule, contact Collmann Griffin, Senior Policy Advisor, International Policy Office, Bureau of Industry and Security, Department of Commerce, Phone: 202-482-1430, Email: <E T="03">william.griffin@bis.doc.gov.</E> For questions on the Entity List changes in this final rule, contact the Chair, End-User Review Committee, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Export Administration, Bureau of Industry and Security, Department of Commerce, Phone: (202) 482-5991, Email: <E T="03">ERC@bis.doc.gov.</E> For emails, include “Russia and Belarus, October 2024 export control measures” in the subject line. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Export Controls Implemented Against Russia and Belarus</HD> In response to Russia's February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, BIS imposed extensive export controls on Russia under the EAR as part of the final rule, “Implementation of Sanctions Against Russia Under the Export Administration Regulations (EAR)” (“Russia Sanctions Rule”) (87 FR 12226, March 3, 2022). To address Belarus's complicity in the invasion, BIS imposed similar export controls on Belarus under the EAR in a final rule, “Implementation of Sanctions Against Belarus” (“Belarus Sanctions Rule”) (87 FR 13048, March 6, 2022). Since March 2022, BIS has published numerous final rules strengthening the export controls on Russia and Belarus, including measures undertaken in coordination with U.S. allies and partners. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Overview of This Final Rule</HD> BIS is amending the EAR (15 CFR parts 730-744) to strengthen export controls against Russia and Belarus by expanding the scope of the Russian and Belarusian Industry Sector Sanctions and clarify the applicability of the Entity List FDP rules. BIS in this final rule is also making adjustments to exclusions, exceptions, and licensing policy for exports, reexports, or transfers (in-country) of items for the official business of diplomatic or consular missions of the governments of Country Group A:5 and A:6 destinations that are located in Russia and Belarus. The Export Control Reform Act (ECRA) provides the legal basis for BIS's principal authorities and serves as the authority under which BIS issues this rule. The three sets of changes this final rule makes are described in section II as follows: A. Additions to supplement no. 6 to part 746 to control nine key precursors for riot control agents and a chemical weapon that Russia has deployed against Ukraine; B. Changes related to governments of Country Group A:5 and A:6 destinations for certain exclusions, license exception eligibility, and licensing policy; <E T="03">and</E> C. Clarifying that the Entity List FDP rules' license requirement extends to or within any destination or to any end user or party that otherwise meets the criteria. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Amendments to the EAR</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Additions to Supplement No. 6 to Part 746 To Control Key Precursors for Riot Control Agents and a Chemical Weapon That Russia Has Deployed Against Ukraine</HD> The U.S. Department of Commerce is expanding controls under the EAR to include certain chemical precursors that are essential for the “production” of chemical riot control agents (RCAs) and chloropicrin that Russia has deployed against Ukraine in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). These new regulatory restrictions, which are specific to Russia and Belarus, aim to limit the use of these chemical precursors in the context of the war in Ukraine. RCAs such as tear gas and other crowd dispersal chemicals have the potential for misuse in the context of armed conflict. While RCAs are commonly used by law enforcement, their use as a method of warfare is prohibited by Article I of the CWC. Chloropicrin is a toxic chemical included on Schedule 3 of the CWC's Annex on Chemicals. Its use against Ukrainian armed forces constitutes use of a chemical weapon and is also prohibited under Article I of the CWC. On April 4, 2024, the Department of State published its annual report to Congress on Compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which stated that Russia had used RCAs as a method of warfare against Ukrainian forces in violation of the CWC. This report concluded that “the United States assesses that Russia has repeatedly used RCAs as a method of warfare across the frontlines in Ukraine.” On May 1, 2024, the Department of State announced that it had made a determination pursuant to the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 (CBW Act of 1991) (22 U.S.C. 5604-5605) that Russia had used chloropicrin against Ukrainian troops in violation of the CWC (see May 1, 2024 State Dept. Fact Sheet (Imposing New Measures on Russia for its Full-Scale War and Use of Chemical Weapons Against Ukraine)). On June 7, 2024, in connection with this determination under the CBW Act of 1991, the Acting Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs imposed restrictions on Russia, including on arms sales and related financing. The <E T="04">Federal Register</E> Notice announcing these restrictions made reference to the export controls that Commerce maintains on Russia under parts 744 and 746 (see 89 FR 48701, June 7, 2024). Russia's use of RCAs as a method of warfare and its use of chloropicrin as a chemical weapon during its war of aggression in Ukraine raise concerns about Russia's further production and weaponization of these chemicals. Controlling the export of key chemical precursors, therefore, represents a critical step toward preventing the misuse of these chemicals in furtherance of Russia's military efforts. This final rule builds upon a BIS final rule that imposed controls on two precursors of chloropicrin, nitromethane and picric acid, as part of a set of restrictions on Russia and Belarus by targeting chemicals that could be useful for Russia's chemical and biological weapons production capabilities or diverted from Belarus to Russia for these activities of concern (87 FR 57068, September 16, 2022). Adding additional chemical precursors of chloropicrin in this current rule further supports that objective. In assessing whether to impose these new controls, it is important to acknowledge that the chemical precursors listed for control play a significant role in civilian applications. For example, these chemical precursors are used in the production of pharmaceuticals for treating respiratory ailments and in anesthetic formulations. In agriculture, these precursor chemicals can function as pest control agents or can be used for the production of fertilizers, both crucial to food security and medical treatments. Recognizing these civilian applications, these new controls are narrowly tailored to apply only to Russia and Belarus. The restrictions address the CWC Treaty's objective regarding the need to guard against the potential misuse of these chemical precursors while ensuring continuing exports, reexports, and transfers (in-country) as part of supply chains related to legitimate use under the CWC, particularly in medical and agricultural sectors, in all destinations, which for purposes of license applications for Russia and Belarus is addressed under the case-by-case license review policy under § 746.8(b)(3)(iii). Therefore, this final rule adds a new paragraph (i) (Precursors for riot control agents and chloropicrin as follows) to supplement no. 6 to part 746 to control certain precursors of CS (o-Chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile or o-Chlorobenzalmalononitrile) (CAS 2698-41-1); CN (Phenylacyl chloride or w-Chloroacetophenone) (CAS 532-27-4); and Trichloro(nitro)methane (Chloropicrin—CAS 76-06-2) and CR (Dibenzoxazpine—CAS 257-07-8). Specifically, this final rule adds paragraphs (i)(1) through (9) to describe these chemical precursors that will be controlled under the EAR's Russian and Belarusian Industry Sector Sanctions. The chemica ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 29k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━