Export committee formed

Two years after US Department of Commerce officials triggered widespread angst in the academic research community by proposing restrictive changes to the department’s “deemed export” policy, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez has formed an advisory committee of 12 business and academic leaders to review the policy. DOC officials backed away from the proposed restrictions earlier this year after members of scientific societies, academic organizations, and industrial groups sent more than 300 letters to the department saying that the changes would severely limit the ability of foreign researchers and students to work and study in the US. (See Physics Today, July 2006, page 21 .)

The proposed changes, which came from DOC’s inspector general in 2004, were intended to keep researchers from restricted countries who were working in the US from taking knowledge about controlled technology back to their home countries. The advisory committee, to be cochaired by Norman Augustine, retired chairman of Lockheed Martin Corp, and Robert Gates, president of Texas A&M University, “will address evolving export policies to strike a balance between protecting national security and ensuring the [US] continues to build upon its position as a leading innovator of technology,” Gutierrez said. The Association of American Universities, which strongly opposed the proposed restrictions, issued a statement saying that DOC “deserves much praise” for creating the committee.