WASHINGTON – An amendment today to S.2549, the Defense Department Authorization bill to shorten the congressional review period for the sale of high performance computers by American high-tech companies passed the U.S. Senate, U.S. Senator Harry Reid announced today. The amendment, offered by Senator Reid and Senator Robert Bennett (R-UT) passed the Senate by a vote of 86 to 11.

"Today's vote is a big victory for the U.S. high technology industry and for the jobs and economic growth that this important industry has generated," Reid said.

Under a law adopted in 1998, American exporters of high-performance computers (computers operating at 2,000 million theoretical operations per second) are subject to a six-month (180 days) congressional review period. The Reid amendment will reduce the congressional review period to 60 days. Because an identical provision was included in the House DOD authorization bill, Reid's amendment is now on a fast track to become the law of the land.

"This legislation will help ensure that U.S. high tech firms can compete on a level playing field with their global counterparts. High performance computers are widely available in the world market, so it makes little sense to subject U.S. firms to a burdensome and discriminatory waiting period," said Senator Reid, Assistant Democratic Leader and Chairman of the Senate Democrats High Tech Working Group.

In offering the amendment, Reid said that at the rate technology is advancing, many U.S. products become obsolete after the six month delay. This becomes a national security issue since U.S. companies that provide consumers with cutting edge technologies are being replaced by foreign computer companies in overseas markets. Changing the waiting period to 60 days will ensure U.S. companies keep their competitive edge around the world.

"The current export control system interferes with legitimate U.S. exports because it does not keep pace with the high rate of innovation in the microprocessor market," Reid said.

Reid's amendment has been endorsed by the Information Technology Industry Council, the Computer Coalition for Responsible Exports and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

"Computer exports are critical to the continued success of the high tech industry and America's leadership in information technology. While we strongly support our country's security objectives, there seems no rationale for treating business-level computers that are widely available on the world market as inherently more dangerous than items being removed from the nation's munitions list, an act that gives Congress just 30 calendar days to review," said Rhett Dawson, President of the Information Technology Industry Council, a coalition of leading providers of information technology products and services. ITIC's member's include Dell Computer, IBM, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and others.