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I can remember a few years ago I went to Clark County, in Las Vegas, NV, to the third floor of the courthouse. The entire third floor was the
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This little computer that I carry around, this ``palm,'' as they call it, does remarkable things. I can store in this basically the Las Vegas phonebook. It has a calculator. It has numerous features that were impossible 2 years ago. It is now possible. That is what this amendment is all about: to allow the American computer industry to remain competitive and to allow sales overseas.
I appreciate the work of Senator PHIL GRAMM of Texas. He has worked on this matter for many months, along with Senator ENZI and Senator JOHNSON. I appreciate their support on this legislation.
The amendment, which has broad support from the high-tech industry and from a majority of the Members of the Senate, simply shortens the congressional review period for high performance computers from 180 days to 60 days and guarantees that the counting of those days not be tolled when Congress adjourns sine die.
We are operating under cold war era regulations and if we want to remain the world leader in computer manufacturing and in the high-tech arena, we must make this change immediately.
I have worked for the last year and a half with Senators GRAMM, ENZI, and JOHNSON on the Export Administration Act, but a few members of the majority have succeeded in blocking its passage. That bill is not moving and therefore, Senator BENNETT and I would like to simply pass this portion of the Export Administration Act to provide some temporary relief. The congressional review period for computer exports is six times longer than the review of munitions.
In February, the President, at my urging and the urging of others, proposed changes to the export controls on high performance computers, but because of the 180-day review period, these changes have yet to be implemented and U.S. companies are losing foreign market share to Chinese and other foreign competitors as we speak. This is already July and a February proposed change, which was appropriate at the time, and is nearly out-dated now, has yet to go into effect.
This amendment is a bipartisan effort and one that we need to pass. Congress is stifling U.S. companies' growth and we can't stand for it, I can't stand for it. This underscores another point: the importance of exports to the U.S. computer industry. More than 50 percent of America's companies revenues come from overseas sales. If we give the international market to foreign competition in the short term, we will never get it back in the long term, and not only our economy, but our national security will founder.
A strong economy and a strong U.S. military depend on our leadership. U.S. companies have to be given the opportunity to compete worldwide in order to continue to lead the world in technological advances.
According to the Computer Coalition for Responsible Exports, U.S. computer export regulations are the most stringent in the world and give foreign competitors a head start. More than 60 percent of the market for multiprocessor systems is outside of the U.S. The U.S. industry faces stiff competition, as foreign governments allow greater export flexibility.
The current export control system interferes with legitimate U.S. exports because it does not keep pace with technology. The MTOPS level of microprocessors increased nearly 5-fold from 1998 to 1999--and today's levels will more than double when the Intel Itanium, I-Tanium, chip is introduced in the middle of this year. New export control thresholds will not take effect until the completion of the required six month waiting period--by then, the thresholds will be obsolete and American companies will have lost considerable market share in foreign countries.
The current export control system does not protect U.S. national security. The ability of America's defense system to maintain its technological advantage relies increasingly on the U.S. computer industry's ability to be at the cutting edge of technology. It does not make sense to impose a 180-day waiting period for products that have a 3-month innovation cycle and are widely available in foreign countries. Right now American companies are forbidden from selling computers in tier three countries while foreign competitors are free to do so.
As I indicated earlier, the removal of items from export controls imposed by the Munitions List, such as tanks, rockets, warships, and high-performance aircraft, requires only a 30-day waiting period. The sale of sensitive weapons, such as tanks, rockets, warships and high-performance aircraft, under the Foreign Military Sales program requires only a 30-day congressional review period. One hundred eighty days is too long.
The new Intel microprocessor, the Itanium, is expected to be available sometime this summer with companies such as NEW, Hitachi and Siemens already signed on to use the microprocessor. The most recent export control announcement made by the Administration on February 1 will therefore be out of date in less than six months.
Lastly--a review period, comparable to that applied to other export control and national security regimes, will still give Congress adequate time to review national security ramifications of any changes in the U.S. computer export control regime. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and to allow our country's computer companies to compete with their foreign competitors and thereby continue to drive our thriving economy.
I believe that 30 days is the proper amount of time for the review period, but have agreed, with my colleague from Utah, to offer the identical language that passed in the House by a vote of 415 to 8. Less stringent language passed out of committee in the Senate, and there is no reason that this shouldn't pass with a large majority.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce endorsing this legislation be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Washington, DC, June 13, 2000.
TO MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the world's largest business federation, representing more than three million businesses and organizations of every size, sector and region, offers our support of Senator Harry Reid's (D-NV) Amendment 3292 to the Defense Appropriations FY 2001 bill, which changes the regulations governing the export of high-speed computers. This measure will be considered today by the U.S. Senate.
Section 1211 of H.R..1119, the ``National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 1998'' (Public Law 105-85) imposed new restrictions on exports of certain mid-level computers to various countries, even though similar technology is readily available in the international market place. (Mid-level is defined as operating at over 2,000 million theoretical operations per second (MTOPS). Section 1211 also authorized the president to establish a different, higher performance threshold for these restrictions but required a 180-day delay in the implementation of this new threshold, pending Congressional review of a report presenting the justification for the new threshold.
Our concern is that these computers--often mis-labeled ``supercomputers'' or ``high-performance computers''--incorporate technology that is already in fairly wide use here and abroad. As with so many other efforts to unilaterally control the availability of relatively common technology, the result of this provision was another competitive disadvantage for U.S. firms in the global markets.
Earlier this month the House of Representatives approved similar legislation that reduced from 180 to 60 days the time frame for Congress to review the administration's justification for any changes in the performance thresholds for controlling these computer exports. This is important because the 180-day period often exceeds the life cycle of the computers and is longer than the congressional review period for removing various weapons from a list of defense items subject to export controls . While allowing time to address national security issues, this legislation also reduces the chances that computer transactions will languish in Congress and become obsolete before they are permitted to move forward.
In this regard, the U.S. Chamber remains committed to repeal of section 1211 for the reasons stated above. Amendment 3292 to the Defense Appropriations for FY 2001 bill is a major step in the right direction.
Sincerely,
R. BRUCE JOSTEN.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the Information Technology Industry
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There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
INDUSTRY COUNCIL,
Washington, DC, July 10, 2000.
Hon. HARRY REID,
United State Senate, Washington, DC.
DEAR SENATOR REID: I am writing to follow-up on earlier correspondence to reaffirm the fact that ITI strongly supports the bipartisan Reid/Bennett amendment to the defense authorization bill. We urge your colleagues to support your amendment, and also to oppose any efforts to further water down what is already a compromise position for the computer industry.
The Reid/Bennett amendment would provide overdue relief from the current 180-day waiting period whenever US computer export thresholds are updated. Accordingly, this letter is to inform you and your colleagues that ITI anticipates including votes pertaining to computer exports in our annual High Tech Voting Guide. As you know, the High Tech Voting Guide is used by ITI to measure Members of Congress' support for the information technology industry and policies that ensure the success of the digital economy.
ITI is the leading association of U.S. providers of information technology products and services. ITI members had worldwide revenue of more than $633 billion in 1999 and employ an estimated 1.3 million people in the United States.
As you know, ITI has endorsed your legislation to shorten the Congressionally mandated waiting period to 30 days. 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.
Make no mistake. Computer exports are critical to the continued success of the industry and America's leadership in information technology. Computers today are improved and innovated virtually every quarter. In our view, it does not make sense to have a six-month waiting period for products that are being innovated in three-month cycles. That rapid innovation is what provides America with her valuable advantage in technology, both in the marketplace and ultimately for national security purposes--an argument put forth recently in a Defense Science Board report on this very subject.
As a good-faith compromise, ITI and the Computer Coalition for Responsible Exports (CCRE) backed an amendment to the House-passed defense authorization bill that established a 60-day waiting period and guaranteed that the counting of those days would not be tolled when Congress adjourns sine die. The House passed that amendment last month by an overwhelming vote of 415-8.
We thank you for your leadership in offering the bipartisan Reid/Bennett amendment as a companion to the House-passed compromise provision. We trust that it will pass the Senate with a similar overwhelming majority.
We have been heartened in recent weeks by the bipartisan agreement that the waiting period must be shortened. The Administration has recommended a 30-day waiting period. The House, as mentioned above, endorsed a 60-day waiting period. And Gov. George W. Bush has publicly endorsed a 60-day waiting period in recognition that commodity computers widely available from our foreign competitors cannot be effectively controlled.
We thank you for your strong and vocal leadership in this matter and look forward to working with you and other Senators to achieve a strong, bipartisan consensus on this and other issues critical to continuing America's technological pre-eminence.
Best regards,
Rhett B. Dawson,
President.
Mr. REID. Again, I express my appreciation to the Senator from Tennessee and the Senator from Utah and look forward to an overwhelming vote tomorrow to send this matter to the House so it can be sent to the President's desk as quickly as possible.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for their statements. I think they accurately state the conversations we have had. I welcome their commitment to try to work with me toward finding another vehicle in order to alleviate some of the concerns I have had.
I intended to offer a second-degree amendment to this amendment, but I can count the votes. The better part of valor is for me to accept the commitment and assistance from my colleagues in order to try to interject some expertise into the consideration of the MTOP level issues in the future.
What we are seeing with regard to this amendment is a manifestation of a discussion that is going on in this country that is very important. We obviously are leading the world in terms of high technology. We are building supercomputers that no one else has. It is natural that our people want to develop their markets and have an export market. That is important to them from an economic standpoint. Many people in the computer industry are under the impression that if they can build something, it is immediately available worldwide, internationally, by everyone. I respectfully disagree with them on that. But they are of that opinion, and they are moving aggressively in Congress and otherwise to try to raise the level of the computers they can ship without an export license.
Let's keep in mind, that is the issue: What is going to be shipped without a license or with a license. We are not talking about stopping any sales. We are talking about time periods and how fast computers can be sold and what can be sold with or without a license. That is one side of what is going on in the country today in this discussion.
The other side is that all of the statements about our capabilities and our need to market and all those kinds of things may be true.
But there is another side to the story, and that is the danger that sometimes is being interjected into the world by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
We have been told in no uncertain terms by the Cox committee, and others, that the Chinese, for example, are using our technology. They are specifically using our high-performance computers to enhance their own nuclear capabilities. Potentially, they will be used against our own country. We know the Chinese are selling and supplying technology to rogue nations around the world--a big problem. That is a part of the discussion we are going to have over these next few weeks, I hope, in terms of how we address that with the Chinese.
So while it is important to have a viable high-tech market, and while the technological ``genie'' is out of the bottle to a great extent, there are some of us who still believe we should not abrogate all of our export control laws. And on what we are dealing with here tonight, Congress should have an adequate time to consider how much we want to raise the MTOP levels and how liberal we want to be in terms of allowing these computers to be exported--again, mind you, without a license. They can still export them at any level, theoretically. But they have to go through a license process.
Is the congressional review too long? Is 180 days too long? I point out that, I believe as late as a year ago--I think July of last year--while it was not in law, the practice was for the review time for Congress to take between 18 and 24 months. So 6 months kicked in just about a year ago. So we have gone from 18 to 24 months a year ago, and now Congress has 6 months. We narrowed it to 6 months now that we have to review it, when the administration decides it wants to raise the MTOP levels and become more liberal with exports. Now under this bill, we are narrowing the time further to 60 days--from 6 months to 60 days--for Congress to review the raising of a particular MTOP level.
I have a great problem with that. I know there is tremendous momentum in this Congress to accede to those who want Congress to have less and less a part in this process. I agree with colleagues who said Congress has not always done its due diligence, has not always used that process to its best advantage; we have sometimes sat on our hands.
What I am trying to do, and what I was going to do by my second-degree amendment, which I will now, with the help of colleagues, try to do separate and apart, is to say, OK, we will go down to 60 days, although I don't like it; but we will say, within that 60 days, let's have GAO take a look at it; let's have some expertise from the people who are used to analyzing these things because they don't always agree with the administration, as to what the foreign availability is or what the mass marketing for a particular component is. So why do we want to fly blindly on something that is so technical and important? We need to have GAO in this process and then give Congress just 10 days after the GAO does its work, after 50 days, to look at what GAO has come up with, and then we can act if we want to.
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So I think it is a very compressed timeframe. But I understand the momentum for this. I hope we are not making a mistake. I hope we are not placing too much faith in an administration that I think has been entirely too lax in terms of matters of national security, our export laws, the security of our laboratories, and everything else. I hope we are not making that mistake. But I know it is going to happen now. It passed overwhelmingly in the House, and I expect it to tomorrow. I can count as well as the next person. But I am hopeful that within the next few days, as I say, we can interject into this process at least a little bit of extra deliberation by the GAO and those with the expertise to tell us what they think about a particular increase in the MTOP levels.
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