Sen. Phil Gramm, chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, has announced his intention to schedule several hearings of the full committee leading up to the reauthorization of the Export Administration Act.

The hearings will build on the work of Sen. Mike Enzi, chairman of the Subcommittee on International Trade and Finance. The subcommittee has held four hearings this year on various aspects of export controls, and Enzi is in the process of drafting legislation to reauthorize the Export Administration Act, which lapsed in 1994.

Gramm and Enzi plan to invite testimony from Rep. Christopher Cox, chairman, and Rep. Norman Dicks, ranking member, of the House Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China. The select committee issued a report earlier this week detailing China's acquisition of U.S. nuclear secrets.

"The Cox report makes more than 30 recommendations for upgrades in security and heightened export controls," Enzi said. "The new Export Administration Act will specifically address more than a dozen concerns outlined in the Cox Report that are within my subcommittee's jurisdiction."

Full Banking Committee hearings are expected to begin in mid-June, according to Gramm.

"One of my goals since becoming chairman of the Banking Committee has been rewriting the expired Export Administration Act," Gramm said. "As the Cox report shows, both the U.S. government and the private sector could use up-to-date guidance for the export of technology."

The Senate Banking Committee expects to pass legislation that preserves the Act's original intentions to:

• Provide the legal basis for controlling the export of dual-use goods, services and technology for national security and non-proliferation reasons.
• Provide the legal authority for export controls as a foreign policy tool. This allows the United States to unilaterally sanction countries for such things as human-rights abuses.
• Prohibit U.S. citizens and corporations from cooperating in the Arab boycott of Israel.

Details of the committee schedule will be announced after the Senate reconvenes June 7.