President Donald Trump signed into law the Maintaining American Superiority by Improving Export Control Transparency Act (the Act) on August 19, 2025.
The Act mandates that the Department of Commerce provide an annual report to specific congressional committees that includes details about license applications and other requests for authorization for exports, reexports, releases, and in-country transfers of items subject to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to entities that are located in D:5 countries (which includes China) and are included on the Entity List or the Military End-User List (Covered Entities).
The Act reflects the growing bipartisan congressional oversight and interest in the use and effectiveness of export controls to address technology transfer risks to countries of concern. In praising the law, co-sponsor Senator Mark Warner stated that “the legislation strengthens [congressional] oversight of our export control processes, increases transparency, and will help ensure that critical technologies don’t fall into the wrong hands.”
Parties who plan to submit a license application or other requests for authorization to the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) to export, reexport, release, or transfer items subject to the EAR to Covered Entities will need to consider the government affairs implications of the congressional reporting of their export licensing activity and associated details.
Parties who have pending license applications or other requests for authorization with BIS should consider proactively engaging key legislative stakeholders prior to BIS submitting the report to congress.
Overview of the Act
The Act requires that, by August 19, 2026, the Department of Commerce provide Congress with details on license applications and other requests for authorization for exports, reexports, releases, and in-country transfer of items subject to the EAR to Covered Entities. Specifically, the report to Congress, which will be submitted at least annually to the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of the Senate, must include the following information about each of the aforementioned license applications or other requests for authorization:
- The name of the entity submitting the application
- A brief description of the item (including the Export Control Classification Number and reason for control, if applicable)
- The name of the end user
- The location of the end user
- An estimate of value
- Whether the license application or other authorization was approved or denied
- The date of the submission, and
- The date, location, and result of any end-use checks.
The report to Congress is required to include aggregate licensing statistics for all license applications involving Covered Entities.
The reports will be exempt from public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act pursuant to Section 1761(h)(1) of the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 (ECRA), unless the release of such information is determined by the Secretary of Commerce to be in the national interest. The congressional committees, however, may disclose information submitted on a confidential basis if the committee determines that withholding the information is contrary to the national interest.
Notably, Section 1761(h)(1) of the ECRA already requires the Department of Commerce to provide such license application information to Congress upon the request of the chairman or ranking minority member of the relevant committees.
Practical impacts
While the reports are not intended to be made public, the international business community can expect that the extent of export activity involving Covered Entities and the administration’s decisions to approve licenses will be of great interest to congressional representatives and their professional staff.
Parties that have pending license applications or requests for authorization to Covered Entities, or expect to in the future, should prepare their leadership or government affairs representatives for questions relating to the license applications due to bipartisan interest in ensuring export control laws are strictly enforced, particularly for exports to end users in China and other countries of concern.
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