Jon Kyl: “I noted that one of the subjects of discussion in the colloquy between the Senator from Maryland and the Senator from…”

“I noted that one of the subjects of discussion in the colloquy between the Senator from Maryland and the Senator from Tennessee had to do with the President's authority under this legislation to waive certain provisions, important provisions, because they deal with a question of whether or not an item that is on the control list--so-called commerce control list--should be waived or whether there should be a waiver of either the embedded product rule or the foreign availability and mass market rule under sections 204 and 211 of the act. The point was made by the Senator from Maryland that if there were a problem with one of the dual-use items on the list, the President had the authority to waive that. Therefore, those of us who have concerns about the legislation need not be concerned. The Senator from Wyoming made the further point that in this case we didn't want to turn this matter over to the bureaucrats so we gave the authority directly to the President. I appreciate the sentiment behind those vows. There is a problem with them however. That is, the President, with all of his other responsibilities, can't possibly exercise this authority without the help of the so-called bureaucrats, without the help of a staff. I have in my hand just a partial list of the commerce control list items. It specifically says at the top: This index is not an exhaustive list of the controlled items. I haven't bothered to count these. There are hundreds and hundreds of items.…”