U.S. defense export regulations are the “biggest speed bump” and need to be addressed to foster closer technology collaboration between the U.S. and allies, former Navy Secretary Richard Spencer said this week. Spencer, speaking at the National Press Club of Australia, said the International Traffic in Arms Regulations “has to be addressed; it will be addressed,” according to a March 20 report from InnovationAus.

The U.S. needs to reform the International Traffic in Arms Regulations to allow it to more easily share controlled technologies with the U.K., Australia and other close allies (see 2302170022), experts said last week. If Congress and the administration don’t move quickly to relax ITAR restrictions, the Australia-U.K.-U.S. (AUKUS) partnership will fail, they said, and U.S. military capabilities could fall behind China and other countries.

Democrats and Republicans applauded the Australia-U.K.-U.S. (AUKUS) partnership announcement this week, saying the delivery of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia will help shore up security in the Indo-Pacific 2303130035). But lawmakers also said the U.S. should do more to make sure it can easily share sensitive technology within the group, adding that they would support legislation that would revise U.S. defense export regulations.

The U.S. this week released a timeline for sharing sensitive nuclear submarine technology with Australia, saying the country will be operating nuclear-powered submarines before the end of the 2030s. The Biden administration also said it’s considering revising its defense export controls to allow it to more easily share controlled technologies with allies, including within the Australia-U.K.-U.S. (AUKUS) partnership.

The State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls will hold a webinar March 21 on the Defense Export Control and Compliance System (DECCS). It will include a refresher on using DECCS, information on commodity jurisdictions, advisory opinions, registration and licensing applications and “an overview of new updates” for the application. The webinar, hosted with the Census Bureau, will also cover “important process updates to Electronic Export Information (EEI) filings through the Automated Export System (AES) when citing United States Munitions List (USML) Category XXI.”

The State Department updated several forms in its Defense Export Control and Compliance System last week to add “new voluntary disclosure field questions,” the agency’s Directorate of Defense Trade Control said. The updates to forms DS-6004 (Block 10), DS-4294 (Block 11) and DSP-85 (Block 9) will allow industry to report a disclosure previously filed with DDTC’s compliance division when submitting one of the listed licenses.

The State Department’s Defense Export Control and Compliance System registration and licensing applications will be unavailable to users from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. EST March 2 for scheduled system maintenance. Users should ensure any work in progress is saved before the down time period.

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The State Department is seeking public comments on information collections overseen by the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls. One deals with approval requests for its manufacturing license agreements, technical assistance agreements and other agreements; another involves the maintenance of records by DDTC registrants; a third involves the annual brokering report; and the last relates to the agency’s “Brokering Prior Approval” license. Comments are due March 30.

Two U.S. manufacturers welcomed December proposals by the State Department that would expand its regulatory definition of activities that don’t qualify as exports, but they urged the agency to provide even further flexibility. In comments released this month, both Boeing and Maxar Technologies said the agency should expand a proposal that would allow companies to avoid submitting license applications for when a foreign government’s armed forces or U.N. personnel takes a defense article out of a previously approved country.