TAC Members Told to Expect Review by BIS Leadership
Members of the Bureau of Industry and Security's Materials and Equipment Technical Advisory Committee were asked during their April 3 meeting to sign or re-sign non-disclosure agreements as Trump administration officials review how the TACs operate.
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BIS senior leadership is taking a “comprehensive, high-level review of what we're doing, how we're doing it -- are we meeting the objectives of the president?” a BIS official said during the meeting. “And I think in this instance, a lot of things are on the table,” the person said, pointing to changes that could come as a result of priorities outlined in Trump’s America-first trade agenda (see 2501210023).
Senior leadership may be looking to change “processes to make them more effective,” including procedures related to the TACs, the BIS official said.
“The NDAs, re-signing the NDAs is part of that process, we’re starting at the very operational level,” the official said. “But we will, very quickly, I'm sure, start looking” at policy issues.
They also said the longtime official who had been overseeing TAC operations under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the law under which the committees operate, recently retired. They “walked out the door with a fair amount of knowledge and know-how about when things needed to be done, how to get them done within the context of BIS,” the BIS official said. “So we're in the process of reconstituting that function.”
The comments came days after BIS Undersecretary Jeffrey Kessler said he wants to limit communication with industry (see 2503280039). Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in February terminated several agency advisory committees, including the Advisory Committee on Supply Chain Competitiveness (see 2503260041).