Led by Project 2025 Contributors, BIS Resumes Certain Licenses but Shaken By Turnover

James Rockas, who had been serving as acting BIS undersecretary for most of February, was one of eight people awarded “special recognition” for contributing to recommendations for the Commerce Department in Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for how the Trump administration should overhaul the federal government. The plan calls on BIS to significantly expand export controls against China, eliminate license exceptions for certain “countries of concern,” broaden the agency’s restrictions over foreign-made technology and software, revise how the government handles disagreements over licensing decisions, and more.

Rockas had been leading an agency review of export license applications, three people familiar with the matter said, an effort began in early February that BIS hasn’t publicly acknowledged but that resulted in many newly submitted applications being placed in a hold status (see 2502130068). Rockas, who worked elsewhere at Commerce during the first Trump administration, asked to examine many of those licenses, the people said, even though they said he appeared to have relatively little export control expertise. The reviews were said to have caused a large licensing backlog and concern among exporters (see 2502190018).

Rockas, who was the executive director of the conservative advocacy group American Center for Law & Justice Action before joining BIS in January, was replaced as acting undersecretary late last month by BIS chief of staff Robert Burkett, also credited with contributing to Project 2025’s recommendations for Commerce. Around the same time Rockas was replaced, several industry officials said they were told BIS had resumed processing select license applications.

An Export Compliance Daily review of applications in STELA, the online portal that tracks the status of licenses, shows that some applications submitted in February that were previously listed as “Hold Without Action” have since been sent to other Cabinet agencies for review, and some of those reviews have been completed. BIS approved one license, with conditions, as recently as Feb. 25.

Although some licenses are being processed, several industry lawyers said they believe the agency is still holding more sensitive applications, such as those involving advanced technology destined to China.

The licensing holds perplexed more than a dozen former government officials, industry representatives and trade lawyers interviewed by Export Compliance Daily. They said they haven’t been given an explanation from BIS about what Rockas, who is now listed on the agency’s website as the agency’s deputy undersecretary, or others were looking for during the license reviews.

One former senior U.S. export control official said they sent letters last month to every lawmaker on the Senate Banking Committee, the congressional committee with oversight of BIS, to ask that they look into the licensing hold and the broader policy review overseen by Rockas. One letter, seen by Export Compliance Daily, said the review could violate licensing procedures outlined in the Export Control Reform Act.

“Applications that have concluded interagency review, with a consensus decision on outcome, are being printed out and provided to the acting Under Secretary to personally decide the outcome of those applications -- in direct violation of ECRA and in the usurpation of YOUR oversight authority,” the letter said. The former official who sent the letters, who asked not to be named, urged the lawmakers to push the White House and Commerce Department to “demand answers” from acting BIS political leadership about the reasons for the pause.

The former official said he didn’t receive responses. A spokesperson for Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., a member of the Senate Banking Committee who introduced a bill Feb. 26 that would create more congressional oversight over BIS export licensing (see 2502280036), said the lawmaker wasn’t aware of the licensing pause. Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., ranking member of the Banking subcommittee that oversees export controls, also said he was unaware. The other committee members didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

BIS and Commerce didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.

Rockas was in favor of some of the recommendations outlined in Project 2025, said one person familiar with his thinking. The plan says the BIS undersecretary, instead of the assistant secretary for export administration, should be given “lead authority” to oversee dispute resolutions when the Commerce, State, Defense and Energy departments disagree about a licensing decision before the disagreement is escalated further. It also says Congress should have more oversight over BIS license decisions.

Other recommendations say BIS should eliminate license exceptions for China and other “countries of concern”; move China to Country Group E under the Export Administration Regulations, which includes nations subject to a general embargo; expand BIS foreign direct product rules; and tighten the “fundamental research” exclusion that universities rely on to share information that otherwise may be subject to export controls.

Thea Kendler, who left BIS in January after serving for three years as assistant secretary for export administration in the Biden administration, said she’s concerned some of the more hawkish recommendations in Project 2025, such as eliminating license exceptions and moving China to Country Group E, would harm the U.S.

“These moves would be devastating for U.S. national security,” she said in an interview. “Our technological leadership in the United States depends on the global trade that they would cut off.”

President Donald Trump has disavowed Project 2025 even though some of his early actions have been closely aligned with the plan’s suggestions, including his administration’s purge of the federal workforce.

While it’s unclear whether any BIS employees have been fired, at least three senior career officials have left government or plan to leave soon, including Matt Borman, the agency’s longtime expert on dual-use export control regulations, and Eileen Albanese, the former director of the Office of National Security Controls. Karen NiesVogel, the former director of the Office of Exporter Services, had long been planning to retire, two people familiar with her thinking said, and more career officials are expected to leave in the coming weeks.

Former government officials and industry representatives are concerned departures of BIS employees could hamper the agency’s efforts to craft complicated export regulations and provide guidance to companies, especially because the agency is already dealing with staffing shortages.

BIS is specifically dealing with a shortage of licensing officers, two industry officials said, an issue exacerbated in recent years by a surge in license applications stemming from the complex series of semiconductor-related export control rules issued during the Biden administration.

“This is an area where everything is in the weeds. You have to have a grasp of the items that are subject to license applications,” said Bill Reinsch, a former senior BIS export administration official.

“If you get rid of all those people, there's just going to be a lot of mistakes made," he said. "So I'm worried about the bureau.”

Kendler said the departure of career officials is a “tremendous blow to the effectiveness” of BIS.

“At a time when we need to be so vigilant about our adversaries' activities and designs on U.S. technology -- to kneecap the organization and the people who are so good at that, it’s unbelievable,” she said.

Industry officials and export control policy experts said they believe Trump is unlikely to implement some of the more extreme recommendations for BIS in Project 2025, which also called on the agency to reduce the de minimis threshold from 25% to 10%, or 0% for critical technologies; deny export licenses to countries that don’t “permit adequate end-use checks (e.g., China/Russia)”; and more efficiently identify technologies that warrant control “with minimal input from other federal agencies.” It accuses BIS of failing to prevent exports of dual-use items to U.S. adversaries and says the U.S. should consider decoupling from China.

One avenue to cut more ties with Beijing would be by following the plan's recommendation to move China to the restrictive Country Group E of the EAR, which could subject it to similar trade controls faced by Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria. Reinsch, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he doesn’t think the administration would take a step that drastic.

“That is in the virtual embargo category,” he said, “and that would disrupt an enormous amount of ordinary trade.”

Meghan Harris, who held senior positions in both BIS and the National Security Council during the first Trump administration, said she's expecting “aggressive” export control policies under Trump, but it may be too soon to tell what form those could take. She also noted that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has advocated for less burdensome federal regulations, and she said Trump may be willing to loosen restrictions if U.S. companies complain about losing out on too many sales to China.

“The export control team is going to have to be aware of that dynamic,” said Harris, now senior vice president at Beacon Global Strategies. “We experienced that in his first NSC.”

It’s unclear if Lutnick supports any of the recommendations for BIS in Project 2025, which lists the author as Thomas Gilman, a former chief financial officer for Commerce in the first Trump administration, who is credited as having sole responsibility for the recommendations. “The author alone assumes responsibility for the content of this chapter, and no views expressed herein should be attributed to any other individual,” it said. Gilman couldn’t be reached.

Along with Rockas and Burkett, Nazak Nikakhtar, who served as acting BIS undersecretary during the first Trump administration, is also listed as a contributor to the chapter who was given special recognition. Nikakhtar didn’t respond to requests for comment.

It’s unclear what roles, if any, Rockas and Burkett will hold in BIS once a permanent undersecretary takes over. Washington trade lawyer Jeffrey Kessler, who was tapped for the role, said during his nomination hearing last week that he favors “muscular enforcement” of U.S. export controls and that BIS may need more employees and resources (see 2502270041).

Two former senior U.S. export control officials said BIS can’t afford to lose more experienced career officials, adding that the agency was already “one employee deep” in many technology areas.

“The vibe there is no different from the vibe from the rest of the government, where people are kind of like, ‘Wow, what's going on? What's going to happen? Are we going to get fired?” said one former senior official, who requested anonymity to speak candidly.

The departure of experienced career officials is expected to have spillover effects on U.S. companies and other organizations subject to export regulations. Trade lawyers and industry compliance officers often seek guidance from BIS officials by asking technical questions about the Export Administration Regulations, which they said has grown more complex in recent years.

“Whoever comes in at BIS, they might be an expert in their field, but unless they've done the sort of hands-on work of tinkering with these regulations, it will take some time for them to get up to speed,” said Reid Whitten, a Sheppard Mullin international trade lawyer. “And that delay is a disadvantage to American industry.”

U.S. exporters for weeks have been concerned about licensing delays that could be caused by BIS holding many new applications last month. One former official said the licensing hold risked damaging the reliability of the U.S. as a supplier of crucial technologies. Another official last week described the agency’s productivity as “frozen.”

Others questioned whether delays could impact new export rules, especially as experienced regulation writers depart. Reinsch said Borman, who has been with BIS for over two decades, led the writing of sweeping U.S. export controls against Russia after it invaded Ukraine in 2022.

“He's really indispensable,” Reinsch said. “I mean, there's just no other way to put it. He holds the place together.”

The immediate export control task facing the Trump administration is the artificial intelligence diffusion rule published in the final days of the Biden administration, which outlined new worldwide license requirements for certain shipments of advanced AI chips (see 2501130026). The administration is expected to revise the rule before it takes effect in May.

Harris, who worked as a policy director for both the Semiconductor Industry Association and GlobalFoundries after leaving government in 2021, said the new administration wants to make the AI chip rule “stronger but simpler,” which could be challenging without the input of Borman and other EAR experts.

“These people are highly expert technical reg writers, and that is not easily replaced,” she said. “That will slow things down.”

Another former official said BIS is also in “desperate need" of more advanced technology experts and experienced enforcement officers. The early departures of some senior career employees have been a “terrible step forward, because if they're trying to retain people and to retain people who are knowledgeable," the official said, "that's exactly the opposite.”

“I have no idea how they're going to manage going forward. I have no idea.”