The Port of Los Angeles recently announced a plan to impose a new charge on ocean carriers that allow empty containers to linger on marine terminals. Under the plan, which must be approved by the Los Angeles Harbor Commission next week, the port would charge carriers $100 for an empty container dwelling for nine days, increasing in $100 “increments per container per day until the container leaves the terminal.” If approved by the commission, the fee would take effect Jan. 30.

The Commerce Department is adjusting its civil monetary penalties for inflation for 2022, the agency said in a Jan. 4 notice. The change increases maximum civil monetary penalties for violations of the Export Controls Act of 2018 from $308,901 to $328,121 Commerce said. The rule is effective Jan. 15.

The Los Angeles and Long Beach ports again postponed a new surcharge meant to incentivize the movement of dwelling containers (see 2110280031), the two ports announced Jan. 3. The ports originally planned to begin imposing the fee Nov. 15, but have postponed it each week since. The latest extension delays the effective date until Jan. 10, when the situation will be reassessed.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. has asked a Ukrainian businessman and his technology company to sell its stake in Texas-based Firefly Aerospace due to national security concerns, Bloomberg reported Dec. 29. CFIUS is concerned that valuable U.S. technology could be transferred from Firefly to Ukraine or Russia via tech entrepreneur Max Polyakov and his firm Noosphere Venture Partners, the report said, and has asked the firm to sell its 50% stake in Firefly. Noosphere told CFIUS it plans to follow through with the request and sell its stake, the report said. Firefly, which develops commercial space launch vehicles, subsequently announced it would pause preparations for its next launch, according to a Dec. 30 report from SpaceNews. Noosphere told Bloomberg that it understands “CFIUS’s actions come amid rising tensions between Ukraine and Russia,” adding that the firm is “working diligently to address CFIUS’s concerns in the most efficient and appropriate manner possible.” Polyakov in 2020 agreed to step down from the company’s board and Firefly’s day-to-day activities “to help make it easier for the company to win U.S. government and military contracts and ease some of the underlying tensions,” Bloomberg said. Firefly, Noosphere and the Treasury Department, which chairs CFIUS, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Biden administration recently renewed the charter for the president’s Export Council, but it remains unclear if the administration plans to reconvene that advisory committee after years of inactivity. The council is designed to identify and “examine” export issues affecting U.S. industry and “recommend specific solutions to these problems and needs,” according to the most recent version of the charter, which was renewed Nov. 16. The council last met in 2016. The White House didn’t comment.

The State Department called on the “international community” to stop selling arms and dual-use technology to Myanmar’s military in light of increasing violence across the country in recent days. The U.S. earlier this year added Myanmar to its list of countries subject to military and military intelligence end-use and end-user controls (see 2103040075 and 2104080026), which imposed stricter licensing policies over a range of dual-use goods, and has urged allies to do the same. “The international community must also do more to advance this goal and help prevent the recurrence of atrocities” in Myanmar, a State Department spokesperson said Dec. 28. “We will continue to work with our partners and allies to promote accountability for human rights abuses.”

The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis recently published its first set of data in an ongoing project to help the U.S. better analyze international trade. The agency released “prototype data on trade in value added,” which it said can help government and industry determine which domestic and imported inputs are most used to create U.S. exports. The data, released in December, can also be used to determine the ways in which U.S. industries contribute to different global value chains, BEA said. The agency said the prototype data represents the “first milestone of this ongoing project,” which it expects will “provide a more complete and nuanced view of U.S. trade to analyze the evolving structure of international trade.'”

The State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls recently posted a notice on the restructuring of Northrop Grumman Australia. DDTC said Northrop Grumman Integrated Defense Services and Northrop Grumman M5 Network Security are being integrated into Northrop Grumman Australia, and the agency is waiving the requirement for amendments to change the company’s approved license authorizations because of the “volume” of authorizations requiring amendments to reflect the change, DDTC said. The change is effective Jan. 1, and new license applications that identify the old names on the license and are received after Feb. 1 will be “considered for return without action for correction,” DDTC said.

The State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls recently posted a name change notice for TMD Technologies, a global supplier of microwave technologies. It also is waiving the requirement for amendments to change approved license authorizations because of the “volume” of authorizations requiring amendments to reflect the change, DDTC said. TMD Technologies will become CPI TMD Technologies. New license applications that identify the old name on the license and are received after Jan. 27 will be “considered for return without action for correction,” DDTC said.

New processing fees will apply to ATA Carnets beginning Feb. 1, according to the U.S. Council for International Business. The new structure will increase processing fees for all carnets and also will impose higher processing charges for continuation sheets, additional sets and the post issue of original carnets. Fees will remain the same for certain replacement carnets.