Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

21. Department of Commerce · Notable

Create an open rulemaking process for nominating emerging technologies for control

Not started

672 21. Department of Commerce

“BIS should create an open, transparent rulemaking process by which any industry participant, private entity, or branch of the government may, at any time, submit nominations for emerging/foundational technologies for control. Then, on a quarterly basis, BIS should make public such recommendations (while holding the identity of the submitter confidential) for public input, followed by an explanation about its ultimate decision to control or not control the items, its reasons, the level of controls applied (stringent or permissive), and the relevant Export Control Classification Number (ECCN) under the Commerce Control List.”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    Nothing found. BIS created no open process for nominating emerging or foundational technologies for control, publishes no quarterly list of nominations, and issues no explanation of why it controlled or declined to control an item. The only in-window Federal Register use of 'emerging and foundational technologies' is the 2026 Unified Agenda introduction.

    No action found yet. This entry is the starting point, not a finding.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

Cluster negative search BIS-1 (chapter log): a jq pass over all 154 in-window Federal Register records whose agency is the Industry and Security Bureau — every Entity List, Unverified List, Denied Persons, Section 232 and licensing document of the window — plus quoted-phrase Federal Register full-text searches since 2025-01-20, plus the Bureau’s whole active Unified Agenda on reginfo.gov (agencyCd 0600, DOC/BIS: seventeen RINs, each opened and read). The specific queries: "emerging and foundational technologies" (1 hit, the Unified Agenda introduction), "nomination" "Commerce Control List", and "advance notice of proposed rulemaking" restricted to the Industry and Security Bureau slug.

BIS does have one live critical-technology rulemaking — RIN 0694-AK17, Critical Technologies Controls, at Proposed Rule Stage with an NPRM projected for 07/2026 and nothing published. Its abstract (“This rule implements controls on certain critical technologies”) describes controls on items, not a public nomination and explanation process, so it is recorded here as context and not as delivery.

Reginfo agenda sweep, 2026-09-01 (§3b). The seventeen active RINs of the DOC/BIS slice of the 2026 Unified Agenda (agencyCd=0600, pubId=202510, published in the Federal Register 2026-08-14) were re-read against the rule settled 2026-09-01 — a dated agenda entry naming the ask’s object is attempted. RIN 0694-AK17 Critical Technologies Controls (Proposed Rule Stage, NPRM 07/2026) remains the only entry in this ask’s subject area, and it controls items rather than establishing the open nomination, quarterly publication and explanation process the Quote asks for. Subject area only — Status unchanged.

Action
create
Object
BIS rulemaking process for emerging and foundational technology controls
ID
1847