[Federal Register Volume 87, Number 184 (Friday, September 23, 2022)]
[Notices]
[Pages 58058-58061]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2022-20687]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Bureau of Industry and Security

[Docket No. 220916-0192]
RIN 0694-XC091


Request for Public Comments on the Potential Market Impact of the 
Proposed Fiscal Year 2024 Annual Materials Plan From the National 
Defense Stockpile Market Impact Committee

AGENCY: Bureau of Industry and Security, Department of Commerce.

ACTION: Notice of inquiry; request for comments.

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SUMMARY: The National Defense Stockpile Market Impact Committee, co-
chaired by the Departments of Commerce and State, is seeking public 
comments on the potential market impact of proposed changes of the 
Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Annual Materials Plan (AMP). Potential changes to 
the AMP are decided by the National Defense Stockpile Market Impact 
Committee who advise the Defense Logistics Agency in its role as the 
National Defense Stockpile Manager on the projected domestic and 
foreign economic effects of all acquisitions, conversions, and 
disposals involving the National Defense Stockpile.

DATES: To be considered, written comments must be received by October 
24, 2022.

ADDRESSES: Submissions: You may submit comments, identified by docket 
number BIS-2022-0024 or RIN 0694-XC091, through the Federal eRulemaking 
Portal: https://www.regulations.gov. To submit comments via https://www.regulations.gov, enter the docket number BIS-2022-0024 on the home 
page and click ``Search.'' The site will provide a search results page 
listing all documents associated with this docket. Find a reference to 
this notice and click the button entitled ``Comment.'' Further 
Instructions on how to submit a comment on regulations.gov can be found 
on the FAQ page. BIS also requests commenters review the instructions 
in the Additional Instructions for Comments section further in this 
notice. BIS, as the publisher of the notice, will be receiving the 
comments and disseminating them to the National Defense Stockpile 
Market Impact Committee. While BIS encourages the submissions of 
comments via https://www.regulations.gov, comments may also be 
submitted via email to the following: Katherine Reid, U.S. Department 
of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security, Office of Strategic 
Industries and Economic Security, email: [email protected]. All comments 
submitted through email to Commerce must include the phrase ``Market 
Impact Committee Notice of Inquiry'' in the subject line and will be 
added to the docket on regulations.gov. Public comments are an 
important element of the Committee's market impact review process.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Marina Youssef, Office of Strategic 
Industries and Economic Security, Bureau of Industry and Security, U.S. 
Department of Commerce, telephone: (202) 482-3504, (Attn: Marina 
Youssef), email: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

    The federal government operates several different stockpiles, and 
these are managed by different federal agencies depending on the 
stockpile's purpose. For example, the Department of Health and Human 
Services (HHS) manages the Strategic National Stockpile, which contains 
medicines and medical equipment. HHS' stockpile can supplement medical 
countermeasures needed by states, tribal nations, territories and the 
largest metropolitan areas during public health emergencies. Another 
example, the Department of Energy operates the Strategic Petroleum 
Reserve for use when the international oil market is severely 
disrupted.
    The Department of Defense (DOD) maintains a stockpile of critical 
and strategic materials known as the National Defense Stockpile (NDS). 
In a war or national emergency, this stockpile is meant to provide 
strategic and critical materials to support national defense and 
essential civilian requirements in a time of national emergency. The 
stockpile currently contains 57 materials, primarily

[[Page 58059]]

minerals, that are deemed strategic and critical to national 
security.\1\
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    \1\ Defense Logistics Agency, ``Strategic Materials: Office,'' 
U.S. Department of Defense, https://www.dla.mil/HQ/Acquisition/StrategicMaterials/About/.
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    Under the authority of the Strategic and Critical Materials Stock 
Piling Revision Act of 1979, as amended (the Stock Piling Act) (50 
U.S.C. 98 et seq.), the Department of Defense's Defense Logistics 
Agency (DLA) is the National Defense Stockpile Manager. The NDS is a 
strategic stockpile, not an economic stockpile. It is not intended to 
influence prices in the market or insulate private industry from supply 
shocks. Rather, its purpose is to ensure the defense and essential 
civilian industrial base has consistent access to the materiel it 
needs--and the private industries making products have the raw 
materials they need--in war or national emergency.
    Congress authorizes the sale of excess materials in the stockpile, 
and proceeds of the sales are transferred to the National Defense 
Stockpile Transaction Fund. The NDS does not receive annual 
appropriations in the defense budget--neither for new purchases of 
materials nor for operations expenses. Instead, the stockpile has a 
revolving fund in the US Treasury called the National Defense Stockpile 
Transaction Fund.\2\ Whenever materials in the stockpile are sold, the 
proceeds of that sale are added to the fund. The DLA then uses that 
money to pay for the operational expenses of maintaining the stockpile 
and to purchase new materials. Information about stockpile 
transactions--what was bought, what was sold, at what value it was 
sold--is publicly available in annual and monthly reports published by 
DLA.\3\
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    \2\ Strategic and Critical Materials Stock Piling Revision Act 
of 1979, Public Law 96-41, p. 5.
    \3\ Strategic Materials Reports (dla.mil).
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    Section 3314 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 
Year 1993 (FY 1993 NDAA) (50 U.S.C. 98h-1) formally established a 
Market Impact Committee (the Committee) to ``advise the National 
Defense Stockpile Manager on the projected domestic and foreign 
economic effects of all acquisitions and disposals of materials from 
the stockpile. . . .'' The Committee must also balance market impact 
concerns with the statutory requirement to protect the U.S. Government 
against avoidable loss. See 50 U.S.C. 98e (b)(2).
    The Committee is comprised of representatives from the Departments 
of Commerce, State, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, the 
Treasury, and Homeland Security. The FY 1993 NDAA directs the Committee 
to consult with industry representatives that produce, process, or 
consume the types of materials stored in the Stockpile as the National 
Defense Stockpile Manager, the DLA must produce an Annual Materials 
Plan (AMP) proposing the maximum quantity of each listed material that 
may be acquired, disposed of, upgraded, converted, recovered, or sold 
by the DLA in a particular fiscal year. With this notice, Commerce, on 
behalf of DLA, lists the quantities and types of activity--potential 
disposals, potential acquisitions, potential conversions (upgrade, 
rotation, reprocessing, etc.) or potential recovery (from government 
sources)--associated with each material in its proposed FY 2024 AMP.
    The quantities listed in Attachment 1 are not acquisition, 
disposal, upgrade, conversion, recovery, reprocessing, or sales target 
quantities, but rather a statement of the proposed maximum quantity of 
each listed material that may be acquired, disposed of, upgraded, 
converted, recovered, or sold in a particular fiscal year by the DLA. 
The quantity of each material that will actually be acquired or offered 
for sale will depend on the market for the material at the time of the 
acquisition or offering, as well as on the quantity of each material 
approved by Congress for acquisition, disposal, conversion, or 
recovery.

Additional Instructions for Comments

    The Committee is interested in any supporting data and 
documentation on the potential market impact of the quantities 
associated with the proposed FY 2024 AMP.
    While regulations.gov allows users to provide comments by filling 
in a ``Type Comment'' field or by attaching a document using an 
``Upload File'' field, BIS prefers comments be provided in an attached 
document--preferably in Microsoft Word (.doc) or Adobe Acrobat (.pdf). 
If the submission is in an application format other than Microsoft Word 
or Adobe Acrobat, please indicate the name of the application in the 
``Type Comment'' field. Please do not attach separate cover letters to 
electronic submissions; rather, include any information that might 
appear in a cover letter within the comments. Please include any 
exhibits, annexes, or other attachments in the same file, so the 
submission consists of one instead of multiple files. All filers should 
name their files using the name of the person or entity submitting the 
comments.
    Submitted materials properly marked as business confidential 
information with a valid statutory basis for confidentiality and which 
is accepted as such by BIS will not be disclosed publicly. Commenters 
submitting business confidential information should clearly identify 
the business confidential portion at the time of submission, include a 
statement justifying nondisclosure and referring to the specific legal 
authority claimed with the submission, and provide a non-confidential 
version of the submission which will be placed in the public file on 
https://www.regulations.gov. For comments containing business 
confidential information, the file name of the business confidential 
version should begin with the characters ``BC''. Any page containing 
business confidential information must be clearly marked ``BUSINESS 
CONFIDENTIAL'' on the top of that page. The file name of the non-
confidential version should begin with the character ``P''. The non-
confidential version must be clearly marked ``PUBLIC'' on the top of 
the first page. The ``BC'' and ``P'' should be followed by the name of 
the person or entity submitting the comments.
    The Office of Administration, Bureau of Industry and Security, U.S. 
Department of Commerce, displays public comments on the BIS Freedom of 
Information Act (FOIA) website at https://efoia.bis.doc.gov/. This 
office does not maintain a separate public inspection facility. If you 
have technical difficulties accessing this website, please call BIS's 
Office of Administration at (202) 482-1900 for assistance.

Thea D. Rozman Kendler,
Assistant Secretary for Export Administration.

Attachment 1

[[Page 58060]]



                                 Proposed Fiscal Year 2024 Annual Materials Plan
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                   Material                                  Unit                   Quantity         Footnote
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                                               Potential Disposals
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Beryllium Metal..............................  ST..............................               8
Carbon Fibers................................  Lbs.............................          98,000
Chromium, Ferro..............................  ST..............................          24,000
Chromium, Metal..............................  ST..............................             500
Germanium....................................  kg..............................           5,000
Manganese, Ferro.............................  ST..............................          50,000
Manganese, Metallurgical Grade...............  SDT.............................         322,238           (\1\)
Aerospace Alloys.............................  Lbs.............................       1,500,000
Platinum.....................................  Tr Oz...........................           8,380           (\1\)
PGM--Iridium.................................  Tr Oz...........................             489           (\1\)
Quartz Crystals..............................  Lbs.............................          15,759           (\1\)
Tantalum.....................................  Lbs.............................             190           (\1\)
Tin..........................................  MT..............................             640
Titanium Based Alloys........................  Lbs.............................       1,000,000
Tungsten Ores and Concentrates...............  Lbs W...........................       2,000,000           (\1\)
Zinc.........................................  ST..............................           2,500
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                                             Potential Acquisitions
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Aluminum (High Purity).......................  MT..............................          17,000
Aluminum Alloys..............................  MT..............................           1,500
Antimony.....................................  MT..............................           1,100
Cadmium Zinc Telluride.......................  EA..............................           1,000
Cerium.......................................  MT..............................             550
Electrolytic Manganese Metal.................  MT..............................           5,000
Energetics...................................  Lbs.............................      20,000,000
Ferroniobium.................................  Lbs Nb..........................         300,000
Grain Oriented Electric......................  MT..............................           3,200
Iso-Molded Graphite..........................  MT..............................           1,300
Lanthanum....................................  MT..............................           1,300
Magnesium....................................  MT..............................           3,500
Neodymium-Praseodymium Oxide.................  MT..............................             300
NdFeB Magnet Block...........................  KG..............................         286,000
Rayon........................................  MT..............................             600
Samarium-Cobalt Alloy........................  MT..............................             200
Tantalum.....................................  Lbs Ta..........................          53,000
Tire Cord Steel..............................  MT..............................       2,370,000
Titanium.....................................  ST..............................          15,000
Tungsten.....................................  Lbs W...........................         587,000
Zirconium....................................  MT..............................             230
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                          Potential Conversions (Upgrade, rotation, reprocessing, etc.)
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Aerospace Alloys.............................  Lbs.............................          50,000
Antimony.....................................  Lbs.............................         198,000
Beryllium Metal..............................  ST..............................               8
CZT (Cadmium Zinc Tellurium substrates)......  EA..............................           1,000
Carbon Fibers................................  Lbs.............................           5,000
Europium.....................................  MT..............................              35
Germanium....................................  kg..............................           5,000
Iridium Catalyst.............................  Lbs.............................             200
Lithium Ion Materials........................  MT..............................              25
Rare Earths Elements.........................  MT..............................              12
Silicon Carbide Fibers.......................  Lbs.............................             875
Triamino Trinitrobenzene (TATB)..............  Lbs.............................          48,000
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                                   Potential Recovery From Government Sources
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Aerospace Alloys.............................  Lbs.............................       1,500,000
Battery Materials............................  MT..............................              50
Boron Carbide................................  MT..............................             300
Cobalt.......................................  Lbs.............................          50,000
E-Waste......................................  MT..............................             100           (\2\)
Germanium....................................  kg..............................           5,000
Iridium Catalyst.............................  Lbs.............................             200
Magnesium Metal..............................  MT..............................              25
Rare Earths..................................  Lbs.............................          20,000
Tantalum.....................................  MT..............................              10
Yttrium Aluminum Garnet Rods.................  kg..............................             250
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Footnote Key:

[[Page 58061]]

 
\1\ Actual quantity will be limited to remaining excess inventory.
\2\ Strategic and Critical Materials collected from E-Waste (Strategic Materials collected from electronics
  waste).


[FR Doc. 2022-20687 Filed 9-22-22; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-33-P