[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 170 (Tuesday, September 5, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 60633-60636]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2023-19057]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Bureau of Industry and Security

[Docket No. 230817-0198]
XRIN: 0694-XC099


Request for Public Comments on the Potential Market Impact of the 
Proposed Fiscal Year 2025 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) 2025 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 
5, 2023.

ADDRESSES: Submissions: You may submit comments, identified by docket 
number BIS-2023-0018 or XRIN 0694-XC099, through the Federal 
eRulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov. To submit comments via 
https://www.regulations.gov, enter the docket

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number BIS-2023-0018 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 that 
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 is the Department of Energy's operation of 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). 
During 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 (i.e., primarily 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/Strategic-Materials/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--during a 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 for operations expenses. Instead, 
the stockpile has a revolving fund in what the U.S. Treasury termed the 
National Defense Stockpile Transaction Fund.\2\ Whenever materials in 
the stockpile are sold, the proceeds of that sale are added to that 
fund. The DLA then uses that money to pay for the operational expenses 
accompanying the maintenance of the stockpile and to purchase new 
materials. Information about stockpile disposals--what was sold and at 
what value it was sold--is publicly available in monthly announcements 
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\ https://www.dla.mil/Strategic-Materials/Announcements/.
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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 2025 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 2025 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

[[Page 60635]]

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. Commenters submitting 
business confidential information are encouraged to scan a hard copy of 
the non-confidential version to create an image of the file, rather 
than submitting a digital copy with redactions applied, to avoid 
inadvertent redaction errors which could enable the public to read 
business confidential information.
    Public comments will be available on regulations.gov, and 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.

Attachment 1

                                 Proposed Fiscal Year 2025 Annual Materials Plan
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                   Material                                   Unit                   Quantity        Footnote
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Potential Disposals:
Beryllium Metal...............................  ST..............................               8  ..............
Carbon Fibers.................................  Lbs.............................          92,000               1
Chromium, Ferro...............................  ST..............................          24,000  ..............
Chromium, Metal...............................  ST..............................             500  ..............
Germanium.....................................  kg..............................           5,000  ..............
Manganese, Ferro..............................  ST..............................          20,000               1
Manganese, Metallurgical Grade................  SDT.............................         320,300               1
Aerospace Alloys..............................  Lbs.............................       1,500,000  ..............
Platinum......................................  Tr Oz...........................           8,380               1
PGM--Iridium..................................  Tr Oz...........................             489               1
Quartz Crystals...............................  Lbs.............................          15,712               1
Tantalum......................................  Lbs.............................             190               1
Tin...........................................  MT..............................             640  ..............
Titanium Based Alloys.........................  Lbs.............................         300,000  ..............
Tungsten Ores & Concentrates..................  Lbs W...........................       1,100,000               1
Zinc..........................................  ST..............................           2,500  ..............
Potential Acquisitions:
Aluminum (High Purity)........................  MT..............................           1,700  ..............
Aluminum Alloys...............................  MT..............................           1,500  ..............
Antimony......................................  MT..............................             700  ..............
Cadmium Zinc Telluride........................  EA..............................           2,800  ..............
Electrolytic Manganese Metal..................  MT..............................           5,000  ..............
Energetics....................................  Lbs.............................      20,000,000  ..............
Ferroniobium..................................  Lbs Nb..........................         300,000  ..............
Grain Oriented Electric Steel.................  MT..............................           3,200  ..............
Hafnium.......................................  MT..............................           2,300  ..............
Iso-Molded Graphite...........................  MT..............................           1,700  ..............
Lanthanum.....................................  MT..............................           1,100  ..............
Magnesium.....................................  MT..............................           3,500  ..............
Neodymium-Praseodymium Oxide..................  MT..............................             300  ..............
NdFeB Magnet Block............................  MT..............................             450  ..............
Rayon.........................................  MT..............................             200  ..............
Samarium-Cobalt Alloy.........................  MT..............................              60  ..............
Tantalum......................................  Lbs Ta..........................          64,500  ..............
Tire Cord Steel...............................  MT..............................           2,370  ..............
Titanium......................................  ST..............................          15,000  ..............
Tungsten......................................  Lbs W...........................       4,500,500  ..............
Zirconium.....................................  MT..............................           2,300  ..............
Potential Conversions (Upgrade, rotation,
 reprocessing, etc.):
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..............................              50  ..............
Rare Earths Elements..........................  MT..............................              12  ..............
Silicon Carbide Fibers........................  Lbs.............................             875  ..............

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Triamino Trinitrobenzene (TATB)...............  Lbs.............................          48,000  ..............
Potential Recovery from Government sources:
Aerospace Alloys..............................  Lbs.............................       1,500,000  ..............
Battery Materials.............................  MT..............................             100  ..............
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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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).


Thea D. Rozman Kendler,
Assistant Secretary for Export Administration.
[FR Doc. 2023-19057 Filed 9-1-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-33-P