The US Senate is likely to approve legislation relaxing rules for computer exports, one of the measure's leading critics said.
Senator Fred Thompson, a Republican from Tennessee, signaled he expects to lose as fellow senators criticized his proposal for lengthening the period that federal agencies would have to review export licenses.
"I can count votes," Thompson said as the Senate began several days of debate on revising the Export Administration Act.
"I just hope that history does not prove that this is an even more unwise decision than I fear that it might be."
The export-easing bill opposed by Thompson is supported by US computer and chip producers such as Unisys Corp, Intel Corp and Sun Microsystems Inc, which stand to gain billions of dollars in sales to countries including China and other countries considered potential security risks to the US.
The Senate measure, endorsed by the White House, would update a 1979 version of the Export Administration Act by giving the president wider discretion in deciding what high-technology products could be sold to which countries.
Chief among the changes is allowing the president to eliminate the system of Mtops, or millions of theoretical operations per second, for measuring the performance of computers and thereby limiting their export.
A key market for growth among US manufacturers is China, which this year will purchase US$18 billion in computer hardware and US$3 billion in software and services, said analyst Juan Orozco at IDC, a computer industry research firm in Massachusetts.
Industry advocates of the Export Administration Act reform suffered a setback last month when the House International Relations Committee approved a series of amendments toughening language in the Senate version.
Thompson began the floor debate hoping for the same success in the Senate, proposing an amendment that would give federal agencies an additional 60 days to block export licenses if they consider the export application potentially damaging to national security.
The bill's main sponsor, Senator Mike Enzi, a Republican of Wyoming, said he received assurances from the White House that the administration is satisfied with the protections in the existing bill.
"The bill already provides for several ways to stop the clock" on pending export licenses for high-technology products, Enzi said.
Computer companies have argued that such delays hobble their ability to compete with foreign suppliers of computer equipment, and unnecessary since the technology is often already available on the world market.
Thompson has no more than 30 votes supporting his position in the 100-member Senate, said Rhett Dawson, co-chairman of the Computer Coalition for Responsible Exports, an industry association that sought a relaxation of controls.
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