This report, dated 30 October 2018, is an update of a CRS report on the US export control system from a few years ago.  The reason for the revised report is the Export Controls Act (ECA) of 2018, which went into effect in August.  The ECA provides a statutory basis for the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), the Commerce Department’s export controls that are the counter-part to State’s ITAR.  (For many years, Commerce had been operating on the authority of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to keep the controls of the long-expired predecessor law to the ECA in effect.)