With President Biden beginning this week by invoking the Defense Production Act (this time, to build solar panels) we figured it’s time to take a look at what happened to the DPA during COVID Mania, and explore how it has been used (abused) since March of 2020.
For starters:
The Defense Production Act is a federal law that was enacted in 1950 after the commencement of the Korean War.
The explanation of the bill, via Congress, goes as follows:
“To establish a system of priorities and allocations for materials and facilities, authorize the requisitioning thereof, provide financial assistance for expansion of productive capacity and supply, provide for price and wage stabilization, provide for the settlement of labor disputes, strengthen controls over credit, and by these measures facilitate the production of goods and services necessary for the national security, and for other purposes.”
In short, these are emergency powers granted to the executive with a precedent for being enacted during an actual war. These powers allow the president to compel private companies to work with the government on developing material goods that are supposed to be used for national security purposes.
SCOOP: @POTUS will use executive action Monday to kickstart solar projects in the U.S. that are stalled by a Commerce Dept tariff probe, and he will invoke the Defense Production Act to spur domestic production of solar panels and other clean energy projects, sources tell me
— Jeff Mason (@jeffmason1) June 6, 2022
Over the years, these powers have been heading down a quadruple black diamond slippery slope, completely detached from any semblance of national defense matters.
During COVID Mania, the DPA has been routinely abused for our manufactured national emergency.
Let’s take a look at how the DPA has been utilized to “fight the virus.”
March 27, 2020: President Trump defines ventilators and PPE as “essential to the national defense,” and orders GM to start producing ventilators. The move came with bipartisan insistence. We later discovered that ventilators were actually killing COVID patients.
