What’s the Defense Production Act? Biden plans to use it for COVID vaccine production
President-elect Joe Biden plans to invoke the Defense Production Act when he takes office to boost coronavirus vaccine production, one of his advisers says.
Dr. Celine Gounder, a member of Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board, said Monday on CNBC’s Squawk Box that the act will be used to ensure the country has enough pandemic-related supplies.
“The idea there is to make sure that the personal protective equipment, the test capacity and the raw materials for the vaccines are produced in adequate supply,” Gounder told Squawk Box.
What is the Defense Production Act?
It’s the “primary source of presidential authorities to expedite and expand” supplies and services needed for national defense, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The act can be used to support “emergency preparedness activities,” to restore critical infrastructure and “to prevent, reduce vulnerability to, minimize damage from and recover from acts of terrorism,” the agency says.
That can include providing incentives or assistance to industries to increase production and supplies and providing antitrust protections “for businesses to cooperate in planning and operations for national defense purposes,” FEMA says.
“The Defense Production Act permits the president to push national security items to the front of the line, rather than following items that were previously ordered,” Loren Thompson, a defense industry consultant and military expert at the Lexington Institute, previously told USA Today. “It exists to speed up urgently needed items.”
The act was passed in 1950 at the start of the Korean War. It was “modeled on the War Powers Acts of 1941 and 1942, which gave President Franklin Delano Roosevelt sweeping authority to control the domestic economy during World War II,” the Council on Foreign Relations says.
The DPA and coronavirus response
Biden’s team has been considering using the Defense Production Act for pandemic response.
The president-elect has weighed invoking it when he takes office in January in an effort to reach mass vaccination by summer, as aides have feared President Donald Trump’s administration’s timeline for doing so is unattainable, NBC News reports.
Trump previously used the act to speed up production of medical supplies, such as N95 face masks and ventilators, amid fears of shortages toward the beginning of the pandemic
Pfizer, a drugmaker that manufacturers one of the coronavirus vaccines authorized for emergency use, has pressed the Trump administration to again invoke the act to help the company produce more vaccines as part of a deal to increase supply in the United States, The New York Times reports.
So far, coronavirus vaccine distribution in the U.S. has been slower than officials hoped, Trump’s coronavirus vaccine czar Dr. Moncef Slaoui told reporters last week, according to CNBC.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say nearly 2 million people have received a shot as of Saturday morning. High risk populations are recommended to be prioritized for the first doses, and officials hope vaccines are widely available by late spring or early summer.
The shots are being allocated based on population, and states are in charge of prioritizing who gets them.
A CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has recommended that — after health care workers and nursing home residents receive their vaccines — people ages 75 and older and essential workers not involved in health care should be next in line, followed by those ages 65 to 74, those ages 16 to 64 with high-risk medical conditions and other essential workers.
This story was originally published December 28, 2020 at 9:07 AM with the headline "What’s the Defense Production Act? Biden plans to use it for COVID vaccine production."
