Last week, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., introduced the “Defense Production Oversight Act.”
The bill will “prevent the Biden administration from abusing the Defense Production Act (DPA)to advance its partisan environmental agenda that does not have enough support to pass Congress.” The bill would also “empower Congress to express its disapproval of an administration’s, current or future, use of the Defense Production Act.” which would need to pass both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate.
Donalds weighed in on the bill on Friday.
“For 72 years, the Defense Production Act stood as a worst-case scenario option in the event of a national emergency or international conflict to fully mobilize the weight of America’s private and public sectors amid monumental junctures in time,” said Donalds. “Since its inception, only six presidents enacted the DPA—today, under the Biden administration, it’s been enacted four times. This egregious abuse of the DPA threatens our governing system, which places clear checks on each branch of government. The DPA isn’t a way to circumvent the legislative branch when the executive branch fails to gain traction on its agenda, and this bill aims to curtail its use for its intended purpose.”
The bill was sent to the U.S. House Financial Services and the Rules Committees. U.S. Rep. William Timmons, R-SC, is co-sponsoring it.
U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, is championing the bill in the Senate.
“Congress has given extraordinary emergency powers to the executive branch under the assumption that they would only be used in extraordinary circumstances. President Biden has decided to abuse that authority to give the impression he’s acting on the crises his administration continues to create and to push a climate agenda that cannot succeed legislatively. Congress must rein in an executive who’s overstepping his authority.” said Marshall. “Our bill will keep the Defense Production Act intact so that we are not weakening America’s ability to respond to actual emergencies, and simply inserts provisions that allow Congress to interject if a President oversteps the intentions of the DPA.”
U.S. Sens. John Barrasso, R-Wy., and John Thune, R-SD, are co-sponsoring Marshall’s bill.
With Democrats in charge of both chambers on Capitol Hill, the bill is not expected to gain much momentum.
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