The Defense Production Act of 1950 was enacted on September 8, 1950. It was part of a broad civil defense and war mobilization effort in the context of the Cold War. Since 1950, the Act has been reauthorized over 50 times. The DOD has used the act to help develop a number of new technologies and materials.
About Defense Production Act of 1950 in brief
The Defense Production Act of 1950 was enacted on September 8, 1950. It was part of a broad civil defense and war mobilization effort in the context of the Cold War. Since 1950, the Act has been reauthorized over 50 times. In 2011, President Barack Obama invoked the law to force telecommunications companies, under criminal penalties, to provide detailed information to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security. On June 13, 2017, President Donald Trump invoked the Act to classify two sets of products as critical to national defense. The Act was first used during the Korean War to establish a large defense mobilization infrastructure and bureaucracy. It also was used to diversify the US energy mix by funding the trans-Alaskan pipeline, the US synthetic fuels corporation, and research into liquefied natural gas. The DOD has used the act to help develop a number of new technologies and materials, including silicon carbide ceramics, indium phosphide and gallium arsenide semiconductors, microwave power tubes, radiation-hardened microelectronics, superconducting wire, metal composites and the mining and processing of rare earth minerals.
In March 18, 2020, President Trump issued an executive order that defined ventilators and protective equipment as essential to the national defense standard by the DPA. Later that year, President Obama issued an Executive Order that defined high-strength, inherently fire resistant ballistic missiles as essential for national defense in response to the COVID-19 outbreak in the Middle East. The DPA was also used to ensure that government-funded industries were geographically dispersed across the United States to prevent the industrial base from being destroyed by a single nuclear attack.
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This page is based on the article Defense Production Act of 1950 published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 28, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
