A bipartisan bill directing the Department of Homeland Security to conduct research and development into areas where U.S. supply chains are vulnerable for U.S. economic and national security and identify how to bolster the resiliency of these supply chains was signed into law last week by President Biden.
The Domains Critical to Homeland Security Act (S. 2525) was included as a provision in the fiscal year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act that Biden signed on Dec. 27.
“I’m proud that this important legislation to put the best minds at DHS on the job to identify where we have vulnerabilities in our supply chains and develop solutions to strengthen American manufacturing and re-shore jobs in critical sectors has been signed into law,” Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), a co-sponsor of the bill, said in a statement last week. “Between shortages of medical supplies and semiconductors, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed how offshoring our manufacturing base has weakened our homeland security and this bipartisan legislation will direct DHS to address it.”
The supply chain bill authorizes DHS to identify critical domains for economic and homeland security, evaluate the extent to which disruption, exploitation or dysfunction of any domain threatens homeland security, conduct detailed analyses of supply chains that are concentrated in numbers or geographic location in support of a product or service, examine each domain’s performance in different economic environments, identify requirements to establish supply chain resiliency within each domain, and examine the effects of sector consolidation, including foreign consolidation, through mergers and acquisitions on the performance of industries within a domain.
“Taking concrete action to tackle this national security threat will also create good paying American Jobs,” Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who also co-sponsored the bill, said in a statement.
The bill also authorizes $1 million annually between fiscal years 2022 and 2026 for the research effort. The bill also directs within a year to publish a report on its research and findings and to update the report annually through 2026.