House to vote on renewing defense production rules

The House is scheduled to vote Wednesday on a bill to allow the federal government to assume industry production capabilities for defense purposes.

The so-called Defense Production Reauthorization Act, which dates back to 1950, allows the government to bypass military procurement procedure for emergency purposes. The act expired Oct. 1, technically leaving the government without the capability. The Senate passed the reauthorization measure, S. 1680, by voice vote on Sept. 30.

The bill contains two provisions that potentially give it significantly more impact. The first would extend the existing procurement right to the production of any aspect of critical infrastructure such as telecommunications and the Internet, banking and other basic systems.

While the current administration appears to apply the act to critical infrastructure, a Senate aide said, there is some concern that future administrations might not. "This eliminates the ambiguity," the aide said.

The bill also would authorize $200 million to produce more "radiation-hardened" electronics in an attempt to address the problem of electronics failures due to exposure to natural or man-made radiation. Electromagnetic pulses can short out solid-state circuitry, and the provision on radiation-hardened electronics was included during the Cold War. With the end of the Cold War and the declining nuclear threat, that need dissipated until recognition of terrorist threats arose.

Only two companies, Honeywell and BAE, contract with the Defense Department to harden electronics, although another company is making the product to Defense specifications, the Senate aide said.

Congress met the Defense Department request to boost spending on the program from $50 million to $106 million in the fiscal 2003 Defense authorization law. The administration then requested $200 million in the fiscal 2004 budget, although Defense told congressional staff it anticipated completing the modernization of the radiation-hardening capability for $167 million.

Congress is pressing for more information about the program and how the money will be spent. The Senate-passed bill would require a report on the current state of the domestic industrial base for radiation-hardened electronics, projected requirements, and the intentions of the Defense Department for the electronics and the plans for use of providers.

The hardening program "was never expected to be an alternate procurement process," though it acts like one from time to time, the aide said. Disagreement over the program led to a reduction in the reauthorization from the five years requested by the administration to one year.

The White House has not played an active role in getting the bill through Congress, the aide said.