Using the Defense Production Act to combat COVID-19

The DPA was inspired by laws from 1941 and 1942 that gave the White House the ability to tell private companies what to make for the good of the country. Think, for example, of how Ford Motor Company made nearly 300,000 vehicles — including tanks — for World War II…

 

[If the DPA was evoked,] The president would authorize DoD to place an order with a company — say, for a lot of respirators — and then the Pentagon would go to that company and ask it to produce those respirators. That company would then have to fulfill that order first before it could fill any other commercial orders, since the federal government gets priority.

 

“Depending on how the Trump administration utilizes the DPA, this could be a big step forward in combating the pandemic,” Jerry McGinn, who ran DPA programs in the Pentagon, told me. “Invoking the DPA is like calling in the calvary in response to a national emergency.”

That was from the Vox article, “The Defense Production Act, the law Trump is using to boost coronavirus supplies, briefly explained.”