U.S. Rep. French Hill (R-AR) recently introduced legislation to ensure the supply of certain medical supplies essential to national defense.
Rep. French on March 26 sponsored the Securing America’s Vaccines for Emergencies (SAVE) Act of 2020, H.R. 6399, which would amend the Defense Production Act (DPA) to ensure the availability of medical equipment.
“The SAVE Act is critical because it will decrease our nation’s reliance on other countries for medical supplies and ensure that during times of a public health emergency, like we are experiencing right now, we will have the supplies we need to keep Arkansans and Americans safe,” Rep. French said on March 30.
The DPA, which was invoked by President Donald Trump on March 18, authorizes more control to the federal government during emergencies impacting direct industrial production, according to the congressman’s office.
Rep. Hill’s legislation dovetails with the president’s actions by diversifying the nation’s medical supply chain, with the intention of making the United States less dependent on foreign manufacturers, according to his office.
H.R. 6399 “complements the actions President Trump has already taken to ensure that our country will have a reliable and necessary source of medical supplies during times of emergency,” Rep. Hill said.
If enacted, H.R. 6399 also would clarify that the president may provide incentives to ensure the availability of medical articles essential for national defense; require the president to create a strategy on securing medical article supply chains, including for drugs that diagnose, cure, mitigate, treat, or prevent disease; and provide the president explicit authority to use the DPA to protect supply chains by allowing entities to increase the security of supply chains and their activities, according to a bill summary provided by Rep. Hill’s office.
“America has been caught unprepared,” Rep. Hill told the Washington Examiner on April 9. “It’s not a Trump thing. It’s a federal government thing.”
The lawmaker argued that a stronger supply chain based in America is a matter of national security.
“We could have improved our level of communication with our governors and with the process,” Rep. Hill told the newspaper. “We would have been better coordinating large purchases through DOD [the Department of Defense] or FEMA.”