Whatever you make of Joe Biden as a man, a public figure or a chief executive, his presidency has been unlike any other in modern American history. He has quite likely faced more simultaneous crises than any president since Franklin D. Roosevelt, and one illustration of that fact is that Biden has already invoked the Defense Production Act (DPA) — a Cold War law that grants the executive branch broad authority to mass-produce resources necessary to mitigate domestic emergencies — at least six times.
Last year, the Biden administration drew on the DPA twice to boost the production of COVID vaccines and supplies, and later did the same to prepare for the Western wildfire season last fall. Between March and May of this year, the president again invoked the law to expand production of baby formula as well as critical minerals for electric vehicle production.
