Fact Sheet: Biden-Harris Administration Announces Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force To Address Short-Term Supply Chain Discontinuities | Eastern North Carolina Now

Press Release:

    Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing key findings from the reviews directed under Executive Order (E.O.) 14017 "America's Supply Chains," as well as immediate actions the Administration will take to strengthen American supply chains to promote economic security, national security, and good-paying, union jobs here at home.

    On February 24, 2021, the President signed E.O. 14017, directing a whole-of-government approach to assessing vulnerabilities in, and strengthening the resilience of, critical supply chains. Stemming from that effort, the Biden-Harris Administration has already begun to take steps to address supply chain vulnerabilities:

• The Administration's COVID-19 Response Team has drastically expanded the manufacture of vaccines and other essential supplies, enabling more than 137 million Americans to get fully vaccinated.
• The Administration has also worked with companies that manufacture and use semiconductor chips to identify improvements in supply chain management practices that can strengthen the semiconductor supply chain over time.
• The Department of Defense (DOD) has announced an investment in the expansion of the largest rare earth element mining and processing company outside of China to provide the raw materials necessary to help combat the climate crisis.
• And the Biden-Harris Administration is working to address critical cyber vulnerabilities to U.S. supply chains and critical infrastructure, including issuing E.O. 14028 on "Improving the Nation's Cyber Security" just last month.

    Today, building on these efforts, the Administration released findings from the comprehensive 100-day supply chain assessments for four critical products: semiconductor manufacturing and advanced packaging; large capacity batteries, like those for electric vehicles; critical minerals and materials; and pharmaceuticals and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). The Administration is taking immediate action to address vulnerabilities and strengthen resilience with the launch of a new effort aimed at addressing near-term supply chain disruptions. And, pursuant to E.O. 14017, it is crafting strategies for six industrial bases that underpin America's economic and national security, which will be completed within a year. The supply chain reviews reinforce the need for the transformative investments proposed in the President's American Jobs Plan.

    These efforts are critical because, as the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis have shown, structural weaknesses in both domestic and international supply chains threaten America's economic and national security. While amplified by the public health and economic crisis, decades of underinvestment and public policy choices led to fragile supply chains across a range of sectors and products. Unfair trade practices by competitor nations and private sector and public policy prioritization of low-cost labor, just-in-time production, consolidation, and private sector focus on short-term returns over long-term investment have hollowed out the U.S. industrial base, siphoned innovation from the United States, and stifled wage and productivity growth.

    At the same time, the reviews find that the United States is well-positioned to maintain and strengthen our innovative leadership and rebuild our productive capacity in key sectors and value-chains. Our unparalleled university and research systems, skilled and diverse workforce, ecosystem of entrepreneurs and small businesses, and position as a global leader with strong relationships with allies and partners are the building blocks to revitalizing domestic competitiveness and strengthening supply chains. Working together, industry, labor, the government, and other stakeholders can chart a new path forward that emphasizes resilience and security, as well as broad-based growth and tackling the climate crisis.

    Taking Action to Address Vulnerabilities in Critical Product Supply Chains

    The actions the Biden-Harris Administration announced today are the first step in a whole-of-government effort to strengthen domestic competitiveness and supply chain resilience. To address vulnerabilities in the supply chains of the four critical products identified by E.O. 14017, the Biden-Harris Administration will immediately:

    Support domestic production of critical medicines

• The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), under the Defense Production Act (DPA) and building on current public-private partnerships, will establish a public-private consortium for advanced manufacturing and onshoring of domestic essential medicines production. The consortium's first task will be to select 50-100 critical drugs, drawn from the Food and Drug Administration's essential medicines list, to be the focus of an enhanced onshoring effort.
• HHS will make an initial commitment of approximately $60 million from the Defense Production Act appropriation in the American Rescue Plan to develop novel platform technologies to increase domestic manufacturing capacity for API. Greater API production domestically will help reduce reliance on global supply chains for medications that are in shortage, particularly during times of increased public health need.

    Secure an end-to-end domestic supply chain for advanced batteries

• The Department of Energy (DOE) will release a National Blueprint for Lithium Batteries. This Blueprint will codify the findings of the battery supply chain review in a 10-year, whole-of-government plan to urgently develop a domestic lithium battery supply chain that combats the climate crisis by creating good-paying clean energy jobs across America. Later this month, the Department of Energy will host a Battery Roundtable, including representatives from each segment of the battery supply chain, to discuss the Blueprint.
• DOE's Loan Programs Office (LPO) will immediately leverage the approximately $17 billion in loan authority in the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program (ATVM) to support the domestic battery supply chain. LPO will leverage full statutory authority to finance key strategic areas of development and fill deficits in the domestic supply chain capacity. This will include the ATVM program making loans to manufacturers of advanced technology vehicle battery cells and packs for re-equipping, expanding or establishing such manufacturing facilities in the United States.
• DOE's Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) will launch a new effort to support deployment of energy storage projects by federal agencies. It will begin with a federal government-wide energy storage review that will evaluate the current opportunity for deploying battery storage at federal sites. FEMP will also launch a call for projects from federal sites interested in deploying energy storage projects, and provide the necessary technical assistance to get those projects built. These actions build on steps taken earlier this year to leverage $13 million in FEMP's Assisting Federal Facilities with Energy Conservation Technologies grants to unlock an estimated $260 million or more in project investments, including battery storage projects.

    Invest in sustainable domestic and international production and processing of critical minerals

• The Department of Interior (DOI), with the support of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, will establish a working group composed of agencies such as the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to identify sites where critical minerals could be produced and processed in the United States while adhering to the highest environmental, labor, and sustainability standards. This working group will collaborate with the private sector, states, Tribal Nations, and stakeholders-including representatives of labor, impacted communities, and environmental justice leaders-to expand sustainable, responsible critical minerals production and processing in the United States.
• The Administration will establish an interagency team composed of staff from agencies including DOI, USDA, EPA, and others with expertise in mine permitting and environmental law. This team will identify gaps in statutes and regulations that may need to be updated by Congress to ensure: new production meets strong standards before mining begins, during the mining process, and after mining ends; meaningful community engagement and consultation with Tribal Nations, respecting the government-to-government relationship at all stages of the mining process; and opportunities to reduce time, cost, and risk of permitting without compromising strong environmental and consultation benchmarks are fully explored.
• DOD will deploy DPA Title III incentives-including grants, loans, loan guarantees, and offtake agreements-to support sustainably-produced strategic and critical materials, including scaling proven research and development (R&D) concepts and emerging technologies from other programs such as the Small Business Innovation Research awardees.
• The DOE LPO, through its Title 17 Renewable Energy and Efficiency Energy Projects solicitation, has more than $3 billion in loan guarantees available to support efficient end-use energy technologies, such as mining, extraction, processing, recovery, or recycling technologies, of critical materials projects that satisfy Title 17 requirements.
• The U.S. Development Finance Corporation will expand international investments in projects that will increase production capacity for critical products, including critical minerals and other products identified pursuant to the E.O. 14017 process, ensuring that investments that support supply chain resilience and uphold international standards of environmental and social performance.

    Partner with industry, allies, and partners to address semiconductor shortages

• Through strategic engagement with industry, the Department of Commerce (DOC) has supported nearly $75 billion in direct investments from the private sector in domestic semiconductor manufacturing and R&D. DOC will bolster its partnership with industry to facilitate information flow between semiconductor producers and suppliers and end-users. Leveraging the Department's convening power, including through its advisory committees, DOC will bring stakeholders together to promote improved transparency and data sharing.
• Building on the success of recent engagements with Japan and the Republic of Korea, including the announcement of more than $17 billion in U.S. semiconductor investments by leading companies in ROK, the Administration will strengthen engagement with allies and partners to promote fair semiconductor chip allocations, increase production, and promote increased investment.

    Building Fair and Sustainable Industrial Bases

    In addition to the immediate actions taken in the supply chains of the critical products identified in E.O. 14017, the Administration is also announcing a series of actions to be taken across the Federal government to support supply chain resilience, workforce development, production and innovation, and strong sustainability and labor standards at home and abroad.

    The Administration will:

    Support American workers and innovation

• The Department of Labor (DOL) will announce later this month more than $100 million in grants to support state-led apprenticeship expansion efforts as well as establish national Registered Apprenticeship Technical Assistance Centers of Excellence. The Apprenticeship Occupations and Standards Center of Excellence will provide support and technical assistance to employers and industry to build out model registered apprenticeship programs in critical supply chains.
• DOE will announce a new policy to ensure that all innovations that are developed with taxpayer dollars through DOE's Science and Energy Programs require awardees to substantially manufacture those products in the United States, creating good-paying domestic jobs. This change will cover more than $8 billion in clean energy and climate innovation funding requested in the President's Budget for Fiscal Year 2022, as well as future fiscal year spending. DOE will implement these actions through a Determination of Exceptional Circumstances under the Bayh-Dole Act. Additionally, the Administration will establish an interagency working group to identify best practices to develop and implement further improvements across the government.

    Invest in sustainable supply chains at home and abroad

• The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council, in connection with the implementation of Executive Order 14005, "Ensuring the Future is Made in America with All of America's Workers," plans to issue a proposed rule to develop a new process for preferencing critical products that are in manufactured products or component parts, under the Buy American Act. This will leverage the buying power of the nearly $600 billion in federal contracting to strengthen domestic supply chains for critical products.
• USDA will commit more than $4 billion in a new, robust suite of Build Back Better initiatives focused on rebuilding the U.S. food system and strengthening and diversifying supply chains for food production, food processing, food distribution and aggregation, and markets and consumers. Build Back Better efforts by USDA will seek to provide improved access to nutritious food, address racial equity and justice as well as climate change, make markets fair and competitive, provide ongoing support for producers and workers, and create greater resilience in the food supply chain.
• The President will convene a global forum on supply chain resilience that will bring together key government officials and private sector stakeholders from across key U.S. allies and partners to collectively assess vulnerabilities, develop common approaches to supply chain challenges, and work to build strength through diversity and shared prosperity.

    Combat unfair trade practices

• The Administration will establish a trade strike force led by the U.S. Trade Representative to propose unilateral and multilateral enforcement actions against unfair foreign trade practices that have eroded critical supply chains. The trade strike force will also identify opportunities to use trade agreements to strengthen collective approaches to supply chain resilience with U.S. partners and allies.
• DOC will evaluate whether to initiate an investigation into neodymium magnets, which are critical inputs in motors and other devices, and are important to both defense and civilian industrial uses, under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.

    [ ... ]

    Read the full article HERE.


You can visit a collection of all White House posts by clicking HERE.

• Contact: White House
•     Press Office