Not “martial law,” folks. Not that “M” word. The other one: “money.”--Ed did an excellent job breaking down the few actual differences between Obama’s new defense-resources EO and the previous version from 1994. Here are the two main differences:
1. The Obama EO elaborates vague-sounding functions for federal agencies in maintaining defense-resources preparedness (Section 103). Ed summarizes them as follows: 2. The Obama EO delegates authorities under Section 308 to agency heads. The Section 308 authorities include putting additional equipment in public and private defense industrial facilities, and modifying or expanding private facilities, including modifying or “improving” industrial processes.
Any time I see the Obama administration and “modifying private industry” in the same zip code, I get curious about who’s cooking up ways to spend taxpayer money on uneconomic ventures. We’ve had that whole thing with the green-tech companies making out like bandits from Obama administration crony projects – while failing, destroying unused parts, and charging the military four times the cost of regular fuel – so it’s not like there’s no precedent for the concept.
And it turns out that Obama’s new EO did not emerge from out of nowhere in this regard. The Department of Energy has become notorious for its funding awards to Obama cronies, but there has been much less of that unpleasant publicity about the Department of Defense. Where Obama has proposed increasing defense expenditures, however, is in public-private partnerships to develop “advanced manufacturing” technologies for the defense industry. A whole infrastructure of initiatives and organizations has been set up to bring the idea to fruition. And a key due-out in each case will be DOD money going to businesses.
As Ed and others pointed out this weekend, there is nothing new about federal provisions to manage and ensure “defense resources.” The Obama administration has set up some new organizations, but it has relied on the authority from previous legislation (principally the Defense Production Act of 1950, or DPA) to scope its overarching concept. Readers should also keep in mind that the idea of government stepping in and modifying defense businesses has been enshrined in US law for decades. (The previous understanding has been that these measures would be reserved almost entirely for war or national emergency.) The Obama administration is merely putting its unique stamp on the concept.
There’s a big cast of characters. Besides reorganizing the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), an entity that has existed under different names for most of the last 80 years, the Obama administration launched its Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) in June 2011. The AMP will hand out money, but will also identify projects for the federal departments to hand out money to.
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