House bill seeks to protect supply chain from adversaries

A group of lawmakers have introduced a measure they said seeks to protect the domestic supply chain from foreign adversaries that include China and Russia.

Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), and Victoria Spartz (R-IN) introduced the National Critical Capabilities Defense Act (NCCDA). This bill would initiate a review process for outbound investments, critical capacities and supply chains offshoring to ensure quick detection of supply chain vulnerabilities.

“The COVID-19 pandemic and semiconductor shortages exposed that critical United States supply chains were not up to the task of robustly responding to America’s needs,” DeLauro said. “We have to learn from our mistakes and cannot allow outbound investments from the United States to take critical supply chains overseas and into the hands of our adversaries such as China or Russia.”

DeLauro said companies should be minimally required to report on proposed supply chain offshoring to enable the United States to better protect critical manufacturing capacity domestically and safeguard American workers.

“The frayed American supply chain and our continued bleeding of industrial capacity offshore represent a dangerous national security threat to the United States,” Pascrell said. “This watershed, bipartisan, bicameral legislation will take a major step to provide needed transparency and tools to prevent supply chains and critical industries from being offshored to our adversaries. It is time to enhance supply chain visibility so our companies and average worker investments are not being hoodwinked into empowering trade that undermines American competitiveness.”