(MintPress) – President Barack Obama signed an executive order last Friday that reauthorizes, but also amends, the Defense Production Act of 1950 – a law that implements broad regulations in regards to civil defense. The order has been dubbed the Nation Defense Resources Preparedness and its language has resulted in varying interpretations of what the law allows for. The law was signed during a time when Obama has supported various legislation that includes indefinite detention and quells protests and demonstrations.
The order’s principle policy is to “have an industrial and technological base capable of meeting national defense requirements and capable of contributing to the technological superiority of its national defense equipment.” The functionality of the law grants executive departments and agencies the power to plan and allocate resources and services.
Under the policy, the Secretary of Agriculture would be given the power to allocate “food resources, food resource facilities, livestock resources, veterinary resources, plant health resources, and the domestic distribution of farm equipment and commercial fertilizer.”
The law also states the Secretary of Transportation would have rule over all respects to “civil transportation,” something it defines as “movement of persons and property by all modes of transportation in interstate, intrastate, or foreign commerce within the United States, its territories and possessions, and the District of Columbia, and related public storage and warehousing, ports, services, equipment and facilities, such as transportation carrier shop and repair facilities.”
It continues by saying that the Secretary of Transportation should have control and complete direction of “civil transportation,” “regardless of ownership.”
Misdirected concern?
Obama’s executive order elicited a Monday headline from Russia Today (RT) questioning, “Did Obama sign a martial law executive order?” The article calls the law “sneaky tactics” and that it “couldn’t have come at a worst (sic) time.”
The piece also equates the order with Obama-backed legislation such as the “Trespass Bill” – which forbids protesting at certain events in which a person is receiving Secret Service protection and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) – legislation that contained a clause saying the United States could indefinitely detain someone it suspected of terrorist activity.
Obama signed the legislation on Friday, the start of the St. Patrick’s Day weekend celebration. It is not the first time Obama passed controversial legislation before a holiday. Prior to the turn of the new year, Obama signed the NDAA on December 31, New Year’s Eve.
The Daily Caller analyzed past reauthorizations and amendments to the original Defense Production Act. Prior to Obama, the law was amended in 1994 by Bill Clinton. In Clinton’s version, had national security been compromised, stabilizing functions were delegated to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Many of the actions taken during a national security crisis, however, were very similar to the plans maintained by Obama.
Because new agencies have been created since 1994, Obama’s plan updates which agency responds to a particular issue. The Department of Homeland Security was formed in 2002 and it initially had no place in responding to a national security crisis; but Obama has now included it, and many other agencies and branches, in the response. The Secretary of Homeland Security is now one of 17 respondents to the Defense Production Act Committee.
And that seems to be the case for reauthorizing the original 1950 document: to update the language for modern time and to accommodate for government changes. The reauthorization has been done by Ronald Reagan, Harry Truman and Richard Nixon, all of which have kept the framework the same, but simply changed the delegations of responsibility.
When Reagan reauthorized and amended the law in 1988, his purported justification sounded similar to the reasoning behind the policy that Obama has given. Reagan’s purpose read: “The purpose of this Order is to assign national security emergency preparedness responsibilities to Federal departments and agencies. These assignments are based, whenever possible, on extensions of the regular missions of the departments and agencies.”
Under Truman’s executive order, which he signed in 1952, physical facilities were assigned to federal agencies in order for protection. A “facility” under his law was, “Government-owned and privately -owned plants, mines, facilities … materials, products, and processes …”
Despite the law’s historical and only slightly-changed existence, Obama came under fire for what many assumed was a power grab. Social networking website Twitter organized under the hashtag #ExecOrder.
Associate clinical professor at Cornell Law School, William A. Jacobson, said in the story published by RT that there is plenty to be upset with Obama about, but that this anger directed toward the executive order is misguided.
“If someone wants to make the argument that this is an expansion of presidential powers, then do so based on actual language,” Jacobson said. “There is enough that Obama actually does wrong without creating claims which do not hold up to scrutiny.”
Source: MintPress