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Dive Brief:
- President Joe Biden is creating a new cabinet-level council to focus on supply chain issues, with the inaugural meeting taking place today. according to the White House.
- The Council on Supply Chain Resilience will convene nearly every member of the president’s Cabinet, bringing together more than a dozen of the nation’s top federal officials directly involved in industrial policy. The council will be co-chaired by the National Security Adviser and the National Economic Adviser.
- The creation of the new board is one of nearly 30 actions the White House shared Monday as evidence of Biden’s focus on strengthening supply chains. Actions include funding announcements and updates on specific data and commercial initiatives, among other topics.
Dive Insight:
Supply chain issues have now officially earned a seat at the table for officials at the highest level of the US government, after proving to be vital to the economy over the past four years.
“Strong supply chains are fundamental to a strong economy. When supply chains are normalized, prices are falling for goods, food and equipment, putting more money in the pockets of American families, workers, farmers and entrepreneurs,” the White House said in a news release. “That’s why President Biden has made supply chain resilience a priority since day one of his administration.”
In addition to the new cabinet-level board, the White House also teased several other initiatives that generally affect freight, trucking and manufacturing, saying:
- The Department of Transportation will launch a new multimodal policy office to coordinate freight strategy at the national and state levels, as required by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act.
- The president would expand the Department of Health and Human Services’ authority under the Defense Production Act to allow domestic production of essential drugs and their inputs.
- The Department of Energy finalized $275 million in grants designed to boost clean energy sectors, including critical minerals manufacturing, grid-scale batteries and electric vehicles.
Since the pandemic wreaked havoc on supply chains, the Biden administration has engaged in a multi-pronged approach to strengthening industrial resilience, rope in various branches of government. Congress, for example, has passed several laws with supply chain provisions to strengthen industries deemed critical to national security, such as semiconductors. Meanwhile, at the executive level, the White House has sought to create liaisons, meetings, and even offices dedicated to coordinating supply chain policy across multiple agencies.
“These efforts have helped to defragment supply chains, re-normalize the flow of goods and reduce inflation,” the White House said in its bulletin.
One such initiative was the Supply Chain Disruption Task Force, which was created in 2021 to resolve supply and demand mismatches, and was led by the Ministers of Trade, Transport and Agriculture. The new council announced today expands those efforts to also include industry policy chiefs such as the Secretaries of Commerce, Energy, Defense and others such as the US Trade Representative.
Biden will deliver formal remarks at 2 p.m. eastern standard time on “new actions to strengthen supply chains, lower costs for families and help Americans get the goods they need.” according to the White House schedule.