Topline
President Joe Biden is invoking the 1950 Defense Production Act (DPA) to make companies produce vital baby formula ingredients as part of a raft of new measures to lessen the ongoing national baby formula shortage, the White House announced Wednesday.
Key Facts
Enacted during the Korean War to avoid wartime shortages, the DPA enables the president to require companies to enter into contracts to produce materials considered necessary for national defense.
The DPA also lets the president prohibit hoarding and profiteering from certain materials.
Biden will invoke the PDA to order businesses to step up production of necessary baby formula ingredients and to direct those ingredients to formula manufacturers in order to accelerate the return of formula to store shelves, the White House said.
Biden also ordered federal agencies to use Department of Defense commercial aircraft to fetch baby formula that meets U.S. standards from sites overseas, the White House announced.
The announcement came two days after Abbott Laboratories, the formula manufacturer whose voluntary product recall in February helped trigger the nationwide shortage, laid out a plan to reopen a key formula plant and ease the shortage within as little as eight weeks.
Further Reading
“Abbott Strikes Deal With FDA To Reopen Baby Formula Plant At Center Of National Shortage” (Forbes)