Sec. 118. National Academies standing committee on America’s supply chain security during disasters
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Not later than 30 days after the date of enactment of this title, the Secretary of Transportation shall enter into an agreement with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (referred to in this section as the National Academies ) to establish a standing committee of experts (referred to this section as the standing committee ) to explore and advise on supply chain transportation system vulnerabilities and disruptions, and how to minimize them in the event of emergencies and disasters.
The National Academies shall appoint members to the standing committee from individuals with relevant backgrounds in the private sector, research, academia, and Federal, State, and local government agencies. The standing committee established under this section to explore and advise on supply chain transportation vulnerabilities shall, upon determination by the National Academies, consider the following: Factors that may disrupt the movement of critical goods during the COVID–19 pandemic or other emergencies or disasters, which may include— lack of an adequate and healthy transportation labor force to ensure the continuity of function of critical supply chain components; vulnerabilities in the ways that the Nation’s multi-modal transportation supply chain nodes and their connections could be vulnerable to disruption; the accuracy and availability of information on supply and demand of critical goods globally, nationally, regionally, or locally; and potential compounding impacts on the supply chain of multiple disaster events, such as pandemics, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes.
Options for ensuring the timely conveyance and distribution of essential supplies and commodities for disaster response, relief and recovery operations, especially those for which a shortage would pose a significant threat to public health, economic security, or national security, as appropriate, which may include strategies to— enhance supply chain contingency planning, including during multiple disaster events; identify supply chain information deficiencies; and improve modeling frameworks, including communication between modelers and users, that integrate complex data streams and help extract practical decision-support information for emergency managers.
Policy options to prevent supply chain bottlenecks or failures and ensure continuation of service. Other emergent issues as determined by the National Academies. The National Academies may consider requests for analysis or advice from the Secretary of Transportation, other Federal agencies, or the relevant Congressional transportation committees in the form of correspondence directed to the National Academies or legislative direction from the Secretary of Transportation, including ad hoc requests for informal and formal responses within a specified timeframe to address ongoing events.
The standing committee shall, as appropriate— consider input from the Department of Transportation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Department of Commerce, the Department of State, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Justice, and any other Federal agency, as appropriate; and consult with relevant stakeholders, which may include supply chain experts, emergency management specialists, epidemiologists, disaster relief specialists, transportation system operators, product manufacturers, wholesalers and group purchasing organizations, professional societies, State-based societies, and other entities with experience in supply chain networks, transportation systems, and emergency and disaster management, as appropriate.
In this section: The term connections means the freight transportation connections between nodes. The term critical means of such importance that a disruption of the component will degrade functionality of the supply chain. The term nodes means locations within a supply chain, such as an origin, a factory, warehouse, port, intermodal transfer point, distribution center, or destination. The term relevant Congressional transportation committees means— the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate; and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the House of Representatives.
The term vulnerable means susceptible to the supply chain being negatively impacted.