The Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended (DPA), provides the President a broad set of authorities to ensure that domestic industry can meet national defense requirements. In the DPA, Congress has found that "the security of the United States is dependent on the ability of the domestic industrial base to supply materials and services for the national defense and to prepare for and respond to military conflicts, natural or man-caused disasters, or acts of terrorism within the United States." Through the DPA, the President can, among other activities, prioritize contracts for goods and services, and offer incentives within the domestic market to enhance the production and supply of critical materials and technologies when necessary for national defense. Since 1950, the DPA has been reauthorized over 50 times by Congress, most recently in 2009. The majority of DPA authorities will expire on September 30, 2014, unless reauthorized. This report examines some of the extensive history of the DPA, focusing primarily on its creation and most recent legislative reauthorization. This report also discusses the foremost active authorities of the DPA. Nevertheless, this report is not intended to evaluate all authorities of the DPA comprehensively. In discussing the major authorities of the DPA, this report explains how those authorities may have changed as a result of the most recent reauthorization of the law ( P.L. 111-67 , the Defense Production Act Reauthorization of 2009, henceforth referred to as "Reauthorization of 2009"). This report also identifies relevant delegations of the President's DPA authorities made in Executive Order (E.O.) 13603, National Defense Resources Preparedness . Finally, this report provides a brief overview of issues relevant to Congress and tracks legislation in the 113 th Congress to reauthorize the DPA. H.R. 4809 was reported out of the Committee on Financial Services in the House of Representatives on June 11, 2014. If enacted, H.R. 4809 would reauthorize the DPA for five years and would reform other provisions, as discussed later in the report. The report also discusses congressional considerations for expanding, restricting, or otherwise modifying the authorities provided by the DPA, either in conjunction with or separate from a reauthorization. The DPA was inspired by the First and Second War Powers Acts of 1941 and 1942, which gave the executive branch broad authority to regulate industry during World War II. Much of this authority lapsed at the end of that war, but the beginning of the Cold War with the Soviet Union in the late 1940s and the North Korean invasion of South Korea in June of 1950 caused the Truman Administration to reconsider the need for stronger executive authority in the interest of national defense. A number of factors encouraged President Truman to propose such legislation. Both the armed services and the defense industry supporting the nation's effort during World War II had demobilized during the late 1940s after the cessation of hostilities. With the return of peace, the Administration cut back military expenditures significantly. President Truman accentuated these cuts by placing heavy reliance on atomic weapons to provide for the nation's defense. The perceived power of the atomic arsenal justified, in the eyes of the Administration, substantial cuts in expensive, manpower-intensive conventional military capabilities. This enabled the President to propose and Congress to pass much-reduced defense appropriations. In addition, the nation had recently experienced substantial economic and industrial turmoil. Demand for housing and consumer products, unleashed by the expiration of wartime economic controls, precipitated a series of postwar labor strikes. These reached their height in 1946 in a nationwide shutdown of passenger and freight rail service, leading President Truman to threaten to seize control of the railways and draft striking rail workers into the Armed Forces, placing them under military discipline. Though the presidential threats were never carried out, the strike served to illustrate the economic context in which the nation approached the Korean War. The original DPA, enacted on September 8, 1950, granted broad authority to the President to control national economic policy. Containing seven separate titles, the DPA allowed the President, among other powers, to demand that manufacturers give priority to defense production, to requisition materials and property, to expand government and private defense production capacity, to ration consumer goods, to fix wage and price ceilings, to force settlement of some labor disputes, to control consumer credit and regulate real estate construction credit and loans, to provide certain antitrust protections to industry, and to establish a voluntary reserve of private sector executives who would be available for emergency federal employment. Four of the seven titles (Titles II, IV, V, and VI), which were those related to requisitioning, rationing, wage and price fixing, labor disputes, and credit controls and regulation, terminated in 1953 when Congress allowed them to lapse. Though commonly associated with industrial production for the Department of Defense (DOD), the DPA currently lies within the jurisdiction of the House Committee on Financial Services and the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Prior to 1975, House rules did not permit simultaneous referral of bills to two or more committees. Precedents in both chambers did not allow divided or joint referrals, regardless of bill content. Instead, bills were assigned to committees based on the preponderance of their subject matter. Because much of the President's proposal dealt with economic policy, what became the Defense Production Act was assigned in 1950 to the House and Senate Committees on Banking and Currency (their successors are the House Committee on Financial Services and the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs). Although the parts of the act dealing with the requisitioning of materials, wages and prices, labor, and credit are no longer in force, these committees have retained jurisdiction. In addition to the standing committees of jurisdiction, the original statute created a Joint Committee on Defense Production. This committee was composed of selected members from the standing Committees on Banking and Currency of the Senate and House. This committee was intended to review the programs established by the DPA and advise the standing committees whenever they drafted legislation on the subject. The Joint Committee has not existed, in effect, since 1977 when salaries and expenses for the committee were last funded, although the provision in the DPA establishing the Joint Committee on Defense Production was only officially repealed in 1992. The DPA has been amended and reauthorized numerous times since its original enactment. Most notably, with the passage and enactment of P.L. 85-95, Congress reauthorized Titles I, III, and VII while allowing Titles II, IV, V, and VI of the DPA to expire in 1953. The Defense Production Act, like the War Power Acts that preceded it, included a sunset provision that has required periodic reauthorization and offered the opportunity for amendment. Congress passed the DPA in 1950 and has thus far reauthorized it 51 times, including many short-term "stop-gap" extensions. From time to time, the DPA has expired without Congress passing a law reauthorizing and extending the termination date of the DPA. However, in such circumstances, Congress has often ultimately passed a law retroactively setting the effective date for the law to the previous expiration date. Most notably, for example, the DPA expired on October 20, 1990, and was not reauthorized until August 17, 1991. However, upon passage of P.L. 102-99 , the effective date of the law was set to October 20, 1990. The DPA was most recently reauthorized by the 111 th Congress. Senators Christopher Dodd and Richard Shelby, who were the chairman and ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs in the 111 th Congress, introduced S. 1677 , the Defense Production Act Reauthorization of 2009, on September 16, 2009. The bill passed both chambers of Congress by September 23, 2009, and was signed into law by the President as P.L. 111-67 on September 30, 2009. Most of the authorities of the DPA would have terminated on the day that the reauthorization was signed into law. The Reauthorization of 2009 extended the majority of DPA authorities until September 30, 2014, at which time they will be terminated unless reauthorized once again. For more on the potential termination of DPA authorities after September 30, 2014, see the " Reauthorization of the DPA in the 113th Congress " section in this report. This section provides summaries of the major authorities granted to the President in the three remaining active Titles of DPA. Each summary describes how the DPA authorities are delegated to Cabinet officials or other offices of the U.S. government in the recently issued Executive Order (E.O.) 13603, National Defense Resource Preparedness . The section highlights substantive changes made to these authorities in the Defense Production Act Reauthorization of 2009 (Reauthorization of 2009). This portion of the report identifies substantive changes contained in the Reauthorization of 2009 and E.O. 13603. It is not intended to comprehensively evaluate all authorities in the DPA. The information provided below is reviewed in Table A-2 in the Appendix for select provisions of the DPA. Table A-1 also provides a list of additional materials, information, and resources on various topics of the DPA that may be of use to Congress. The DPA provides the President an "array of authorities to shape national defense preparedness programs and to take appropriate steps to maintain and enhance the domestic industrial base." [Italics added.] DPA authorities are tied to the definition of national defense , as the use of any major DPA authority must be interpreted to promote, support, or otherwise be deemed needed or essential for the national defense. National defense is defined in the statute as programs for military and energy production or construction, military or critical infrastructure assistance to any foreign nation, homeland security, stockpiling, space, and any directly related activity.