Congress demands a public record of how the government uses emergency economic powers

What it does

This bill amends the Defense Production Act of 1950 to strengthen oversight of how the federal government uses emergency economic powers. It creates a new leadership position—a full-time Chairperson of the Defense Production Act Committee, appointed by the Secretary of Commerce—and requires the establishment of a public registry documenting every use of DPA authorities by federal agencies, including why and how each authority was deployed. The bill aims to increase transparency and accountability in how the government exercises these broad economic powers during emergencies.

Why we flagged it

The bill's core mechanism is structural oversight: creating a dedicated leadership position and a public registry to document and make visible how the executive branch uses emergency economic authorities. This is fundamentally about democratic accountability, not deregulation, subsidy, or private benefit.

What the text implies

• The bill does not specify what 'sensitive to national security' means in the context of DPA Registry access restrictions, potentially allowing broad redaction of information that citizens and Congress might otherwise scrutinize.
• The Chairperson position is a new full-time SES-level role within Commerce, creating a permanent bureaucratic layer whose effectiveness depends on future appropriations and the Secretary's willingness to empower it.
• The 1-year lookback requirement for the initial registry means uses of DPA authorities from the year before enactment will be documented, but the bill does not address whether historical uses before that window will be disclosed.
• Quarterly update requirements impose compliance costs on federal agencies, which may affect how quickly agencies respond to genuine national emergencies if administrative burden becomes significant.

Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.

Who it affects

Citizens gain transparency and accountability over how the federal government exercises broad emergency economic powers. The registry requirement and dedicated oversight structure reduce the risk of opaque or unaccountable use of DPA authorities, and public access (subject to legitimate national security limits) enables democratic scrutiny of executive action.

Named in the bill

Department of Commerce, Secretary of Commerce, Defense Production Act Committee, Defense Production Act of 1950, Comptroller General of the United States, House Committee on Financial Services, Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Federal agencies (all departments and independent establishments)

Where it stands

1 cosponsor: 1 Republicans.

• May 21, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
• May 21, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Financial Services · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Financial Services”

Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.

Money around this bill

1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $30,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 8 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.

More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.

Jim Himes, the sponsor, reported $904,455 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.

• Global Shield (formerly Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs, Inc.) — $30,000 on 1 filing

Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.