S.Amdt. 5486

SA 5486. Mr. BROWN (for himself and Mr. Bayh) submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill S. 3001, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2009 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

On page 303, between lines 3 and 4, insert the following:

SEC. 1056. GAO REVIEW OF ROLE OF IMPORTS IN DEFENSE INDUSTRIAL BASE.

(a) Review Required.--The Comptroller General of the United States shall conduct a thorough review of the application of provisions of the Export Administration Act of 1979 (50 U.S.C. App. 2401 et seq.) and the Defense Production Act (50 U.S.C. App. 2077 et seq.).

(b) Considerations.--In conducting the review required under subsection (a), the Comptroller General shall examine--

(1) the safety of products and reliability of supply chains that service defense infrastructure;

(2) the legal limitations, if any, on procurement by the Department of Defense of products manufactured in countries that have exported multiple unsafe products to the United States;

(3) systems in place to determine the origin of products the Department procures and the reliability of manufacturing supply chains;

(4) information provided by suppliers to the Department about the origin of the products they use in their systems and subsystems;

(5) information the Department currently requires of suppliers about the origin of products, materials, and components;

(6) manufacturing production capacity in the United States in the case of a surge in production requests by the Department;

(7) measures in place to determine country-of-origin of products that have been substandard or not met criteria;

(8) the capacity of the United States industrial base to manufacture for the national defense in the next 10 years; and

(9) such other issues as the Comptroller General determines relevant.

(c) Report.--Not later than 150 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Comptroller General shall submit to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and the Committee on Armed Services of the Senate and the Committees on Financial Services and the Committee on Armed Services of the House of Representatives a report on the review conducted under subsection (a).

(d) Rule of Construction.--Nothing in this section shall be construed as affecting any law or regulation otherwise pertaining to the protection of classified information or proprietary information sought or obtained by the Comptroller General.