Bipartisan legislation focused on supply chain resilience is introduced in the Senate

A bipartisan supply chain focused piece of legislation introduced by in the Senate this week takes the approach to create what it calls a government-wide approach to monitoring, tracking, and strengthening the nations supply chains, as well as help to anticipate and address future supply chain disruptions before they occur, while also identify opportunities to grow both U.S. manufacturing capacity and jobs and lower costs for consumers.

The bill, entitled the “Promoting Resilient Supply Chains Act,” was introduced by U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), a senior member of the Committee. This bill was also introduced in the House (H.R. 6571) by Reps. Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.) and Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) and passed last week by a 44-0 unanimous vote.

“Strengthening supply chains is essential to ensuring that groceries, fuel, household products, and every other consumer product is accessible and affordable,” said Senator Blackburn in a statement. “To achieve a strong, resilient, supply chain, we must have a coordinated, national strategy that decreases dependence on our adversaries, like Communist China, and leverages American ingenuity. By establishing a supply chain resiliency program at the Department of Commerce, the U.S. government can better coordinate with private sector partners, identify risks, and increase our competitiveness. The Promoting Resilient Supply Chains Act leverages both quantum computing and artificial intelligence to predict and mitigate supply chain shocks, ensuring that technology is at the forefront of our national supply chain strategy.”

And Cantwell added that one supply chain shock can disrupt the entire system, driving shortages and raising costs.

“Our legislation will get the government, businesses and manufacturers working together to identify gaps and build capacity to prevent supply chain disruptions before they happen,” she said. “It will strengthen American manufacturing jobs, keep our store shelves stocked and lower costs for American families.”

Key components of the Bipartisan Promoting Resilient Supply Chains Act include:

• charging the Department of Commerce with leading a new government-wide Supply Chain Resiliency and Crisis Response program to map, monitor and model U.S. supply chains in critical industries and emerging technologies. The program will monitor demands and find any gaps or vulnerabilities for critical goods, including any gaps in manufacturing, warehousing, transportation and distribution;
• creating an early warning supply chain disruption system at the Department of Commerce that uses artificial intelligence and quantum hybrid computing to identify potential supply chain shocks before they occur. This early warning mechanism would improve the federal government’s response to find alternative sources and take proactive steps with the private sector to mitigate before supply chain shocks have major negative impacts on the U.S. economy and consumers;
• evaluating the capacity of domestic manufacturers as sources of critical goods, equipment or technology, including emerging technology. It will assess the U.S. manufacturing workforce and identify needs. The program will develop opportunities to build capacity in critical industries and emerging technology and to create high-quality American jobs;
• working with the private sector to develop best practices to promote secure and resilient supply chains for American producers and help improve their supply chain resiliency;     
• creating a coordination group with other Federal agencies, industry and civil society organizations, academia, state and local governments and key international allies to work with the new program to develop crucial supply chain resiliency policies and recommendations; and
• conducting a capability assessment to inform the Executive Branch and Congress on the program and the current ability to address supply chains and describe shortfalls for future action

Supply chain stakeholders observed that while this legislation is well-intentioned, there are likely to be many hurdles to jump in order for it to deliver on its objectives.

“On the one hand, it is an encouraging sign that amidst the dysfunction in Washington, Republicans and Democrats can join forces to sponsor a bill to strengthen American supply chains,” explained Ben Gordon, founder and managing partner of Palm Beach, Florida-based Cambridge Capital, and managing partner of Ben Gordon Strategic Advisors (BGSA). “On the other hand, the key question is all about implementation. The goal is worthy. How will it be carried out? The private sector has invested trillions of dollars over the last four decades in supply chain innovation. I hope the government turns to private sector leaders in logistics to help implement it.”

And Brooks Bentz, supply chain consultant and LM contributor Brooks Bentz, addressed the bill’s stated intention in charging the Department of Commerce with leading a new government-wide Supply Chain Resiliency and Crisis Response program to map, monitor and model U.S. supply chains in critical industries and emerging technologies, saying that it is ostensibly focused on predominantly data-gathering, analytics and reporting.

“Which can certainly be helpful, with the key proviso that the data used in doing whatever analysis and reporting they will be doing is reliable and accurate…always a crap-shoot, particularly with complex global supply chain networks,” he said.

As for the bill’s objective to create an early warning system at the Department of Commerce, using artificial intelligence and quantum bird computing to identify potential supply chain shocks before they occur, Bentz described it as a noble goal, with a similar challenge relating to accessibility, reliability, timeliness, and accuracy of the oncoming data.

The goal of working with the private sector to develop best practices to promote secure and resilient supply chains, is somewhat trickier than it sounds, said Bentz.

“How do you identify and select the private sector players? There are likely too many for even the government to wrangle into providing all the information, feedback and design requirements to achieve visibility, transparency and resilience,” he said, “The saying is that sunlight is the best disinfectant. Bear in mind, not everyone benefits or wants to have a light shown on their internal practices and systems.”

Looking at conducting a capability assessment to inform the Executive Branch and Congress on the program, coupled with the current ability to address supply chains and describe shortfalls for future action, was also viewed as a noble goal by Bentz, albeit much more challenging to achieve than aspire.

“I can’t say they shouldn’t try, but it seems like a large mountain to climb to achieve the summit and have the ability to look down across a very complex supply chain network,” he said. “Good luck! It will be interesting to see the reaction of supply chain players and the industry associations they belong to about this.”

From a supply chain practitioner perspective, the premise of politicians getting involved in business is typically not welcomed, due to politicians’ lack of understanding, according to Don Maier, Associate Professor of Practice–Supply Chain, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

“As I am reading the bill, it is essentially calling for Congress to create a whole new program to try to monitor the entire supply chain, and then be able to react to react and say, ‘here's what we need to do to become more resilient,’” said Maier. “As a practitioner, that's not possible. It's just way too overwhelming. There are so many different issues that can come up. It's like the pandemic. Nobody could have had forecasted that, and it was a global issue that everybody had, that everybody was impacted. So regardless of whatever anybody could have planned for, there is no way you're not getting away from that.”

What’s more, Maier noted that scenario planning for unexpected supply chain events is something that companies should already be doing, as opposed to having a type of federal government department directing a company it needs to be doing some type of scenario planning.

The Promoting Resilient Supply Chains Act was positively received by the Alexandria, Va.-based Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA).

“TIA appreciates the legislation’s attention to the supply chain and mitigating against future disruptions,” said Ann Reinke, TIA President & CEO.