The House Armed Services Committee has formed a task force that will work with the Department of Defense (DOD) to identify critical supplies and address potential vulnerabilities in the supply chain, Nextgov reported Wednesday.
The Defense Critical Supply Chain Task Force falls under the leadership of Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., and Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., and will run for three months.
Slotkin said in a prior press call that she expects the task force to address issues related to critical supplies such as personal protective equipment, semiconductors and advanced battery components.
Slotkin and Gallagher noted that the task force’s work will build on ideas from the Cyberspace Solarium Commission and the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI).
Gallagher added that risks in the supply chain also result from an “extreme geographic concentration” of manufacturing activities in China, particularly on 5G technologies.