Emergency Access to Strategic and Critical Materials: The National Defense Stockpile

Emergency Access to Strategic and Critical Materials: The National Defense Stockpile

Emergency Access to Strategic and Critical
November 14, 2023
Materials: The National Defense Stockpile
Cameron M. Keys
In wartime, without sufficient raw materials available in useable form, militaries and companies
Analyst in Defense
manufacturing defense equipment may struggle to resupply materiel fast enough to keep up with
Logistics and Resource
equipment losses and combat operations. Domestic industries may also lack the raw material
Management Policy
inventories and reliable suppliers needed to maintain or rebuild critical infrastructure at home.

Finding the natural resources of the United States “deficient or insufficiently developed” to
supply domestic raw material demand “in times of national emergency,” Congress since 1939 has

authorized the U.S. Government to stockpile “strategic and critical materials” and to develop
domestic sources of their supply.
Currently managed by the Department of Defense (DOD), this National Defense Stockpile (NDS) may be used to provide
domestic manufacturers with emergency access to essential production inputs “to serve the interest of national defense only.”
These materials typically include nonfuel mineral commodities purchased from domestic or foreign sources prior to the onset
of a national emergency through government contracts. The U.S. Government stockpiles these materials to meet the
estimated needs of the United States for national defense in the event of particular national emergency scenarios (such as, for
example, large-scale conventional war with China) for a specified duration (established by Congress in law).
As of March 2023, the National Defense Stockpile contains $1.3 billion in total assets, including $912.3 million of stockpiled
material. As of April 2023, current NDS inventory mitigates less than half of estimated strategic and critical materials
shortfalls for military requirements; less than 10% of essential civilian demand shortfalls; and approximately 6% of total net
shortfalls in “base case” national emergency scenarios. The vast majority of the $13.5 billion gap between current stockpile
assets and current stockpile requirements would support nondefense critical infrastructure demand in the event of an attack on
the United States.
While NDS acquisitions and operating costs are typically self-funded by revenue from stockpile sales rather than
congressional appropriations, since FY2022 both Congress and the executive branch have expressed renewed interest in
appropriating funds for new NDS acquisitions and modifying aspects of stockpile management.
In addition to providing background on the NDS, this report analyzes selected issues that Congress may face related to NDS
management, including:
• Assessing NDS funding tradeoffs;
• Determining which national emergency scenarios should be used to generate NDS requirements;
• Assessing market impacts of rapid stockpile acquisition strategies;
• Adapting stockpiles to anticipate and incorporate technological innovation;
• Private sector stockpiles of strategic and critical materials;
• Nondisclosure agreements with industry for robust NDS planning; and
• Addressing material weaknesses in NDS financial audits
According to the White House, “Nearly every agency of the U.S. Government has a unique capability that can be brought to
bear to increase the sustainability of strategic and critical materials supply chains.” Since 1939, the NDS has provided a
method of mitigating strategic and critical materials supply chain risk, deterring aggression, and facilitating whole-of-
government emergency preparedness.
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Contents
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1
Defining “Strategic and Critical Materials” .............................................................................. 2
Defining “National Emergency” ............................................................................................... 2
Strategic Context ............................................................................................................................. 4
“Realistic Stockpiling” for Great Power Conflict ..................................................................... 5
Post-Cold War vs. Post-post-Cold War Stockpile Strategy ....................................................... 6
January 1, 2035: Statement of Policy ........................................................................................ 7
Current Stockpile Requirements ...................................................................................................... 8
Results of 2021 Stockpile Requirements Assessment ............................................................... 8
Results of 2023 Stockpile Requirements Assessment ............................................................... 9
Congressional NDS Appropriations ................................................................................................ 9
NDS Organizational Structure ........................................................................................................ 11
Strategic and Critical Materials Board of Directors ................................................................. 11
National Defense Stockpile Manager ...................................................................................... 12
Day-to-Day NDS Operations and Material Assessment: DLA-SM ........................................ 12
Recovering Strategic and Critical Materials from Recycling Operations ......................... 13
Analytic Support to DLA-SM: Institute for Defense Analyses ............................................... 14
NDS Market Impact Committee ............................................................................................. 15
NDS Transaction Fund (Resource Management) .................................................................... 16
NDS Research and Development Activities ............................................................................ 17
NDS Congressional Reporting Requirements ......................................................................... 19
Issues Facing Congress ................................................................................................................. 21
Assessing NDS Funding Tradeoffs ......................................................................................... 21
Determining Which National Emergency Scenarios Should be Used to Generate NDS
Requirements ....................................................................................................................... 22
Assessing market impacts of rapid stockpile acquisition strategies ........................................ 23
Adapting stockpiles to anticipate and incorporate technological innovation .......................... 24
Private sector stockpiles of strategic and critical materials ..................................................... 26
Nondisclosure agreements with industry for robust NDS planning ........................................ 27
Addressing material weaknesses in NDS financial audits ...................................................... 27

Tables
Table 1. Congressional Appropriations Providing New Budget Authority for NDS
Purposes, 1939-1969 .................................................................................................................. 10

Table B-1. Reported Unclassified NDS Inventories as of September 30, 2022 ............................ 43

Appendixes
Appendix A. Title 50 U.S. Code §98, et. seq., Strategic and Critical Materials Stock
Piling Act (as of October 13, 2023) ............................................................................................ 29
Appendix B. Unclassified Strategic and Critical Materials List ................................................... 43
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Contacts
Author Information ........................................................................................................................ 45

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Introduction
For more than a century, national security policymakers have approached physical stockpiling of
industrial raw materials as one policy option for mitigating national defense supply chain risks,
deterring aggression, and anticipating “actions or events outside the control of the Government of
the United States.”1 Finding the natural resources of the United States “deficient or insufficiently
developed to supply the military, industrial, and essential civilian needs of the United States for
national defense,” Congress since 1939 has utilized the Strategic and Critical Materials Stock
Piling Act (50 U.S.C. §98, et. seq., as amended) to develop and oversee a national stockpile of
certain “strategic and critical materials.”
This report provides background on this National Defense Stockpile (NDS) and analyzes
selected issues that Congress may face related to its management, including:
• Assessing NDS funding tradeoffs
• Determining which national emergency scenarios should be used to generate
NDS requirements
• Assessing market impacts of rapid stockpile acquisition strategies
• Adapting stockpiles to anticipate and incorporate technological innovation
• Private sector stockpiles of strategic and critical materials
• Nondisclosure agreements with industry for robust NDS planning
• Addressing material weaknesses in NDS financial audits
The NDS’s statutory purpose is:
to provide for the acquisition and retention of stocks of certain strategic and critical
materials and to encourage the conservation and development of sources of such materials
within the United States and thereby to decrease and to preclude, when possible, a
dangerous and costly dependence by the United States upon foreign sources or a single
point of failure for supplies of such materials in times of national emergency.2
The Department of Defense (DOD) manages the NDS and has delegated authority as the National
Defense Stockpile Manager to release stockpiled materials to eligible domestic manufacturers in
the defense industrial base and other critical infrastructure sectors under certain conditions.3

1 “As early as 1921 the War and Navy Departments were interested in a program for the stockpiling of strategic and
critical materials.” Department of Defense, Stockpiling report by the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy to
the Congress pursuant to section 4 of public law 520, 79th Congress covering operations from 7 June 1939 to 31
December 1946, 23 January 1947, p. I-1. On stockpiles as a deterrent: the July 1949 stockpile report to Congress states,
“When the stockpile of strategic and critical materials has been completed, the world should be informed of the fact.
This knowledge will be a significant factor in preventing future war. By possession of these…materials, this Nation
will present a more impregnable front to discourage any would-be aggressor.” DOD, Stockpile Report to the Congress,
July 23, 1949, p. 23. See also U.S. Congress, House Committee on Public Lands, Subcommittee on Mines and Mining,
Stock Piling of Strategic and Critical Materials and Metals, Committee Hearing No. 3, 80th Cong., 1st sess., February
11 and 12, 1947, p. 48, where Major General S.P. Spalding, Deputy Executive Chairman of the Army-Navy Munitions
Board, states, “If they [i.e., potential adversaries] knew that we had the full stock pile [of strategic and critical
materials], that might be a deterrent.” The Strategic and Critical Materials Board of Directors is currently tasked by
statute with developing strategic approaches to securing supplies of certain materials in anticipation of “actions or
events outside the control of the Government of the United States.” See 50 U.S.C. §98h-1(f)(1)B).
2 50 U.S.C. §98a(b). Reference to “a single point of failure” was added by P.L. 112-239.
3 E.O. 12626, “National Defense Stockpile Manager,” 53 Federal Register 6114, February 25, 1988. The Under
Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment (USD(A&S)) has specific delegated authority to release NDS
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Defining “Strategic and Critical Materials”
50 U.S.C. §98h-3 provides an overarching definition of strategic and critical materials. They are
“materials that (a) would be needed to supply the military, industrial, and essential civilian needs
of the United States during a national emergency, and (b) are not found or produced in the United
States in sufficient quantities to meet such need.” (See Appendix B for a list of these materials.)
50 U.S.C. §98b gives the President authority to determine which materials are strategic and
critical.4 Since 1939, various agencies have used delegated authority and interagency
coordination to make definitive lists of strategic and critical materials.5 Currently, the Department
of Energy (DOE) makes a definitive list of “critical materials”; the Department of the Interior’s
(DOI’s) U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) makes a definitive list of “critical minerals” (a subset of
critical materials); and the Defense Logistics Agency, utilizing delegated Secretary of Defense
authority, incorporates these lists into its own assessment of National Defense Stockpile
requirements, generating a definitive list of strategic and critical materials for purposes of the
Stock Piling Act.6
Defining “National Emergency”
50 U.S.C. §98f authorizes the President to release stockpiled materials “in time of war declared
by Congress or during a national emergency.”7 50 U.S.C. §98h-3 defines a national emergency as
“a general declaration of emergency with respect to the national defense made by the President or
by the Congress.” Throughout the stockpile’s history, several proclamations, executive orders,

materials; see E.O. 14051, “Designation to Exercise Authority over the National Defense Stockpile,” 86 Federal
Register 60747, October 31, 2021. Stockpiled materials may also be loaned to the Department of Energy or military
departments under 50 U.S.C. §98e(f) or bartered under conditions established by 50 U.S.C. §98e(c). U.S. policy
currently designates 16 critical infrastructure sectors, including the defense industrial base sector. “Essential civilian
needs” during a national emergency may include functionality of the other 15 critical infrastructure sectors, including
the critical manufacturing sector.
4 Functions of the President under 50 U.S.C. §98b were delegated to the Secretary of Defense by section 1 of E.O.
12626, “National Defense Stockpile Manager,” February 25, 1988, 53 Federal Register 6114.
5 In addition to the phrase “strategic and critical materials,” the act also refers to “materials critical to national
security,” tasking the Strategic and Critical Materials Board of Directors with recommending to the Secretary of
Defense a strategy for ensuring a secure supply of these materials. See 50 U.S.C. §98h-1.
6 See U.S. Department of Energy, Critical Materials Assessment, July 2023, p. 1. DOE funds critical materials research
and development to mitigate supply chain vulnerabilities using authorities derived elsewhere than the Strategic and
Critical Materials Stock Piling Act, such as the Energy Act of 2020, which was passed as Division Z of the
Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (P.L. 116-260). For snapshots of interagency strategic and critical materials
supply chain resilience challenges, see The White House, Building Resilient Supply Chains, Revitalizing American
Manufacturing, and Fostering Broad-Based Growth: 100-Day Reviews under Executive Order 14017, June 2021.
7 50 U.S.C. §98f (b) states that any order to release stockpiled materials under this subsection “shall be promptly
reported” in writing to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. While the Strategic and Critical Materials
Stock Piling Act was initially enacted to mitigate supply disruptions associated with wartime industrial mobilization
and sustained wartime production demands, 50 U.S.C. §98f as currently written provides the President (and USD
(A&S)) with some discretion to release stockpiled materials outside of explicit war or national emergency situations. 50
U.S.C. §98f (a)(1) and (a)(3) allow for release of stockpiled materials whenever the President, or USD(A&S) as
presidential designee, determines the release of such materials is required “for purposes of the national defense.” These
authorities in conjunction with authorities to dispose of excess stockpiled materials have governed stockpile releases in
peacetime conditions. Historically, some analysts have claimed that instances of stockpile material release and disposal
nominally aligned to “national defense purposes” have overlapped with “economic or budgetary purposes” currently
prohibited by 50 U.S.C. §98a(c). This ambiguity was particularly salient in the decades following WWII, when the
NDS represented perhaps “the largest body of marketable commodities under the control of one market actor in the
world.” See Patricia Elaine Perkins, “The United States strategic stockpile and price determination in international
metals markets” (Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, 1989), p. 1.
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joint resolutions and treaties respecting war, neutrality, and peace have declared (or terminated)
states of war or national emergencies, affecting national stockpile strategy.8
A network of laws and administrative policy situates NDS management within whole-of-
government approaches to “national security emergency preparedness” and critical infrastructure
protection.9 U.S. policy currently designates 16 critical infrastructure sectors, including the
defense industrial base (DIB); critical manufacturing; and nuclear reactors, materials, and waste.
The Stock Piling Act requires the President to prioritize stockpile allocations toward “military,
industrial, and essential civilian needs” in a national emergency, which may entail allocating
stockpiles to ensure functionality of critical infrastructure sectors.10
The Stock Piling Act itself does not provide details about the administrative and contractual
mechanisms used to allocate stockpiled materials under a declared war or national emergency.
These mechanisms are set forth in other locations in the U.S. Code or Code of Federal
Regulations (CFR) and are implemented by allocation policies established by executive branch
policy guidance, individual agency procedures, emergency acquisition, and contingency
contracting.11

8 Months after Congress signed the Stock Piling Act in June 1939, for example, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
proclaimed a national emergency to enforce U.S. neutrality in WWII and strengthen national defenses “within the
limits of peacetime authorizations.” See Proc. No. 2352, Sept. 8, 1939, 4 F.R. 3851, 54 Stat. 2643. President Roosevelt
then proclaimed “an unlimited national emergency” on May 27, 1941; see Proc. No. 2487, May 27, 1941, 6 F.R. 2617,
55 Stat. 1647. For information on post-Vietnam national emergency declarations, see the National Emergencies Act (50
U.S.C. Chapter 34) along with CRS Report 98-505, National Emergency Powers, by Elizabeth M. Webster; CRS
Report R46567, National Emergencies Act: Expedited Procedures in the House and Senate, by Michael Greene; and
CRS Legal Sidebar LSB10267, Definition of National Emergency under the National Emergencies Act, by Jennifer K.
Elsea. On declarations of war, see CRS Report RL31133, Declarations of War and Authorizations for the Use of
Military Force: Historical Background and Legal Implications, by Jennifer K. Elsea and Matthew C. Weed, p. 47. For
current military doctrine related to military mobilization planning and expectations of national emergency declaration
aligned to conflict intensity and duration, see DOD, Joint Publication 4-05, Joint Mobilization Planning, October 23,
2018, p. IV-12.
9 President Jimmy Carter on September 10, 1979, delegated several NDS functions to the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA); see E.O. 12155, “Strategic and Critical Materials,” 44 Federal Register 53071. In
February 1988, NDS operations management responsibilities shifted to DOD; See E.O. 12626, “National Defense
Stockpile Manager,” February 25, 1988, 53 Federal Register 6114. In November 1988, President Ronald Reagan took
executive action situating the DOD-managed NDS as part of an effort “to have sufficient capabilities at all levels of
government to meet essential defense and civilian needs during any national security emergency." See E.O. 12656,
“Assignment of emergency preparedness responsibilities,” November 18, 1988, 53 Federal Register 47491, Sections
101 and 501(15). For NDS’s role in emergency preparedness during the Nixon administration, see E.O. 11490,
“Assigning Emergency Preparedness Functions to Federal Departments and Agencies,” October 28, 1969, 3 CFR, 1966
to 1970 Comp., Part 20, which itself revoked and replaced a related set of 21 executive orders and two Defense
Mobilization Plans signed during the administrations of Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Lyndon B.
Johnson.
10 Executive Office of the President, Presidential Policy Directive/PPD-21: Critical Infrastructure Security and
Resilience, February 12, 2013. The 16 critical infrastructure sectors are: Chemical; Commercial Facilities;
Communications; Critical Manufacturing; Dams; Defense Industrial Base; Emergency Services; Energy; Financial
Services; Food and Agriculture; Government Facilities; Healthcare and Public Health; Information Technology;
Nuclear Reactors, Materials, and Waste; Transportation Systems; Water and Wastewater Systems. For more
information on the DIB, see CRS In Focus IF10548, Defense Primer: U.S. Defense Industrial Base, by Luke A.
Nicastro and Heidi M. Peters.
11 On stockpile allocation policies in a national emergency: for example, in October 1965 the Executive Office of the
President’s Office of Emergency Planning (which then administered the NDS) issued Emergency Defense Mobilization
Order 8600.1, which stated that, “in the event of enemy attack,” large-quantity stockpile release orders would be issued
by the Director of the Office of Emergency Planning, but “must be supplemented by allocation directives issued by the
Departments responsible for control of the particular resource” in the contemporary federal emergency preparedness
framework. These allocation orders would typically be terse statements signed by the department head listing the
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Strategic Context
Strategic stockpiling reflects and responds to a basic tension in U.S. public policy. On one hand,
“Congress finds 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 disaster, or acts of terrorism within the
United States;” on the other, “Congress finds that the natural resources of the United States in
certain strategic and critical materials are deficient or insufficiently developed to supply the
military, industrial, and essential civilian needs of the United States for national defense.”12
Since passage of the Strategic and Critical Materials Stock Piling Act in 1939, executive branch
officials have wielded increasingly sophisticated analytical tools for assessing national defense
requirements. Using economic modeling, cost estimates, intelligence forecasts, and regularly
revised combat scenarios, these analytic assessments reflect current strategic threat perceptions
and in turn drive DOD’s annual budget requests.13
During testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on March 29, 2023, the then-
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley stated, “If there was a war on the
Korean peninsula or great power war between the United States and Russia or the United States
and China, the consumption rates [of conventional munitions such as rockets and guided missiles]
would be off the charts.”14 The Chairman added that DOD has reassessed the quantity of
munitions it would likely expend during such a war, adding: “[I]t’s those estimates that then form
the basis of the munitions request in the budget.” He concluded by saying: “We’ve got a ways to
go to make sure our stockpiles are prepared for the real contingencies.”15
The Chairman’s remarks emphasize War Reserve Materiel but may implicate the NDS.16 If the
United States entered a large-scale conventional war (or armed conflict national emergency) with

quantity and material needed by a given industrial sector under that department’s emergency control, along with a
statement about which national stockpile should be drawn from (e.g., the NDS). The stockpile operations manager (in
1965, the General Services Administration, but today the Defense Logistics Agency) would then “arrange outshipments
from depots it selects” to deliver the industrial raw materials to the nearest qualified domestic manufacturers
“regardless of regional boundaries.” See Executive Office of the President, Stockpile Report to the Congress: July –
December 1965, April 1966, Annex 1. In March 2012, President Barack Obama authorized DOD under national
emergency conditions to invoke Defense Production Act (DPA) Title I authorities to “control the general distribution of
any material…in the civilian market” with respect to “stockpiles managed by the Department of Defense.” See E.O.
13603, “National Defense Resources Preparedness,” March 16, 2012, 77 Federal Register 16651, Sections 101, 201,
202(a), 303(b), 306, 801(j) and 801(m). Note that 50 U.S.C. §4516 also designates “energy” as a strategic and critical
material under these conditions. See 50 U.S.C. Chapter 55 (the Defense Production Act). In an emergency, DPA Title I
authorities could be utilized for acquiring stockpiles of strategic and critical materials. For consideration of additional
DPA authorities to expand industrial capacity related to strategic and critical materials, see CRS Report R47124, 2022
Invocation of the Defense Production Act for Large-Capacity Batteries: In Brief, by Heidi M. Peters et al.
12 50 U.S.C. §4502(a)(1); 50 U.S.C. §98a.
13 U.S. officials have since the 1770s undertaken to stockpile essential materials based on estimated national defense
requirements. The Second Continental Congress formed a secret committee in 1775 to establish clandestine supply
chains with neutral countries in the War of Independence, purchasing gunpowder stockpiles in secret from Spain (and
through the Dutch Caribbean free port of St. Eustatia) while gathering intelligence needed to seize British ammunition
stockpiles. See Central Intelligence Agency, Intelligence in the War of Independence, 2007, pp. 10, 15. For more on the
DOD budget process, see CRS Report R47178, DOD Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE):
Overview and Selected Issues for Congress, by Brendan W. McGarry.
14 Testimony of Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, in U.S. Congress, House Armed Services
Committee, Fiscal Year 2024 Defense Budget Request, hearings, 118th Cong., 1st sess., March 29, 2023.
15 Ibid.
16 See DOD, DOD Instruction 3110.06: War Reserve Materiel (WRM), January 7, 2019, p. 16.
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a major naval power, supply-and-demand networks for industrial raw materials could be
disrupted, affecting critical infrastructure sectors including the defense industrial base.17 Export
controls or boycotts implemented by an adversary country or other economic actors might
constrain U.S. Government and domestic industry access to certain raw materials markets. It
might become difficult for government agencies and domestic industries to trade with some
countries, or obtain industrial raw materials from certain foreign locations through ocean, air, rail,
or ground transportation. An adversary might attack, attempt to blockade, or facilitate sabotage
along trade routes at critical chokepoints, directly or through proxies.18
In the early stages of conflict, armed forces would generally be reliant on redistribution of current
equipment stocks, transportation of War Reserve Materiel under contested logistics, accelerated
depot-level maintenance output, diverted security assistance production, and purchase of dual-
use, commercial-off-the-shelf products.19 In a prolonged conflict depleting reserve inventories of
key weapon systems, munitions, and combat support equipment, DOD might leverage its global
defense posture of forces, facilities, and international agreements but might also, under certain
conditions, face constraints that jeopardize the achievement of operational and strategic
objectives.20
In prolonged conventional armed conflict scenarios, the risk to national security arising from
inadequate domestic raw material inventories depends to a great degree on assumptions about
successful homeland defense; weapon and munition usage rates; equipment losses; control of sea
lanes of trade; air superiority; enduring access to key foreign suppliers; durability of international
agreements and domestic critical infrastructure; private sector emergency stockpiling initiatives;
and the efficacy of the domestic industrial base in surging production or transitioning to full or
total mobilization of the armed forces and national economy.21
“Realistic Stockpiling” for Great Power Conflict
In meeting the actual needs of “real contingencies” related to large-scale armed conflict, the
National Defense Stockpile has been seen as inadequately stocked at the moment conflict arose,
as former President Dwight Eisenhower reflected in 1963:
You will recall that, when we became involved in World War II, our lack of an adequate
stockpile of strategic and critical materials gravely impeded our military operations. We
were therefore forced into costly and disruptive expansion programs. The nation was
compelled to divert, at a most critical time, scarce equipment and machinery and manpower
to obtain the necessary materials.... But even after this experience we had not fully learned
our lesson.… After we became involved in hostilities in Korea, we went through
experiences almost identical with those of World War II—only then did realistic
stockpiling begin.22

17 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), “Resilient Supply-and-Demand Networks (RSDN),” web
resource at https://www.darpa.mil/program/resilient-supply-and-demand-networks; CRS Report RL33153, China
Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald
O'Rourke, pp. 49-51.
18 Lincoln F. Pratson, “Assessing impacts to maritime shipping from marine chokepoint closures,” Communications in
Transportation Research, Volume 3, December 2023, pp. 1-16.
19 DOD, Joint Publication 4-05, Joint Mobilization Planning, October 23, 2018, p. IV-12.
20 See DOD, DOD Instruction 3000.12, Management of U.S. Global Defense Posture, May 6, 2016, p. 18-19.
21 For an overview of the military conflict and homeland defense scenarios grounding stockpile requirements, see
DOD, Strategic and Critical Materials 2023 Biennial Report on Stockpile Requirements, April 2023, pp. 18-23.
22 Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Letter to Senator Clifford Case, September 24, 1963,” quoted in Kenneth Kessel, Strategic
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During WWII, the Metals Reserve Company (MRC), a subsidiary of the government-owned
Reconstruction Finance Corporation, spent $2.75 billion (approximately $42.9 billion in FY2024
constant dollars) on the direct purchase of 50 “strategic and critical metals and minerals” from
“51 countries, 39 states, and the Philippines” to meet the immediate requirements of wartime
production in the domestic industrial base.23 The United States used MRC for procurement of
strategic and critical materials in lieu of NDS inventories for those requirements. The NDS was
used as a “last ditch” supply of strategic and critical materials during WWII, due in large part to
its inadequate size upon formal declaration of war.24 The first stockpile report to Congress,
covering the period from June 7, 1939, to December 31, 1946, states: “Had that Act [i.e., the
Stock Piling Act passed June 7, 1939] been passed in the early 1930s, and adequately
implemented by appropriations, most if not all of the highly expensive procurement activity
which took place during the war could have been obviated.”25
Post-Cold War vs. Post-post-Cold War Stockpile Strategy
Compared to high-intensity, long-duration great power armed conflicts, post-Cold War and
counterinsurgency-centered armed conflict scenarios have tended to imply less supply chain
risk.26 In the post-Cold War era, stockpile planners incorporating assumptions from the National
Military Strategy reportedly assumed a seven- to nine-year period of “early strategic warning,”
during which time emerging strategic threats could be identified and stockpiles of strategic and
critical materials acquired to prepare for and deter large-scale armed conflict.27 Stockpiles
accumulated since the Korean War were largely liquidated as part of a post-Cold War “peace

Materials: U.S. Alternatives (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, 1990), p. 300. A 1964 stockpile report to
Congress notes that in 1963 the U.S. Government began modeling the strategic and critical materials needs of all
“major segments of the economy” following a nuclear war, to include “requirements not only for survival but also for
rehabilitation and reconstruction of new facilities as needed.” Stockpile requirements planning thus considered both
conventional and nuclear war scenarios in this period while implementing U.S. emergency preparedness policy. See
Executive Office of the President, Stockpile Report to the Congress: January – June 1964, November 1964, p. viii.
23 National Archives and Records Administration, Request for Records Disposition Authority N1-234-12-2:
Reconstruction Finance Corporation Unscheduled Records (Record Group 234), August 22, 2012 at
https://www.archives.gov/files/records-mgmt/rcs/schedules/independent-agencies/rg-0234/n1-234-12-002_sf115.pdf.
During WWII, the Metals Reserve Company also provided $350 million (approximately $5.5 billion in FY2024
constant dollars) in direct subsidy payments to domestic producers “for the development of new sources [of supply]
and maximum production of such materials as were in short supply.”
24 U.S. Congress, House Committee on Public Lands, Subcommittee on Mines and Mining, Stock Piling of Strategic
and Critical Materials and Metals, Committee Hearing No. 3, 80th Cong., 1st sess., February 11 and 12, 1947, p. 22.
25 DOD, Stockpiling report by the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy to the Congress pursuant to section 4
of public law 520, 79th Congress covering operations from 7 June 1939 to 31 December 1946, 23 January 1947, p. I-2.
26 DOD policy currently defines “supply chain risk” as:
The risk of intentional or unintentional disruptions to the flow of product, materiel, information, and finances
across the lifecycle of a weapon or support system which negatively impact the integrity of DoD logistics
infrastructure; materiel acquisition and supply (including critical suppliers and critical components); key
transportation modes and routes; and storage and stockpile activities. Disruptions could arise in any sub-set of
the DoD supply chain, such as cybersecurity, software assurance, obsolescence, counterfeit parts, foreign
ownership of sub-tier vendors, climate change-related risks, and other categories of risk that affect the supply
chain. The risk that an adversary may sabotage, maliciously introduce unwanted function, or otherwise subvert
the design, integrity, manufacturing, production, distribution, installation, operation, or maintenance of a system
so as to surveil, deny, disrupt, or otherwise degrade the function, use, or operation of such system.
See Department of Defense, DOD Manual 4140.01, Volume 3: DOD Supply Chain Materiel Management Procedures:
Materiel Sourcing, August 26, 2022, pp. 51-52.
27 National Research Council, Managing Materials for a Twenty-first Century Military (Washington, D.C.: The
National Academies Press, 2008), pp. 57, 59.
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dividend” reflecting broad access to foreign sources of supply under contemporary combat
scenarios.28
For decades, “realistic stockpiling,” to use President Eisenhower’s phrase, led to disposal [sale] of
stockpiled materials no longer estimated to be in material shortfall under anticipated emergency
conditions. According to DOD, “Beginning with the early 1990s, the Department of Defense
determined that over 99% of the [NDS] inventory was excess to the Department’s needs and
Congress authorized its disposal.”29 Today, DOD reports $1.3 billion in total NDS assets—
comparable to pre-WWII levels—including $912.3 million in material inventories.30
The October 2022 National Security Strategy announces that “the post-Cold War era is
definitively over and a competition is underway between the major powers to shape what comes
next.”31 After 20 years of counterinsurgency focus, recent national strategy documents and DOD
budgets reflect great power armed conflict scenarios and strategic threat perceptions.32
January 1, 2035: Statement of Policy
Section 848 of the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal
Year 2021 (P.L. 116-283) directs the Secretary of Defense to utilize the National Defense
Stockpile, among other tools, to ensure “access to secure sources of supply for strategic and
critical materials” that “fully meet the demands of the defense industrial base” and “eliminate the
dependence of the United States on potentially vulnerable sources of supply” not later than
January 1, 2035.33 These policy aims involve the U.S. military’s full global defense posture and
imply prolonged whole-of-government coordination across military, informational, diplomatic,
financial, intelligence, economic, legal, and developmental (MIDFIELD) instruments of national
power.34 Their achievement may depend on efforts beyond DOD’s control, including
congressional appropriations over the coming decade.

28 Ibid., pp. 113-116, 146.
29 DOD, Strategic and Critical Materials Operations Report to Congress: Operations under the Strategic and Critical
Materials Stock Piling Act during the Period October 2007 through September 2008, 2008, p. 1. For FY1999,
estimated shortfalls reportedly totaled $6 million. See U.S. General Accounting Office, GAO-01-17, National Defense
Stockpile: improved financial plan needed to enhance decision making, January 2001, p. 3.
30 Congress appropriated $74.5 million (approximately $1.3 billion in FY2024 constant dollars) for stockpiling strategic
and critical materials from 1938 to 1941, through naval appropriations and through the Stock Piling Act. See U.S.
Congress, House Committee on Public Lands, Subcommittee on Mines and Mining, Stock Piling of Strategic and
Critical Materials and Metals, Committee Hearing No. 3, 80th Cong., 1st sess., February 11 and 12, 1947, p. 18. In
addition to material inventories, NDS assets currently include $326 million in unobligated cash expected to remain
available by the end of FY2024. See Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)/DOD Chief Financial Officer,
Department of Defense Revolving Funds Justification/Overview: Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Budget Estimates, March 2023,
p. 58. Note also, according to DOD, “Mercury stocks account for a large portion of the overall NDS market value.
However, due to the Mercury Export Ban of 2008 and the Minamata Convention of 2013, the NDS is prohibited from
selling mercury, and thus it has no realizable value to the NDS program.” See Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
for Acquisition & Sustainment, FY2021 National Defense Stockpile Annual Operations and Planning Report, February
2022, p. 5.
31 White House, National Security Strategy, October 2022, p.6.
32 Ibid., pp. 8, 11-13.
33 P.L. 116-283 §848 “Supply of strategic and critical materials for the Department of Defense.”
34 DOD policy defines global defense posture in terms of three interdependent elements (forces, footprints,
agreements), with agreements defined as “a series of treaties, access, transit, support, and status-protection agreements
and arrangements with allies and partners that set the terms regarding the U.S. military’s presence within the territory
of the host country, as agreed to with the host government.” See DOD, DOD Instruction 3000.12, Management of U.S.
Global Defense Posture, May 6, 2016, p. 22. For more on the MIDFIELD acronym, see DOD Joint Chiefs of Staff,
Joint Doctrine Note 1-18: Strategy, April 25, 2018, p. viii.
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Current Stockpile Requirements
Currently, DOD selects strategic and critical materials for inclusion in the National Defense
Stockpile that are expected to be in “material shortfall” in a national emergency scenario
“consisting of a military conflict combined with an attack on the Homeland.”35 This “base case”
scenario lasts a total of four years, the first year of which involves active combat followed by
three subsequent years of post-conflict industrial recovery and replenishment.36 Shortall materials
generally include nonfuel mineral commodities like cobalt and tin, along with semi-processed or
processed materials such as TNT and high-purity carbon fiber that function as common
production inputs for national defense applications.37 While details of some shortfalls are
classified, a 2023 unclassified NDS inventory list is provided in Appendix B.38
DOD’s Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) reportedly monitored 283 candidate materials for its
2021 and 2023 stockpile assessments, with 148 incorporated into formal NDS planning models.39
Results of 2021 Stockpile Requirements Assessment
In the 2021 stockpile requirements assessment, 53 materials were determined to be in shortfall
and therefore “strategic and critical” in a congressionally mandated, classified armed conflict
scenario involving China.40 Of these 53 materials, according to the assessment, 37 have supply
chains controlled by a “foreign market dominator” (i.e., more than half of global production
occurs in a single foreign country). Twenty-nine of 53 materials have one domestic provider
qualified to meet military or essential civilian requirements (as of June 2021), according to the
assessment, and an additional 18 materials “have no domestic production at all.”41 According to a
review of strategic and critical materials supply chains published by The White House in June
2021, U.S. import dependence for these 53 materials extends to 84 countries:
• 27 countries each produce exactly 1 shortfall material;
• 20 countries each produce 2 shortfall materials;
• 16 countries each produce between 3 and 5 shortfall materials;
• 11 countries each produce between 6 and 10 shortfall materials;
• 7 countries each produce between 11 and 20 shortfall materials;
• and 3 countries each produce more than 20 shortfall materials.42

35 DOD, Strategic and Critical Materials 2023 Biennial Report on Stockpile Requirements, April 2023, p. 12. The 2023
assessment also includes a climate change event in the base case scenario. See Ibid., p. 20.
36 50 U.S.C. §98h-5(b)-(c); P.L. 117-263 §1415; Robert J. Atwell et al., Generic Unclassified Stockpile Sizing Module
(SSM) Training and Testing for the National Defense Stockpile (NDS) 2015, August 2014, p. 5 at
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/resrep23589.4.pdf. Note: stockpile requirements draw upon classified data, with
assessments occurring on classified computer systems. Ibid., p. 6.
37 The White House, Building Resilient Supply Chains, Revitalizing American Manufacturing, and Fostering Broad-
Based Growth: 100-Day Reviews under Executive Order 14017, June 2021, p. 184.
38 Ibid., p. 179; DOD, Strategic and Critical Materials 2023 Biennial Report on Stockpile Requirements, April 2023, p.
24.
39 DOD, Strategic and Critical Materials 2023 Biennial Report on Stockpile Requirements, April 2023, p. 9.
40 The White House, Building Resilient Supply Chains, Revitalizing American Manufacturing, and Fostering Broad-
Based Growth: 100-Day Reviews under Executive Order 14017, June 2021, pp. 177, 184.
41 Ibid., p. 179.
42 Ibid., pp. 184-185.
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The People’s Republic of China (China, or PRC) is the primary global producer and/or primary
U.S. supplier of 20 or more shortfall materials.43 This is potentially significant in part because the
“base case” armed conflict scenario grounding current stockpile requirements involves a
conventional armed conflict with China.44
Results of 2023 Stockpile Requirements Assessment
The FY2023 stockpile assessment discovered net shortfalls in 88 materials valued at $14.83
billion.45 Of this total, $12.21 billion worth of shortfalls would cover essential civilian demand for
24 materials and $2.41 billion would cover military requirements associated with 69 materials.46
Given March 2023 reported stockpile inventories of $912.3 million, the FY2023 stockpile
assessment suggests current NDS inventories cover 37.9% of projected military shortfalls, 7.5%
of essential civilian demand shortfalls, and 6.2% of total net shortfalls in base case national
emergency scenarios.47 As of April 2023, the gap between total NDS assets ($1.3 billion) and
total net shortfalls is $13.5 billion.48
Congressional NDS Appropriations
Congress appropriated a total of $218.5 million for new NDS acquisitions in FY2022 and
FY2023.49 Since 1969, however, NDS acquisitions have typically been funded with revenue
generated from sales of excess inventory in the stockpile.
From the inception of the stockpile in 1939 through 1969, Congress appropriated over $94 billion
in constant FY2024 dollars for the acquisition, storage, maintenance, and upgrade of strategic and
critical materials in the National Defense Stockpile. Table 1 lists congressional appropriations for
the stockpile prior to establishment of the NDS Transaction Fund in 1979, which Congress
established to allow revenues from stockpile disposals to fund the acquisition of new materials
and other necessary NDS expenses.50

43 CRS analysis of DOD, Strategic and Critical Materials 2021 Report on Stockpile Requirements, February 2021, pp.
7-10; U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2023, January 2023, p. 21.
44 P.L. 117-263 §1415 requires DOD to “conduct a study on the strategic materials required by the Department of
Defense to sustain combat operations for not less than one year against the pacing threat identified in the National
Defense Strategy” for stockpile reports required by 50 U.S.C. 98h-5(a) (“Biennial report on stockpile requirements.”)
45 DOD, Strategic and Critical Materials 2023 Biennial Report on Stockpile Requirements, April 2023, p. 7.
46 Ibid, p. 7.
47 Ibid., p. 7; Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)/DOD Chief Financial Officer, Department of Defense
Revolving Funds Justification/Overview: Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Budget Estimates, March 2023, p. 58. Based upon
CRS interviews and correspondence with NDS planners from the Institute for Defense Analyses in July 2023, if the
congressionally-mandated base case military conflict scenario were to markedly increase in intensity and/or duration,
stockpile requirements may increase significantly. 50 U.S.C. §98h-5(b) also requires DOD to disclose the “national
emergency planning assumptions” built in to these risk assessments and mitigation models.
48 CRS analysis of Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)/DOD Chief Financial Officer, Department of Defense
Revolving Funds Justification/Overview: Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Budget Estimates, March 2023, p. 58 and DOD,
Strategic and Critical Materials 2023 Biennial Report on Stockpile Requirements, April 2023, p. 7.
49 The FY2023 NDAA (P.L. 117-263) authorized $1.0 billion for the NDS Transaction Fund. Section 8034 of the
Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (P.L. 117-328) provided $93.5 million with two-year obligation authority.
Section 8035 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022 (P.L. 117-103) appropriated $125.0 million, also available
for placement on contract for two fiscal years.
50 For more on necessary expense doctrine, see Government Accountability Office, Principles of Federal
Appropriations Law, GAO-17-797SP, Fourth Edition, 2017 Revision, Chapter 3, pp. 14-17.
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Table 1. Congressional Appropriations Providing New Budget Authority for NDS
Purposes, 1939-1969
In current dollars and constant FY2024 dollars
Fiscal
Appropriated Amounts
Appropriated Amounts
Year
(current dollars)
(constant FY2024 dollars)
Public Law
1940
$10,000,000
$209,429,967
P.L. 76-361
1940
$3,000,000
$62,828,990
P.L. 76-442
1941
$9,500,000
$161,587,963
P.L. 76-442
1941
$47,500,000
$807,939,815
P.L. 76-667
1947
$100,000,000
$1,581,672,817
P.L. 79-663
1948
$100,000,000
$1,685,321,101
P.L. 80-271
1948
$300,000,000
$5,055,963,303
P.L. 80-785
1949
$40,000,000
$677,681,159
P.L. 81-119
1950
$525,000,000
$8,801,792,699
P.L. 81-150
1950
$605,000,000
$10,143,018,253
P.L. 81-759
1950
$573,232,449
$9,610,425,113
P.L. 81-843
1951
$1,834,911,000
$29,022,288,498
P.L. 81-911
1951
$790,216,500
$12,498,639,574
P.L. 82-253
1952
$203,979,000
$3,104,101,729
P.L. 82-455
1954
$379,952,000
$5,148,369,619
P.L. 83-663
1955
$321,721,000
$4,221,439,121
P.L. 84-112
1955
$27,400,000
$359,527,143
P.L. 84-112
1958
$3,000,000
$33,721,154
P.L. 85-844
1959
$(58,370,923)
$(613,729,925)
P.L. 86-255
1960
$22,237,000
$236,318,664
P.L. 86-626
1961
$16,682,510
$173,982,479
P.L. 87-141
1962
$8,729,887
$90,970,516
P.L. 87-741
1963
$23,925,000
$238,489,593
P.L. 88-215
1964
$9,319,168
$91,687,208
P.L. 88-507
1965
$118,500
$1,169,449
P.L. 89-16
1965
$16,096,284
$158,850,434
P.L. 89-128
1966
$18,493,789
$174,220,976
P.L. 89-555
1967
$244,000
$2,226,825
P.L. 90-21
1967
$16,341,212
$149,135,305
P.L. 90-121
1968
$15,176,387
$132,217,588
P.L. 90-550
Total
$5,963,404,763
$94,021,287,130

Source: CRS analysis of Stockpile Reports to Congress, 1947-1969; CRS analysis of Office of Management and
Budget, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2024, Historical Tables, Table 10.1, “Gross Domestic
Product and Deflators Used in the Historical Tables: 1940-2028.”
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Notes: Real dol ar values are net amounts reported in stockpile reports to Congress, excluding administrative
transfers of budget authority to non-NDS accounts during a given fiscal year and excluding multi-year contracting
authority in advance of appropriations, as authorized in the respective Public Law and reported in subsequent
Stockpile Reports to Congress. Values in the “Appropriated Amounts (current dol ars)” column therefore may
not match appropriated amounts listed in the respective Public Law. Cases where two entries cover the same
Public Law represent appropriations for new stockpile activities along with appropriations to reimburse stockpile
accounts for obligations incurred pursuant to advance contracting authority (in lieu of appropriations) provided
in prior Public Laws.
Since 2022, Congress has expressed renewed interest in providing budget authority for new
stockpile acquisitions, in part because DOD has expressed concern that annual stockpile
operations cannot be sustained in the long term with current NDS assets.51
NDS Organizational Structure52
This section surveys key features of stockpile strategic planning, management, acquisition and
disposal, resource management, research and development, and congressional reporting under 50
U.S.C. Chapter 5, Subchapter III: Acquisition and Development of Strategic Raw Materials.
Strategic and Critical Materials Board of Directors53
Section 1411(b) of the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023,
(P.L. 117-263) established a board of directors to develop and assess NDS strategic plans and
operations. The board must at minimum include 13 members:
• The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy is the chair
• Four additional members are chosen by the chair of the board, with relevant
expertise (e.g., one member each specialized in “military affairs, defense
procurement, production of strategic and critical materials, and finance”)54
• Four members total designated by each of the Secretaries of Commerce, State,
Energy, and the Interior
• Four members total designated by House and Senate Armed Services Committees
(i.e., the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Readiness Subcommittee in each
chamber choose one board member each)
Congress has tasked this board with developing stockpile strategy for submission to the Secretary
of Defense; approving an annual budget plan; reviewing planned stockpile acquisitions or sales
against “projected domestic and foreign economic effects;” and establishing performance metrics
for evaluating whether the National Defense Stockpile Manager is adequately implementing
stockpile strategy.55

51 DOD, FY2022 National Defense Stockpile Annual Operations and Planning Report, March 2023, p. 12.
52 For an early organizational and political history of the stockpile, see Glenn Herald Snyder, Stockpiling strategic
materials: politics and national defense (San Francisco, CA: Chandler Publishing Company, 1966).
53 50 U.S.C. §98h-1.
54 Ibid.
55 P.L. 117-263 was passed December 22, 2022. The law requires the Board to meet annually. Official stockpile reports
to Congress have yet to describe its membership and by-laws.
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National Defense Stockpile Manager
P.L. 100-180 Division C, Title II, the “National Defense Stockpile Amendments of 1987”
amended the Stock Piling Act, requiring the President to designate “a single Federal office to
perform the functions of the President under this Act.”56 To implement the requirement, President
Ronald Reagan issued Executive Order 12626 designating the Secretary of Defense to perform
this role of “National Defense Stockpile Manager.”57 The executive order also authorized the
Secretary to delegate responsibilities under the act as needed to perform these functions.
The Stockpile Manager has a variety of responsibilities under the act, including:
• Use appropriated funds to acquire shortfall materials, even doing so without
explicit authorization in law under certain circumstances.58
• Receive advice from the Strategic and Critical Materials Board of Directors.59
• Submit financial statements and an Annual Materials and Operations Plan to the
Board of Directors.60
• Submit an annual report to the congressional defense committees on foreign and
domestic stockpile purchases, disposals, barter transactions, research and
development efforts, and planned expenditures over the next five years.61
Within DOD, the Secretary delegates these functions to the Under Secretary of Defense for
Acquisition and Sustainment (USD(A&S)), who further delegates responsibilities to the Director
of the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), the nation’s combat logistics support agency.62 DLA
manages day-to-day NDS operations with oversight from the Strategic and Critical Materials
Board of Directors.
Day-to-Day NDS Operations and Material Assessment: DLA-SM
To consolidate NDS operational activities under one entity, DOD has delegated day-to-day
stockpile management responsibilities specifically to the Defense Logistics Agency’s Strategic
Materials field activity (DLA-SM). DLA-SM maintains the specialized facilities, personnel,
equipment and software required to execute NDS material acquisition, storage, management,

56 50 U.S.C. §98 h-7.
57 E.O. 12626, “National Defense Stockpile Manager,” 53 Federal Register 6114, February 25, 1988.
58 50 U.S.C. §98d(a)(3).
59 50 U.S.C. §98h-1(c)(3).
60 50 U.S.C. §98h-2(a)(2)(B).
61 50 U.S.C. §98h-2(b)(1).
62 50 U.S.C. §98h-7; 50 U.S.C. §98, et. seq.; E.O. 12626, “National Defense Stockpile Manager,” 53 Federal Register
6114, February 25, 1988); DOD, DOD Directive 5135.02: Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment
(USD(A&S)), July 15, 2020, Section 4, clause aq; DOD, DOD Directive 5105.22: Defense Logistics Agency (DLA),
June 29, 2017, Section 2, clause y. Note that 50 U.S.C. §98h-7(c) states that certain NDS functions assigned to the
President cannot be delegated; in particular, ordering the release of NDS materials per 50 U.S.C. §98f(a)(1). However,
50 U.S.C. §98f(a)(3) authorizes the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment to perform this
function if designated (i.e., delegated the responsibility) to do so by the President. Accordingly, E.O. 14051,
“Designation to Exercise Authority over the National Defense Stockpile,” 86 Federal Register 60747, October 31,
2021 delegated this authority to the USD(A&S). Upon receiving such an order, DLA as NDS Manager would
implement the order.
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disposal, and recovery activities. It also assesses stockpile composition and quality and provides
NDS contract oversight and resource management.63
The field activity reports NDS inventories at six locations in Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, New
York, and Arizona.64 For a list of NDS materials at these facilities as of the end of FY2022, see
Appendix B. In FY2022, DLA-SM reported employing 72 civilian personnel, led by an
Administrator and Deputy Administrator headquartered at Fort Belvoir, Virginia and organized
into two directorates: one for strategic planning and market research, and a second for materiel
management.65
As the National Defense Stockpile Manager, DLA-SM tasks include:
• Purchase strategic and critical materials of domestic origin (and prioritize
purchases from the national technology and industrial base above other foreign
sources if not available domestically).66
• Contract with domestic facilities to process and refine stockpile materials.
• Qualify domestic facilities to receive NDS materials under a declared national
emergency and fulfill specific military and essential civilian requirements.
• Contract with domestic facilities to recycle strategic and critical materials.67
Recovering Strategic and Critical Materials from Recycling Operations
Section 1411 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014 (P.L. 113-66)
requires the Stockpile Manager to recover strategic and critical minerals from “excess materials
made available for recovery purposes by other Federal agencies.” Recycling programs are now an
increasingly important DLA-SM contracting activity and an area of significant innovation. The
most recent FY2022 stockpile report to Congress details some of these initiatives under the
Strategic Materials Recovery and Reuse Program (SMRRP).
In FY2022, germanium recovery from military branch “end-of-life scrap” turned discarded night
vision lenses and Bradley Fighting Vehicle turret windows into “3,000 kilograms of 99.999
percent pure germanium ingots.”68 For context, this represents “approximately 10 percent of U.S.

63 50 U.S.C. §98e(b) requires DLA-SM to follow the Federal Acquisition Regulation in procurement actions.
64 DLA, “Depot Information,” at https://www.dla.mil/Strategic-Materials/Resource/. Following World War II, NDS
materials were maintained at hundreds of facilities nationwide: for example, a 1961 stockpile report lists 46 million
tons of strategic and critical materials stored at 58 military depots; 22 General Services Administration depots; 10 other
government-owned sites; 39 industrial plant sites; 16 leased commercial sites; and 68 commercial warehouses. See
Executive Office of the President, Stockpile Report to the Congress: January – June 1961, October 1961, p. 5. In 1997,
after declaring 99% of remaining NDS inventories “excess material,” DLA-SM “established a long-range plan to
vacate 66 sites.” See U.S. General Accounting Office, National Defense Stockpile: improved financial plan needed to
enhance decision making, January 2001, p. 4. At some of these locations, “past material storage and handling practices
allowed chemical constituents to leach into soil and water.” See DOD, FY2022 National Defense Stockpile Annual
Operations and Planning Report, March 2023, p. 15. DOD keeps Congress apprised of ongoing environmental
remediation efforts at these sites through its annual reports and congressional briefings.
65 DOD, Defense Manpower Profile Report: Fiscal Year 2023, July 2022, p. 141; DLA-SM, “About Strategic
Materials,” web resource at https://www.dla.mil/Strategic-Materials/About/.
66 The national technology and industrial base (NTIB) is defined in 10 U.S.C. §4801 as “the persons and organizations
that are engaged in research, development, production, integration, services, or information technology activities
conducted within the United States, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Australia, New
Zealand, and Canada.”
67 50 U.S.C. § 98h-6.
68 DOD, FY2022 National Defense Stockpile Annual Operations and Planning Report, March 2023, p. 11. DLA-SM
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demand for purified germanium.”69 This recovered germanium is to be stored in the NDS for
emergency use.70
Also reported in FY2022, DLA-SM’s boron carbide recovery program is to turn demilitarized
body armor plates “that would have been landfilled” into a processed powder stored in the NDS.
In an emergency, this powder could be recast into new hard armor plates. DOD reportedly
disposes of approximately 120,000 body armor plates each year, with 30% of these plates
reportedly containing high concentrations (up to 90%) of boron carbide.71
To the extent that recovery operations reliably yield large quantities of certain strategic and
critical materials, these operations may be assessed as potential complements or alternatives to
other domestic or foreign sources of supply in emergency scenarios.72
Analytic Support to DLA-SM: Institute for Defense Analyses
DLA-SM also plays a central role in the interagency effort to analyze alternative sources of
supply through stockpile planning. To assess stockpile requirements DLA-SM contracts with a
federally funded research and development center (FFRDC), the Systems and Analyses Center
(SAC), run by the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA). Since June 1988, SAC has constructed
the interagency analytic backbone of the National Defense Stockpile, known as the Risk
Assessment and Mitigation Framework for Strategic Materials (RAMF-SM).73
RAMF-SM is “a set of models, procedures, and databases” designed to recommend which
strategic and critical materials should be stockpiled, and in what quantities.74 The framework
incorporates a combat scenario provided by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for
Policy; data on equipment losses, weapons platform requirements, and consumables provided by
the Joint Staff in coordination with the military departments; and data from interagency partners
(including the intelligence community) and industry stakeholders to estimate what may happen to
supply chains for candidate materials under certain conditions.75

partnered with the Anniston Army Depot to implement this project. See DLA, “Strategic Material Recovery and Reuse
Program (SMRRP),” website at https://www.dla.mil/Strategic-Materials/Business/Recycling-and-Reuse-Program-
SMRP/.
69 Ibid., p. 11.
70 Ibid., p. 8. The Senate-passed version of a National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024 (H.R. 2670)
§1513 would authorize DOD to sell 5,000 kilograms of germanium from the stockpile (i.e., satisfy ~16.7% of total U.S.
annual demand).
71 Ibid., p. 9-10.
72 50 U.S.C. §98e(a)(5) requires the Stockpile Manager to “provide for the appropriate recovery of any strategic and
critical materials…that may be available from excess materials made available for recovery purposes by other Federal
agencies.”
73 IDA, Strategic and Critical Non-Fuel Materials and the National Defense Stockpile, IDA Document D-1878,
September 1996, p. S-1.
74 For an overview of the risk modeling process used for generating stockpile requirements, see Institute for Defense
Analyses (IDA), The Risk Assessment and Mitigation Framework for Strategic Materials (RAMF-SM), IDA document
D-33112, May 2022; IDA, Formal Processes for Mitigating Risks of Strategic Materials Shortfalls, IDA document D-
33375, March 2023; IDA, The RAMF-SM Stockpile Sizing Module: Updated Documentation and User’s Guide, IDA
document P-22696, April 2022; IDA, The RAMF-SM Material Demand Computation Program: Documentation and
User’s Guide, IDA document P-22689; and IDA, Material Prioritization via Linear Programming (MPLP): Proof of
Concept and Initial Results, IDA document P-33037. Based on CRS interviews and correspondence with NDS planners
at IDA in July 2023, the MPLP module was first incorporated into the FY2023 NDS Requirements report to Congress.
75 IDA, The RAMF-SM Stockpile Sizing Module: Updated Documentation and User’s Guide, IDA document P-22696,
April 2022, p. 39 on supply ability factors in material shortfall analysis: “Generally, the data come from the intelligence
(continued...)
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The baseline scenario for these calculations is termed the “base case” and by law must be “a
military conflict scenario consistent with the scenario used by the Secretary [of Defense] in
budgeting and defense planning.”76 Stockpile models must also encompass “those strategic and
critical materials necessary for the United States to replenish or replace, within three years of the
end of the military conflict scenario…all munitions, combat support items, and weapons systems
that would be required after such a military conflict.”77
Ultimately, outputs from RAMF-SM provide decision support to the National Defense Stockpile
Manager and Strategic and Critical Materials Board of Directors.78 In the event that DOD
leadership uses model outputs to justify acquiring or selling stockpile materials, the NDS has
built-in bureaucratic mechanisms for anticipating the market impacts of these actions via the
board and the NDS Market Impact Committee.
NDS Market Impact Committee79
Section 3314 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1993 (P.L. 102-484)
established an interagency Market Impact Committee (MIC) to advise the National Defense
Stockpile Manager on “the projected domestic and foreign economic effects of all acquisitions
and disposals of materials from the stockpile.” Co-chaired by the Departments of Commerce and
State, the MIC includes additional representatives from the Departments of Agriculture, Defense,
Energy, Homeland Security, the Interior, and the Treasury.80
The MIC facilitates outreach to industry and public stakeholders by periodically publishing a
notice of inquiry and request for public comments in the Federal Register. Such a notice was

community.” For an overview of Joint Staff activities that may generate data informing RAMF-SM, see DOD,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction (CJCSI) 3100.01E, Joint Strategic Planning System, May 21, 2021;
and DOD, DOD Directive (DODD) 8260.05, Support for Strategic Analysis, July 7, 2011. The latter describes
organizational relationships for generating baseline conflict scenarios, incorporating data from current operations,
Combatant Commander plans, force management decisions, and intelligence estimates. As with any sophisticated
modeling and simulation enterprise, RAMF-SM can be extremely sensitive to assumptions, constraints, and empirical
uncertainty. See Justin M. Lloyd et al., “Methods in macroeconomic forecasting uncertainty analysis: an assessment of
the 2015 National Defense Stockpile Requirements Report,” Mineral Economics, vol. 31, 269-281 (2018) and IDA,
The RAMF-SM Stockpile Sizing Module: Updated Documentation and User’s Guide, IDA paper P-22696, April 2022,
pp. 38-39, which notes that “shortfall results can be highly sensitive” to variable values representing the availability of
strategic and critical materials from specific countries under emergency conditions.
76 50 U.S.C. §98h-5(b).
77 50 U.S.C. §98h-5(c). This subsection also requires DOD to consider the impact of “alternative mobilization periods”
and “a range of other military conflict scenarios addressing potentially more serious threats to national security” than
the base case scenario, reporting to Congress the effect these alternatives would have on stockpile requirements. The
FY2023 James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act also required DOD to assess “the strategic materials
required…to sustain combat operations for not less than one year against the pacing threat identified in the National
Defense Strategy” (i.e., China), and to submit a classified report on the results by January 15, 2024. See P.L. 117-263
§1415 and 50 U.S.C. §98d Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries.
78 RAMF-SM output recommendations are provided to DOD senior leaders, who may or may not request congressional
appropriations in a given year to acquire some portion of the materials estimated to be in shortfall.
79 From October 1992 to December 2022, Congress utilized 50 U.S.C. §98h-1 to require a Market Impact Committee to
perform roles outlined in this section. In December 2022, P.L. 117-263 §1411 replaced the MIC’s role in 50 U.S.C.
§98h-1 with a Strategic and Critical Materials Board of Directors. The MIC has continued its public-facing activities
from December 2022 to present; however, pending publication of the board’s membership and by-laws, the role of the
MIC in stockpile management moving forward is uncertain.
80 U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security, “Request for public comments on the potential
market impact of the proposed fiscal year 2025 Annual Materials Plan from the National Defense Stockpile Market
Impact Committee,” 88 Federal Register 60633, September 5, 2023.
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published on September 5, 2023, for the NDS FY2025 Annual Materials Plan.81 These notices
provide a list of materials being considered for “acquisition, disposal, upgrade, conversion,
recovery, reprocessing, or sales” along with a “maximum quantity” of each material that might be
affected over the course of the fiscal year in question.
These public notices emphasize an important and historically contentious feature of the Stock
Piling Act: “The NDS is a strategic stockpile, not an economic stockpile. It is not intended to
influence prices in the market or insulate private industry from supply shocks.”82 The Stock Piling
Act states: “The purpose of the National Defense Stockpile is to serve the interest of national
defense only. The National Defense Stockpile is not to be used for economic or budgetary
purposes.”83 This congressional declaration followed decades of politically contentious stockpile
acquisition and disposal decisions, which some analysts, industry associations, and Members of
Congress argued unduly shaped market prices or implemented economic and foreign policy.84
To the extent that NDS acquisitions or sales play a role in U.S. supply chain resilience policies in
coming years, the MIC and Board of Directors may face potential ambiguity between future
stockpile transactions intended “for national defense only” and those intended (or projected) to
have economic impacts favoring nascent domestic industries, insulating the national technology
and industrial base from supply shocks, or engaging in strategic competition with foreign sources
of supply.85
NDS Transaction Fund (Resource Management)
The National Defense Stockpile Transaction Fund (NDSTF) was established by the Strategic and
Critical Materials Stock Piling Revision Act of 1979 (P.L. 96-41) to finance authorized NDS
operations without requiring annual congressional appropriations. The NDSTF houses “all
moneys received from the sale of materials in the stockpile,” including any strategic and critical
materials resulting from “excess materials made available for recovery purposes by other Federal

81 Ibid.
82 Ibid.
83 50 U.S.C. §98a(c). The prohibition on using the NDS for budgetary purposes references efforts to use NDS
Transaction Fund assets to reduce annual budget deficits and the like.
84 The earliest stockpile reports to Congress, declassified in the early 2000s, emphasize that planned stockpile
acquisitions should be kept secret because “public knowledge of stockpile procurement plans would affect the prices at
which urgently needed materials would be offered to the Government.” See DOD, Stockpiling Report by the Munitions
Board to The Congress, January 23, 1948, front matter. For contemporary analysis of stockpile politics and market
impacts, see Glenn Herald Snyder, Stockpiling strategic materials: politics and national defense (San Francisco, CA:
Chandler Publishing Company, 1966), p.3; and Patricia Elaine Perkins, “The United States strategic stockpile and price
determination in international metals markets,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, 1989), arguing that the impact of
the NDS on market prices historically depended on its size over time. The American Mining Congress in 1976 testified
to Congress that the stockpile had “an extremely disruptive influence in the market for metals and minerals” and that
most mining industry CEOs “would just as soon have no [national] stockpiles at all.” See Ibid., p. 29 and U.S.
Congress, Joint Committee on Defense Production, Hearings: Defense Industrial Base, Part 3: New Stockpile
Objectives, 94th Cong., 2nd sess., November 24, 1976, pp. 64, 80). During these hearings, committee chair Senator
Proxmire stated: “Moreover, the history of our stockpiles is replete with examples of their use or abuse for budget
balancing, for price stabilization and for almost every other purpose other than the only legal one—strategic
mobilization.” Ibid., p. 1.
85 The NDS Board of Directors is chaired by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy, whose
priorities include executing authorities under 10 U.S.C. §4811 to ensure supply chain resilience in the national
technology and industrial base, i.e., ensuring the capacity of private industry to withstand supply shocks. In addition,
Section 1 of E.O. 14051, “Designation to Exercise Authority over the National Defense Stockpile,” 86 Federal Register
60747, October 31, 2021 frames the NDS as “a model for the private sector” to “create a buffer against potential
shortages and import dependencies.”
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agencies.”86 50 U.S.C. §98h sets out a number of lawful uses of NDSTF funds “(subject to such
limitations as may be provided in appropriations Acts),” from acquisition, maintenance, and
disposal of materials to quality control testing, facility and infrastructure improvement, pay of
employees, research and development, and environmental remediation.
During the post-Cold War era, sales of excess materials from the stockpile generated billions of
dollars in revenue. Rather than maintain large cash reserves in the NDS Transaction Fund,
Congress from 2002 to 2022 “transferred more than $6 billion from the Transaction Fund to the
General Fund and other mandatory programs unrelated to the NDS mission.”87 As a result, DOD
has stated that current stockpile inventories and unobligated balances in the fund may not cover
anticipated program requirements.88 One method of increasing the Transaction Fund balance is
through appropriations.89
In general, “Moneys in the fund shall remain available until expended.”90 However, the FY2022
and FY2023 appropriations acts added a total of $218.5 million to the NDSTF with a two-year
period of availability, meaning that these funds must be placed on a contract or otherwise
obligated within two fiscal years of legislative enactment and fully disbursed within seven fiscal
years.91 NDSTF resource managers apply internal controls to appropriated funds to facilitate
contracting actions and obligation planning within this period of availability.
NDS Research and Development Activities
Title 50 U.S.C. §98g requires the National Defense Stockpile Manager (as the President’s
designee) to “make scientific, technologic, and economic investigations” to develop new
domestic sources of supply and new production methods for strategic and critical materials, along
with substitutes for “essential ores and mineral products.”
DLA-SM provides grants to universities and sign contracts with federal research and
development (R&D) agencies and private companies to perform R&D-type activities:92
• Development, mining, preparation, treatment, and utilization of ores and other
mineral substances.

86 50 U.S.C. §98h; 50 U.S.C. §98e(b)(5)-(6). Historically, P.L. 77-76 of May 28, 1941 amended the original Stock
Piling Act of 1939 “so as to provide for a revolving fund, or the availability for re-use of all proceeds from sales of
material from the stockpile.” However, Congress reversed this decision with P.L. 79-520 of July 9, 1946 in favor of
placing all sales revenue into “the general receipts of the Treasury.” Rather than introducing a new approach to
stockpile resource management in 1979, Congress was largely reinstating an approach from WWII. See Department of
Defense, Stockpiling report by the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy to the Congress pursuant to section
4 of public law 520, 79th Congress covering operations from 7 June 1939 to 31 December 1946, 23 January 1947, p. I-
1, I-4.
87 DOD, FY2022 National Defense Stockpile Annual Operations and Planning Report, March 2023, p. 12.
88 DOD’s FY2022 stockpile report to Congress states: “The Department has determined that excess materials remaining
in the NDS were inadequate to generate the revenues required to finance all identified critical material risks and sustain
general operations of the NDS.” DOD, FY2022 National Defense Stockpile Annual Operations and Planning Report,
March 2023, p. 12.
89 Alternatively, Congress may authorize other revolving funds to purchase strategic and critical materials for transfer
into NDS inventories. House-engrossed FY2024 NDAA version (H.R. 2670) §863 would authorize such acquisitions
through the Industrial Base Fund (redesignated as the Industrial Base and Operational Infrastructure Fund).
90 50 U.S.C. §98h.
91 P.L. 117-103 §8035 appropriated $125.0 million; P.L. 117-328 §8034 provided $93.5 million.
92 The following four bullet points reproduce 50 U.S.C. §98g(a)-(d) sub-headings.
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• Development of sources of supplies of agricultural materials; use of agricultural
commodities for manufacture of materials.
• Development of sources of supply of other materials; development or use of
alternative methods for refining or processing materials in the stockpile.
• Grants and contracts to encourage conservation of strategic and critical materials.
Historically, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has performed
many of the R&D activities related to domestic development and mining.93 The U.S. Department
of Agriculture similarly performed investigations into various agricultural commodities once
deemed strategic and critical materials, such as wool, vegetable tannins, and opium.94
As DOD weapons systems have increased in technological sophistication, a wider array of R&D
performers, including universities, have obtained DLA-SM contracts and grants.95 In FY2022,
DLA-SM reported seven R&D projects totaling $3.7 million, including a contract with the
Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to test a new process for
recovering critical rare earth elements from discarded electronics hardware (i.e., e-waste).96
In addition, DLA-SM seeks to qualify (i.e., certify) industrial operations to provide reliable
alternative sources of supply for strategic and critical materials. To that end, in FY2022 DLA
reported “a qualification program of antimony trisulfide from Mexico to replace the only
qualified source located in China.”97
Current NDS Transaction Fund unobligated cash balances ($326 million projected for end of year
FY2024) may provide ample resources for the National Defense Stockpile Manager to accelerate
R&D efforts and qualify additional industrial operations.98 In addition, 50 U.S.C. §98g may
authorize DOD to leverage advances in biomining and biomanufacturing of strategic and critical
materials to acquire NDS inventories.99

93 For current U.S. interagency critical materials R&D policy outside the Stock Piling Act framework, see 30 U.S.C.
Chapter 28—Materials and Minerals Policy, Research, and Development. Until closure in 1996, the Department of
Interior’s Bureau of Mines performed NDS R&D work alongside USGS. In 1996, these Bureau of Mines functions
were returned to the USGS. See USGS, “How can I find U.S. Bureau of Mines publications?” at
https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-can-i-find-us-bureau-mines-publications.
94 DOD, Stockpiling report by the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy to the Congress pursuant to section 4
of public law 520, 79th Congress covering operations from 7 June 1939 to 31 December 1946, 23 January 1947, p. I-4.
Executive Office of the President, Stockpile Report to the Congress: July-December 1957, April 1958, p. 9.
95 For a representative historical example, in FY1989 DLA provided research grants to the University of Texas at El
Paso, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Loyola College in Maryland, University of Idaho, University of Utah, University
of Arizona, University of New Mexico, and University of Nevada. See DLA, FY1990/FY1991 Biennial Budget
Estimates Submitted to Congress: National Defense Stockpile Transaction Fund and William Langer Jewel Bearing
Plant, January 1989, p. 3.
96 DOD, FY2022 National Defense Stockpile Annual Operations and Planning Report, March 2023, p. 11.
“Specifically, dysprosium (Dy) will be separated from rare earth oxides (REOs) recovered from scrap permanent
magnets of e-waste” using a novel “membrane solvent extraction (MSX) process.” The remaining FY2022 R&D
projects focused on developing domestic supply chains for explosives and propellants.
97 Ibid., p. 11.
98 Ibid., p. 12 notes that unobligated balances in the Transaction Fund are “controlled by the apportionment process,”
meaning that access to these funds for new initiatives may require approval from the Office of Management and
Budget. See DOD, DOD 7000.14-R, Financial Management Regulation, Volume 12, Chapter 1, February 2023, p. 1-8.
In addition, DOD notes that unobligated balances “do not take into consideration future funded expenses related to
environmental liabilities.” DLA states these future liabilities total $6 million (DOD, FY2022 National Defense
Stockpile Annual Operations and Planning Report, March 2023, p. 13).
99 See Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, “DARPA names teams to develop biotechnology to purify critical
(continued...)
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NDS Congressional Reporting Requirements
Congress exercises oversight of DOD programs by requiring various analytic reports and
briefings. The NDS is subject to a variety of congressional reporting requirements.100
Special Presidential Disposal Authority
50 U.S.C. §98f requires the President or USD(A&S) to notify the House and Senate Armed
Services Committees any time they utilize special presidential authority to release stockpile
materials for use, sale, or other disposition.
Reports by the National Defense Stockpile Manager and Board of Directors101
Following the end of each fiscal year, DLA-SM must submit a report to the House and Senate
Armed Services and Appropriations Committees including:
• information with respect to foreign and domestic purchases of materials for the
stockpile during the preceding fiscal year;
• information with respect to the acquisition and disposal of materials under this
subchapter by barter, during such fiscal year;
• information with respect to the activities by the National Defense Stockpile
Manager to encourage the conservation, substitution, and development of
strategic and critical materials;
• information with respect to the research and development activities conducted
under section 98g of this title;
• audited annual financial statements for the Strategic and Critical Materials
Fund;102
• other pertinent information on the administration of this subchapter as will enable
the Congress to evaluate the effectiveness of the program;
• details of all planned expenditures from the Strategic and Critical Materials Fund
over the Future Years' Defense Program and anticipated receipts from proposed
disposals of stockpile materials; and
• a report prepared by the Strategic and Critical Materials Board of Directors
detailing the activities of the Board to carry out their duties; and the most recent
NDS Annual Materials and Operations Plan.

elements,” press release at https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2022-10-06a. See also energetic materials applications
at DARPA, “DARPA successfully transitions synthetic biomanufacturing technologies to support national security
objectives,” press release at https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2021-12-08.
100 In addition to reporting requirements outlined directly in the 50 U.S.C. §98, et. seq., 30 U.S.C. §1604(d) requires the
Secretary of Defense to submit to Congress an assessment of critical materials needs related to national security,
“revised periodically as deemed necessary.” The report must identify “the steps necessary to meet those needs,”
including an assessment of the Defense Production Act and Strategic and Critical Materials Stock Piling Act.
101 Bullet points in this sub-section are quotations from 50 U.S.C. §98h-2, except the final bullet which paraphrases the
content of the report to be prepared by the Board.
102 P.L. 117-263 §1411 refers to a “Strategic and Critical Materials Fund” where previous versions of 50 U.S.C. §98h-2
referred to the “National Defense Stockpile Transaction Fund.” The NDS Transaction Fund (NDSTF) is the subject of
annual financial statements submitted by DLA to Congress, where the NDSTF is designated by Treasury Account
Symbol (TAS) 97X4555. See Defense Logistics Agency, Defense Logistics Agency: Fiscal Year 2022 Agency
Financial Report – Transaction Fund (Unaudited), 2022, p. 85.
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Biennial Report on Stockpile Requirements103
DOD delivers recommendations every other year to Congress on stockpile requirements,
disclosing the “national emergency planning assumptions” underlying its analytic process. DOD
is required to disclose:
• The length and intensity of the assumed military conflict.
• The military force structure to be mobilized.
• The losses anticipated from enemy action.
• The military, industrial, and essential civilian requirements to support the
national emergency.
• The availability of supplies of strategic and critical materials from foreign
sources during the mobilization period, the military conflict, and the subsequent
period of replenishment, taking into consideration possible shipping losses.
• The domestic production of strategic and critical materials during the
mobilization period, the military conflict, and the subsequent period of
replenishment, taking into consideration possible shipping losses.
• Civilian austerity measures required during the mobilization period and military
conflict.
The biennial report must also include “an examination of the effect that alternative mobilization
periods…as well as a range of other military conflict scenarios addressing potentially more
serious threats to national security, would have on the Secretary's recommendations.”104 The
FY2023 NDAA (P.L. 117-263) §1415 further required DOD to submit with its 2023 biennial
report a classified report on the strategic materials required to sustain a one-year-long armed
conflict with the pacing threat identified in the National Defense Strategy (i.e., China).105 The
provision requires DOD to acquire the highest priority strategic and critical materials identified in
this scenario “subject to the availability of appropriations.”106
The Stock Piling Act does not establish requirements for ensuring this biennial assessment
integrates armed conflict scenario data emerging from other congressional reporting
requirements. For example, by February 2024 DOD is required by law (10 U.S.C. §118b) to
submit to Congress a classified National Defense Sustainment and Logistics Review containing
long-term strategic assessments (5-, 10-, and 25-years out) of global defense posture elements,
defense industrial base capabilities, supply chain risks, and logistics assets in realistic armed
conflict scenarios. Inasmuch as these assessments contain the highest quality, most
comprehensive data integration DOD can deploy for strategic analysis, these data may be
available for integration into future biennial NDS requirements assessments.

103 Bullet points in this subsection are quotations from 50 U.S.C. §98h-5(b). The FY2017 NDAA (P.L. 114-328)
§1061(i)(30) set a termination date (December 31, 2021) for this biennial report. The White House’s 100-day supply
chain review of DOD strategic and critical materials recommended that Congress reinstate this reporting requirement
(The White House, Building Resilient Supply Chains, Revitalizing American Manufacturing, and Fostering Broad-
Based Growth: 100-Day Reviews under Executive Order 14017, June 2021, p. 201). The FY2022 NDAA (P.L. 117-81)
§1064 reinstated the requirement.
104 50 U.S.C. §98h-5(d).
105 P.L. 117-263 §1415; DOD, 2022 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America, October 2022, p. 4.
The provision also requires DOD to submit an unclassified study by January 15, 2024 of “the energy storage and
electronic components necessary” to sustain combat in the same scenario.
106 P.L. 117-263 §1415.
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Issues Facing Congress
The following section considers issues that Congress may face involving National Defense
Stockpile legislation and oversight.
Assessing NDS Funding Tradeoffs
Since 2022, executive branch budget requests and legislative activity related to NDS acquisitions
have displayed considerable variability. DOD requested $253.5 million in new budget authority
for NDS acquisitions in FY2023 (and $7.6 million for FY2024).107 The enacted FY2023 NDAA
(P.L. 117-263) authorized $1.0 billion, while the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (P.L.
117-328) appropriated $93.5 million.108 Congress may wish to assess the extent to which resource
allocation tradeoffs are currently affecting national stockpile strategy.
There is currently no statutory requirement for the President’s Budget Request to include plans
for stockpiling 100% of estimated material shortfalls of strategic and critical materials. The Risk
Assessment and Mitigation Framework for Strategic Materials (RAMF-SM) generates estimated
requirements and provides these estimates to senior leaders as decision support in budget
planning. Executive branch officials may elect not to request funds to fill estimated shortfalls.
DOD budget decisions may consider that most shortfalls cover nondefense demand.
The executive branch may face tradeoffs in assessing whether to request new budget authority for
NDS acquisitions. To the extent that budget toplines for discretionary defense spending are fixed,
dollars spent storing raw materials for nondefense critical infrastructure demand in a national
emergency may be viewed as competing with requirements for present-day military operations
and equipment maintenance, procurement of weapons, or research and development of next-
generation military platforms.
Congress may also face resource allocation tradeoffs in considering further NDS appropriations,
with budget authority for emergency stockpile acquisitions competing with other national
priorities.
Both the executive branch and Congress may face variation among expert opinions in assessing
the comparative value of the National Defense Stockpile. To the extent that emergency raw
material stockpiles provide deterrence value, investments in strategic weapons, additional war
reserve materiel, enhanced warfighter training, or diplomatic engagement may be assessed as
providing greater or lesser deterrence value. Similarly, to the extent that emergency raw material
stockpiles increase supply chain resilience, other investments that increase near-, mid-, or long-
term domestic industrial base capacity, incentivize friend-shoring of value chains, or strengthen
global maritime logistics may be viewed as providing greater or lesser supply chain resilience.
And to the extent that emergency raw material stockpiles facilitate whole-of-government
emergency preparedness, other investments in non-DOD federal agencies, nondefense national
stockpiles, or partnerships with nondefense critical infrastructure industries may be viewed as
providing greater or lesser whole-of-government emergency preparedness.

107 Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)/Chief Financial Officer, Operation and Maintenance Programs (O-1):
Revolving Management Funds (RF-1), Fiscal Year 2023, April 2022, p. 6A; Under Secretary of Defense
(Comptroller)/Chief Financial Officer, Operation and Maintenance Programs (O-1): Revolving Management Funds
(RF-1), Fiscal Year 2024, March 2023, p. 9.
108 P.L. 117-263 §1414;
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DOD’s 2021 biennial stockpile assessment stated that “stockpiling is only a temporary stopgap
mitigation strategy” for some materials.109 Comprehensive risk mitigation, according to the
assessment, may require alternative resource allocations to “implement a permanent solution,”
including Title III Defense Production Act and Industrial Base and Sustainment (IBAS)
investments.110
Given budget constraints, techniques for assessing these tradeoffs and improving resource
allocation may become important tools for national security policymaking.
Determining Which National Emergency Scenarios Should be Used
to Generate NDS Requirements
The National Defense Stockpile Manager currently establishes biennial stockpile requirements
using a base case armed conflict scenario consisting of one year of active combat and three years
of post-conflict industrial replenishment. Congress may wish to consider whether current strategic
threat assessments justify modification of base case scenarios.
For example, Section 1411 of the House-passed FY2024 NDAA (H.R. 2670) would triple the
assumed length of active combat in the scenario to three years while maintaining a three-year
industrial replenishment period. In addition, this provision would require stockpile planners to
model the “total mobilization of the economy of the United States” and encourage DOD to obtain
stockpiles sufficient to meet these new requirements “on or after” January 1, 2028.111
A historical perspective may assist policymakers in anticipating the general effect of this
modified planning scenario and acquisition schedule on biennial stockpile requirements.112
In December 1987, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 1988 and 1989 (P.L.
100-180) established a three-year active conflict scenario (modeled on sustained conventional
global war with a contemporary adversary). The three-year industrial replenishment period was
only established as a stockpile requirement in 1996 (P.L. 104-201 §3311) alongside a reduction in
the active conflict period. In March 1988, DOD reported that the shift to a three-year active
combat period “(at 31 March 1988 prices) would require acquisition of additional materials
valued at approximately $12.3 billion” in addition to the $7.1 billion in non-excess inventory the
NDS already had on hand.113
In other words, DOD reported to Congress in 1988 that strategic and critical materials shortfalls
for a contemporary three-year, high-intensity active combat scenario would amount to $19.4
billion, without providing stockpiles for a three-year industrial replenishment period.
Strategic and critical materials shortfalls in the 2024 to 2028 timeframe may differ in many
respects from requirements in 1988. Nevertheless, NDS requirements would increase

109 DOD, Strategic and Critical Materials 2021 Report on Stockpile Requirements, February 2021, pp. 6-7.
110 Ibid., pp. 6-7. See also DOD, Fiscal Year 2021 Industrial Capabilities Report to Congress, March 2023, p. 7 and
CRS Report R43767, The Defense Production Act of 1950: History, Authorities, and Considerations for Congress, by
Alexandra G. Neenan and Luke A. Nicastro, pp. 9-14.
111 The provision states that stockpiled materials “should be” sufficient “on or after January 1, 2028” to meet “the
national defense needs of the United States, for a period of not less than three years” “necessitating the total
mobilization of the economy of the United States for a sustained conventional global war of indefinite duration.” See
H.R. 2670 §1411.
112 In practice, the language in the House-passed NDAA provision admits of several possible operationalizations, which
may require DOD planners to clarify congressional intent to facilitate implementation and assessment.
113 DOD, Strategic and Critical Materials Report to the Congress: Operations under the Strategic and Critical
Materials Stock Piling Act during the period October 1987 – March 1988, September 1988, p. 4.
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significantly if Congress required stockpile planners to model a three-year sustained global
conventional war featuring total mobilization of the U.S. economy while maintaining a three-year
post-conflict industrial replenishment requirement.114 As previously noted, a gap of $13.5 billion
already exists between current NDS assets and estimated shortfalls in a base case national
emergency scenario modeling one year of active conflict.
Given a desire to strategically balance national defense stockpiling and national security
preparedness with all other national priorities, Congress may wish to assess several alternative
base case scenarios to decide its resource allocation preferences.
Assessing market impacts of rapid stockpile acquisition strategies
The current gap between National Defense Stockpile assets and estimated material shortfalls is
$13.5 billion, primarily for non-defense critical infrastructure demand rather than defense
industrial base requirements.115 The 118th Congress is currently considering a legislative proposal
in the House-passed version of an FY2024 NDAA (H.R. 2670 §1411) that historical precedent
suggests could triple estimated shortfalls, while adding a requirement for DOD to acquire
materials to mitigate these shortfalls on or after January 1, 2028.116 Current shortfalls and pending
legislative proposals therefore raise questions about the potential market impacts of rapid
stockpile acquisitions.
There are several ways to obtain NDS inventories:
• Market exchange: Historically, the primary method of obtaining stockpile
materials has been purchasing non-fuel mineral commodities at market prices
from foreign sources, adhering to standard federal procurement practices.117
• Barter.: 50 U.S.C. §98e also authorizes the use of barter when practical; for
example, “To the extent otherwise authorized by law, property owned by the
United States may be bartered for materials needed for the stockpile.”118
• Recycling and Recovery. Since FY2014, Congress has authorized NDS
operations to recover strategic and critical materials from federal agency end-of-
life scrap and excess equipment such as night vision goggles and Bradley
Fighting Vehicle turret windows.119
In the absence of multi-billion-dollar appropriations, barter and recycling and recovery operations
may present alternative pathways for bridging NDS material shortfalls.
Congress could assess a range of barter options. These options would typically obtain strategic
and critical materials from international markets at negotiated prices in exchange for goods or
services rather than cash payment. As a result, the Strategic and Critical Materials Board of
Directors and NDS Market Impact Committee may assess the market impacts of rapid acquisition

114 CRS email correspondence with NDS planners at Institute for Defense Analyses, July 6, 2023, generally
corroborated that the House-passed provision in question, if enacted, would increase stockpile requirements, though
precise amounts were not discussed.
115 CRS analysis of Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)/DOD Chief Financial Officer, Department of Defense
Revolving Funds Justification/Overview: Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Budget Estimates, March 2023, p. 58; DOD, Strategic
and Critical Materials 2023 Biennial Report on Stockpile Requirements, April 2023, p. 7.
116 See H.R. 2670 §1411.
117 50 U.S.C. §98e(b).
118 50 U.S.C. §98e(c)(4).
119 P.L. 113-66 §1411.
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via barter in a manner similar to acquisition via appropriations. In both cases, assessing market
impacts involves estimating whether stockpile acquisitions would unduly affect commodity prices
over time.
NDS recycling and recovery operations may provide a way to acquire shortfall materials while
developing new sources of supply. To the extent that recycling and recovery operations could
provide reliable domestic sources of supply under wartime conditions, these operations may
contribute to reducing NDS biennial shortfalls.
Section 1512 of the Senate-passed version of an FY2024 NDAA would amend the Stock Piling
Act to authorize DOD to co-fund new recycling and recovery business model designs (i.e.,
“bankable feasibility studies”).120 The White House’s 100-day strategic and critical materials
supply chain review recommended a “government-wide” recycling and recovery program to
obtain strategic and critical materials from federal data warehouse e-waste.121 The Strategic and
Critical Materials Board of Directors, NDS Market Impact Committee, and Congress may wish to
assess the potential market impacts of rapidly scaling up such operations.
Adapting stockpiles to anticipate and incorporate technological
innovation
In a June 1946 address to the Army Ordnance Association, Army Chief of Staff and future
President Dwight Eisenhower pointed out a potential weakness of a national stockpiling strategy.
He stated: “Security is not static. Military stockpiles can become junk because of a single
scientific development and the security they lend can be wiped out by a single laboratory
experiment.”122 This remark calls attention to the limitations of stockpiling strategies that fail to
anticipate or rapidly adapt to emerging technologies and technological innovation.
The current statutory framework for the NDS combines short-term stockpile planning with a mid-
and long-term vision, authorizing the use of NDS funds for “scientific, technologic, and economic
investigations” that generate “more efficient methods of production” and “develop new materials
for the stockpile.”123 Thus, apart from policy proposals that may increase or decrease stockpile
quantities, what Eisenhower later called “realistic stockpiling” might take the form of enhanced
coordination of such scientific, technological, and economic investigations.
DOD Chief Technology Officer / Under Secretary of Defense for Research &
Engineering
There is currently no strategic planning, operations management, or research and development
(R&D) role stipulated in the Stock Piling Act for the DOD Chief Technology Officer
(CTO)/Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (USD(R&E)).124 The Defense
Logistics Agency and Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment (USD(A&S))
currently play central roles in NDS strategic planning and management of operations, including

120 Senate-engrossed version of H.R. 2670 §1512.
121 The White House, Building Resilient Supply Chains, Revitalizing American Manufacturing, and Fostering Broad-
Based Growth: 100-Day Reviews under Executive Order 14017, June 2021, p. 197.
122 National Archives, “Pre-Presidential Speeches,” Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, June 3, 1946, p. 77 at
https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/file/pre_presidential_speeches.pdf.
123 50 U.S.C. §98g.
124 The DOD Chief Technology Officer is also the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. See
DOD Chief Technology Officer, “Leadership,” web resource at https://www.cto.mil/leadership/.
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development of R&D projects pursuing alternative materials and domestic sources of supply. As
part of these R&D efforts, DLA-SM currently contracts, for example, with the Army Research
Laboratory to develop new refinement and production processes. The NDS Board of Directors is
chaired by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy within USD(A&S).
Congress could assess the costs and benefits of authorizing, encouraging, or requiring
participation from the DOD CTO/USD(R&E) in aspects of NDS strategic planning, operations, or
R&D efforts. Offices within the DOD CTO/USD(R&E) hierarchy generate insight into emerging
trends in critical technology areas;125 innovation in industrial processes;126 trends in strategic and
critical material composition in DOD weapons systems and munitions; strategic intelligence and
analysis related to emerging adversaries;127 cutting-edge supply chain mapping methodologies;128
digital repositories of technical information; and access to “strategic capital,” engaging vendors
and bringing external investors into direct conversation with engineers developing possible new
technical solutions to existing operational challenges.129
Congress may consider to what extent CTO/USD(R&E) areas of specialization may add value to
NDS strategic planning, operations, and R&D such as:
• Current efforts to obtain strategic and critical materials from recycling and
recovery operations.130
• “Transportation, processing, refining, storage, security, maintenance, rotation,
and disposal of materials.”131
• Materials development and research, including alternative methods to convert
stockpile materials into more suitable forms.132
• Development of sources of supplies of agricultural materials; use of agricultural
commodities (e.g., biotechnology or synthetic biology approaches).133
• Approaches to grantmaking at academic institutions for purposes of assessing
potential material substitutes or “more efficient methods of production” and
material usage.134

125 DOD, National Defense Science & Technology Strategy 2023, pp. 3.
126 Ibid., p. 6.
127 DOD, “Leadership: Research and Engineering,” web resources at https://www.cto.mil/leadership/.
128 See Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), “Resilient Supply-and-Demand Networks (RSDN),”
website at https://www.darpa.mil/program/resilient-supply-and-demand-networks
129 DOD Chief Technology Officer, “Office of Strategic Capital,” website at https://www.cto.mil/osc/. OSC is
reportedly “investigating the use of non-acquisition-based tools, such as loans and loan guarantees,” which have also
been utilized historically in conjunction with Defense Production Act authorities to pursue Stock Piling Act purposes.
See DOD, “Secretary of Defense establishes Office of Strategic Capital,” press release, December 1, 2022 at
https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3233377/secretary-of-defense-establishes-office-of-strategic-
capital/. Congress may also assess whether OSC would be considered by DOD in reference to the bankable feasibility
studies authorized by Section 1512 of the Senate-passed FY2024 NDAA (H.R. 2670). Further, Congress may assess
whether OSC’s “patient capital” prototype-to-market efforts might be deployed to target prototypes that recycle and
recover strategic and critical materials; extract or refine them using research outcomes in critical technology areas such
as biotechnology or nanotechnology; or maintain them using additive manufacturing or artificial intelligence.
130 50 U.S.C. §98e(a)(5).
131 50 U.S.C. §98d(c); 50 U.S.C. §98e(a).
132 50 U.S.C. §98g(c).
133 50 U.S.C. §98g(b).
134 50 U.S.C. §98g(d).
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Congressional action is not necessarily required for increased CTO/USD R&E involvement in
NDS planning and operations. The Stock Piling Act provides the Strategic and Critical Materials
Board of Directors considerable flexibility in expanding Board membership, adopting by-laws,
and considering matters assigned to it by the Board chair.135 The Board itself may thus consider
the costs and benefits of integrating DOD CTO/USD(R&E) into Board membership, initiatives,
or execution of duties established in 50 U.S.C. §98h-1(c). Since the Board was established
recently with the FY2023 NDAA (P.L. 117-263 §1411), Congress could consider periodically
reviewing Board action to assess the extent of CTO/USD R&E involvement in NDS planning and
operations.
Private sector stockpiles of strategic and critical materials
The Biden Administration has stated that increasing inventories in the National Defense Stockpile
could “provide a model for the private sector” to increase inventories of raw materials for
enhanced supply chain resilience, “while recognizing that private sector stockpiles and reserves
can differ from government ones.”136 Congress may consider assessing incentive structures in the
private sector that affect industry behavior vis-à-vis stockpiling strategic and critical materials.
Public policies and industry behaviors that reliably increase the domestic availability of strategic
and critical materials during a national emergency may tend to reduce NDS requirements.137
However, peacetime conditions may disincentivize emergency stockpiles of strategic and critical
materials among competitive firms. Having too much raw material on hand at any given time may
negatively affect a company’s balance sheet and overall financial performance, imposing costs
that could otherwise be redirected to more productive activity.
Supply chain volatility associated with the COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a rethinking of
inventory management principles and supply chain risk management throughout the private
sector.138 To the extent that companies expect supply chain volatility in the future, they may opt
for increased inventories of certain raw materials in anticipation of future supply shortages.
However, as expected volatility decreases, safety stocks and emergency inventory levels may tend
to decrease. 139 When NDS planners generate stockpile requirements, they factor in an expectation
that domestic private sector companies will likely procure additional stocks of strategic and
critical materials during a national emergency “without government intervention.”140

135 50 U.S.C. §98h-1.
136 see E.O. 14051, “Designation to Exercise Authority over the National Defense Stockpile,” 86 Federal Register
60747, October 31, 2021, Section 1.
137 As discussed throughout this report, inventories in the National Defense Stockpile are based on estimates of military
and essential civilian demand under national emergency conditions. DOD estimates the expected quantity of strategic
and critical materials that will be available in an armed conflict scenario and compares this quantity to the estimated
total military and essential civilian demand for strategic and critical materials for the duration of the scenario. The
difference between the total demand and the estimated availability produces a “material shortfall” that can be used to
justify new stockpile acquisitions (or disposals).
138 For example, during periods of high volatility, “just-in-time” inventory management tends to yield to “just-in-case”
inventory management, characterized by increased safety stocks of key production inputs. However, as volatility
decreases, many firms revert back to “just-in-time” inventory management due to pressures on financial performance.
See, for example, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s regional assessment of economic activity on or before January
2023 in Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, “Beige Book – January 18, 2023,” online resource at
https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/beigebook202301.htm.
139 Ibid.
140 DOD, Strategic and Critical Materials 2023 Biennial Report on Stockpile Requirements, April 2023, p. 9, which
notes that stockpile planners combine these expected market responses to their initial calculations of gross material
shortfalls to generate an estimate of net material shortfalls. These net shortfalls are then reported to Congress.
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Congress from 1984 to 2020 expressed its finding that “establishing critical materials reserves,
both by the public and private sectors…represents one means of responding to the genuine risks
to our economy and national defense from dependency on foreign sources.”141 Since the 1980s,
the Executive Office of the President has developed and maintained interagency organizations to
pursue policies rooted in similar findings.142
Congress may wish to assess the extent to which current federal policies incentivize increased
domestic availability of strategic and critical materials prior to, during, or following a national
emergency.
Nondisclosure agreements with industry for robust NDS planning
Congress could also consider assessing DOD’s current practices for soliciting and utilizing
microeconomic, firm-level data in generating National Defense Stockpile requirements.
In practice, NDS planning involves two levels of industry data, referred to as Study List 1 (SL1)
and Study List 2 (SL2).143 SL1 data are macroeconomic data from the U.S. Department of
Commerce and U.S. Geological Survey, describing flows of natural resources, goods, and
finances for approximately 150 materials affecting 350 economic sectors and industry
classifications.144 SL2 data are microeconomic, individual firm-level data provided by domestic
companies that mine, process, or use strategic and critical materials. SL2 data typically include
open source and proprietary information related to the supply chains of individual companies in
critical infrastructure sectors.145 To obtain SL2 data, the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA)
routinely signs nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) with such companies. In practice, many
companies are hesitant to provide proprietary SL2 data to stockpile planners.146
Congress may wish to assess to what extent relevant companies provide SL2 data for NDS
planning, and whether there is currently a robust mechanism, either in statute or in current
organizational practice, to solicit, obtain, secure, and fully utilize large quantities of SL2 data in
biennial assessments of stockpile requirements. Congress could also assess incentive structures
among individual firms to provide or not provide DOD with SL2 data.
Addressing material weaknesses in NDS financial audits
Ernst & Young’s independent audit of DLA’s FY2022 financial operations disclosed material
weaknesses and significant deficiencies in several aspects of NDS resource management.147

141 This finding from the National Critical Materials Act of 1984 (P.L. 98-373 §202; 30 U.S.C. §1801(a)(6)) was
repealed by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (P.L. 116-260 §7002(n)(1)).
142 From 1984 through 2020, the National Critical Materials Council (NCMC) exemplified such an organization. See 30
U.S.C. §1801, et. seq. (prior to Supplement II of the 2018 edition). The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (P.L.
116-260 §7002) established a framework whereby the Office of Science and Technology Policy’s National Science and
Technology Council (NSTC) subsumed research coordination activities of the NCMC. See 30 U.S.C. §1604(b).
143 DOD, Strategic and Critical Materials 2023 Biennial Report on Stockpile Requirements, April 2023, p. 13.
144 Ibid., pp. 7, 13, 33.
145 Ibid., p. 13.
146 CRS interviews and correspondence with NDS planners at the Institute for Defense Analyses, July 2023.
147 Defense Logistics Agency, Defense Logistics Agency: Fiscal Year 2022 Agency Financial Report – Transaction
Fund (Unaudited), 2022, pp. 50-67. A material weakness is “a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal
control such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the entity’s financial statements will
not be prevented, or detected and corrected on a timely basis.” Ibid., pp. 49-50.
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Auditors reported inadequate policies, procedures, and internal controls for: managing physical
inventory counts; maintaining NDS Transaction Fund account balances with the Treasury;
tracking amounts owed to third parties for contracted work; preparing official financial reports;
and operating information systems containing NDS financial data.148
Auditors provided a list of corrective actions to mitigate these material weaknesses, including
design and implementation of controls over physical inventory counts and design and
implementation of policies and procedures for the processing and posting of transactions to the
correct fiscal period in the general ledger.149
Congress could assess DLA’s progress in implementing corrective actions to ensure ongoing
operations and future NDS inventory decisions accurately reflect the value of assets and
liabilities.

148 Ibid., pp. 50-67.
149 Ibid., Appendix A – Material Weaknesses.
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Appendix A. Title 50 U.S. Code §98, et. seq., Strategic
and Critical Materials Stock Piling Act (as of
October 13, 2023)
Active Executive Documents
Executive Order 12626 of February 25, 1988, designated the Secretary of Defense as National
Defense Stockpile Manager and authorized the Secretary to “delegate such functions as he may
deem appropriate, subject to his direction.”
Executive Order 15051 of October 31, 2021, designated the Under Secretary of Defense for
Acquisition and Sustainment “to have authority to release strategic and critical materials from the
National Defense Stockpile” for “use, sale, or other disposition only when required for use,
manufacture, or production for purpose of national defense.” Prior to ordering any release,
relevant executive departments and agencies must be consulted.
50 U.S.C. 98a. Congressional findings and declaration of purpose
(a) The Congress finds that the natural resources of the United States in certain strategic and
critical materials are deficient or insufficiently developed to supply the military, industrial, and
essential civilian needs of the United States for national defense.
(b) It is the purpose of this subchapter to provide for the acquisition and retention of stocks of
certain strategic and critical materials and to encourage the conservation and development of
sources of such materials within the United States and thereby to decrease and to preclude, when
possible, a dangerous and costly dependence by the United States on foreign sources or a single
point of failure for supplies of such materials in times of national emergency.
(c) The purpose of the National Defense Stockpile is to serve the interest of national defense only.
The National Defense Stockpile is not to be used for economic or budgetary purposes
50 U.S.C. 98b. National Defense Stockpile
(a) Determination of materials; quantities
Subject to subsection (c), the President shall determine from time to time (1) which materials are
strategic and critical materials for the purposes of this subchapter, and (2) the quality and quantity
of each such material to be acquired for the purposes of this subchapter and the form in which
each such material shall be acquired and stored. Such materials when acquired, together with the
other materials described in section 98c of this title, shall constitute and be collectively known as
the National Defense Stockpile (hereinafter in this subchapter referred to as the "stockpile").
(b) Guidelines for exercise of Presidential authority
The President shall make the determinations required to be made under subsection (a) on the
basis of the principles stated in section 98a(c) of this title.
(c) Quantity change; notification to Congress
(1) The quantity of any material to be stockpiled under this subchapter, as in effect on
September 30, 1987, may be changed only as provided in this subsection or as otherwise
provided by law enacted after December 4, 1987.
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(2) The President shall notify Congress in writing of any increase proposed to be made in the
quantity of any material to be stockpiled that involves the acquisition of additional materials
for the stockpile. The President may make the increase after the end of the 30-day period
beginning on the date of the notification. The President shall include a full explanation and
justification for the proposed increase with the notification.
50 U.S.C. 98c. Materials constituting the National Defense Stockpile
(a) Contents
The stockpile consists of the following materials:
(1) Materials acquired under this subchapter and contained in the national stockpile on July
29, 1979.
(2) Materials acquired under this subchapter after July 29, 1979.
(3) Materials in the supplemental stockpile established by section 1704(b) of Title 7 (as in
effect from September 21, 1959, through December 31, 1966) on July 29, 1979.
(4) Materials acquired by the United States under the provisions of Section 4533 of this title
and transferred to the stockpile by the President pursuant to subsection (f) of such section.
(5) Materials transferred to the United States under Section 2423 of Title 22 that have been
determined to be strategic and critical materials for the purposes of this subchapter and that are
allocated by the President under subsection (b) of such section for stockpiling in the stockpile.
(6) Materials acquired by the Commodity Credit Corporation and transferred to the stockpile
under section 714b(h) of Title 15.
(7) Materials acquired by the Commodity Credit Corporation under paragraph (2) of Section
1743(a) of Title 7, and transferred to the stockpile under the third sentence of such section.
(8) Materials transferred to the stockpile by the President under paragraph (4) of Section
1743(a) of Title 7.
(9) Materials transferred to the stockpile under subsection (b).
(10) Materials transferred to the stockpile under subsection (c).
(b) Transfer and reimbursement
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any material that (1) is under the control of any
department or agency of the United States, (2) is determined by the head of such department or
agency to be excess to its needs and responsibilities, and (3) is suitable for transfer or disposal
through the stockpile shall be transferred to the stockpile. Any such transfer shall be made
without reimbursement to such department or agency, but all costs required to effect such transfer
shall be paid or reimbursed from funds appropriated to carry out this subchapter.
(c) Transfer and disposal
The Secretary of Defense shall determine whether materials are suitable for transfer to the
stockpile under subsection (b), are suitable for disposal through the stockpile, and are
uncontaminated.
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50 U.S.C. 98d. Authority for stockpile operations
(a) Funds appropriated for acquisitions; proposed stockpile transactions; significant changes
therein
(1) Except for acquisitions made under the authority of paragraph (3) of this section 1 or
under the authority of paragraph (3) or (4) of Section 98e(a) of this title, no funds may be
obligated or appropriated for acquisition of any material under this subchapter unless funds
for such acquisition have been authorized by law. Funds appropriated for any acquisition of
materials under this subchapter (and for transportation and other incidental expenses related
to such acquisition) shall remain available until expended, unless otherwise provided in
appropriation Acts.
(2) If for any fiscal year the President proposes (or Congress requires) a significant change in
any stockpile transactions proposed in the Annual Materials and Operations Plan for such
fiscal year after the Board submits the report under Section 98h–2(b)(2) of this title
containing such plan, or a significant transaction not included in such plan, no amount may be
obligated or expended for such transaction during such year until the President has submitted
a full statement of the proposed transaction to the appropriate committees of Congress and a
period of 45 days has passed from the date of the receipt of such statement by such
committees.
(3) Using funds appropriated for acquisition of materials under this subchapter, the National
Defense Stockpile Manager may acquire materials determined to be strategic and critical
under Section 98b(a) of this title without regard to the requirement of the first sentence of
paragraph (1) if the Stockpile Manager determines there is a shortfall of such materials in the
stockpile.
(b) Disposal
Except for disposals made under the authority of paragraph (3), (4), or (5) 2 of Section 98e(a) of
this title or under Section 98f(a) of this title, no disposal may be made from the stockpile unless
such disposal, including the quantity of the material to be disposed of, has been specifically
authorized by law.
(c) Authorization of appropriations
There is authorized to be appropriated such sums as may be necessary to provide for the
transportation, processing, refining, storage, security, maintenance, rotation, and disposal of
materials contained in or acquired for the stockpile. Funds appropriated for such purposes shall
remain available until expended, unless otherwise provided in appropriations acts.
Department of Defense Readiness to Support Prolonged Conflict
P.L. 117-263, div. A, Title XIV, §1415, Dec. 23, 2022, 136 Stat. 2873, provided that:
"(a) Studies Required.-
"(1) In general.-For each report required by Section 14(a) of the Strategic and Critical
Materials Stock Piling Act (50 U.S.C. 98h–5(a)), the National Defense Stockpile Manager
shall-
"(A) conduct a study on the strategic materials required by the Department of Defense to
sustain combat operations for not less than one year against the pacing threat identified in
the National Defense Strategy; and
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"(B) not later than January 15, 2024, submit to the congressional defense committees
[Committees on Armed Services and Appropriations of the Senate and the House of
Representatives] a report on such study in a classified form with an unclassified
summary.
"(2) Energy storage and electronic components.-
"(A) In general.-The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment shall
conduct a study of the energy storage and electronic components necessary to sustain
combat operations for not less than one year against the pacing threat identified in the
National Defense Strategy.
"(B) Report.-
"(i) In general.-Not later than January 15, 2024, the Under Secretary of Defense for
Acquisition and Sustainment shall submit to the congressional defense committees a
report on the study required under subparagraph (A).
"(ii) Form.-The report required by clause (i) shall be submitted in an unclassified
form but may contain a classified annex.
"(iii) Elements.-The report required by clause (i) shall include the following:
"(I) A description of the specific number and type of energy storage and
electronic components that the Department of Defense requires for the
manufacture of munitions, combat support items, and weapon systems to sustain
combat operations.
"(II) A description of the specific number and type of energy storage and
electronic components that the Department of Defense requires to replenish or
replace munitions, combat support items, and weapon systems that are lost or
expended during the execution and sustainment of the relevant operational plan.
"(III) A description of supply chain vulnerabilities during the sustainment and
execution period, such as sole sources of supply, war damage, and shipping
interdiction.
"(IV) A description of supply chain vulnerabilities prior to the sustainment and
execution period and the replenishment and replacement period, such as reliance
on sole sources of supply, geographic proximity to strategic competitors, and
diminishing manufacturing sources.
"(V) An identification of alternative sources of supply for energy and electronics
components that are domestic or are from allies or partners of the United States.
"(VI) An assessment of the technical and economic feasibility of the
preparedness and response programs of the Department of Defense, such as the
National Defense Stockpile, the Warstopper program, war reserves and pre-
positioned stocks, contract options, or other methods to mitigate postulated
shortfalls to Department of Defense requirements.
"(VII) Any other such elements deemed appropriate by the Under Secretary of
Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment.
"(C) Energy storage and electronic component defined.-In this paragraph, the term
'energy storage and electronic component' includes-
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"(i) an item that operates by controlling the flow of electrons or other electrically
charged particles in circuits, using interconnections of electrical devices such as
resistors, inductors, capacitors, diodes, switches, transistors, or integrated circuits;
and
"(ii) battery cells, battery modules, battery packs, and other related components
related to batteries.
"(b) Acquisition Priority. -Consistent with the authority in Section 5 of the Strategic and Critical
Materials Stock Piling Act (50 U.S.C. 98d) and subject to the availability of appropriations, the
National Defense Stockpile Manager shall acquire the highest priority strategic and critical
materials identified in the report submitted under subsection (a)(1).
"(c) Strategic and Critical Materials Defined.-In this section, the term 'strategic and critical
materials' has the meaning given such term in Section 12 of the Strategic and Critical Materials
Stock Piling Act (50 U.S.C. 98h–3)."
50 U.S.C. 98e Stockpile management
(a) Presidential powers
The President shall-
(1) acquire the materials determined under Section 98b(a) of this title to be strategic and
critical materials;
(2) provide for the proper storage, security, and maintenance of materials in the stockpile;
(3) provide for the upgrading, refining, or processing of any material in the stockpile
(notwithstanding any intermediate stockpile quantity established for such material) when
necessary to convert such material into a form more suitable for storage, subsequent
disposition, and immediate use in a national emergency;
(4) provide for the rotation of any material in the stockpile when necessary to prevent
deterioration or technological obsolescence of such material by replacement of such material
with an equivalent quantity of substantially the same material or better material;
(5) provide for the appropriate recovery of any strategic and critical materials under Section
98b(a) of this title that may be available from excess materials made available for recovery
purposes by other Federal agencies;
(6) subject to the notification required by subsection (d)(2), provide for the timely disposal of
materials in the stockpile that (A) are excess to stockpile requirements, and (B) may cause a
loss to the Government if allowed to deteriorate; and
(7) subject to the provisions of Section 98d(b) of this title, dispose of materials in the
stockpile the disposal of which is specifically authorized by law.
(b) Federal procurement practices
Except as provided in subsections (c) and (d), acquisition of strategic and critical materials under
this subchapter shall be made in accordance with established Federal procurement practices, and,
except as provided in subsections (c) and (d) and in Section 98f(a) of this title, disposal of
strategic and critical materials from the stockpile shall be made in accordance with the next
sentence. To the maximum extent feasible-
(1) competitive procedures shall be used in the acquisition and disposal of such materials; and
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(2) efforts shall be made in the acquisition and disposal of such materials to consult with
producers and processors of such materials to avoid undue disruption of the usual markets of
producers, processors, and consumers of such materials and to protect the United States
against avoidable loss.
(c) Barter; use of stockpile materials as payment for expenses of acquiring, refining, processing,
or rotating materials
(1) The President shall encourage the use of barter in the acquisition under subsection (a)(1)
of strategic and critical materials for, and the disposal under subsection (a)(5) or (a)(6) of
materials from, the stockpile when acquisition or disposal by barter is authorized by law and
is practical and in the best interest of the United States.
(2) Materials in the stockpile (the disposition of which is authorized by paragraph (3) to
finance the upgrading, refining, or processing of a material in the stockpile, or is otherwise
authorized by law) shall be available for transfer at fair market value as payment for expenses
(including transportation and other incidental expenses) of acquisition of materials, or of
upgrading, refining, processing, or rotating materials, under this subchapter.
(3) Notwithstanding Section 98b(c) of this title or any other provision of law, whenever the
President provides under subsection (a)(3) for the upgrading, refining, or processing of a
material in the stockpile to convert that material into a form more suitable for storage,
subsequent disposition, and immediate use in a national emergency, the President may barter
a portion of the same material (or any other material in the stockpile that is authorized for
disposal) to finance that upgrading, refining, or processing.
(4) To the extent otherwise authorized by law, property owned by the United States may be
bartered for materials needed for the stockpile.
(d) Waiver; notification of proposed disposal of materials
(1) The President may waive the applicability of any provision of the first sentence of
subsection (b) to any acquisition of material for, or disposal of material from, the stockpile.
Whenever the President waives any such provision with respect to any such acquisition or
disposal, or whenever the President determines that the application of paragraph (1) or (2) of
such subsection to a particular acquisition or disposal is not feasible, the President shall notify
the Committee on Armed Services of the Senate and the Committee on Armed Services of the
House of Representatives in writing of the proposed acquisition or disposal at least 45 days
before any obligation of the United States is incurred in connection with such acquisition or
disposal and shall include in such notification the reasons for not complying with any
provision of such subsection.
(2) Materials in the stockpile may be disposed of under subsection (a)(5) only if such
congressional committees are notified in writing of the proposed disposal at least 45 days
before any obligation of the United States is incurred in connection with such disposal.
(e) Leasehold interests in property
The President may acquire leasehold interests in property, for periods not in excess of twenty
years, for storage, security, and maintenance of materials in the stockpile.
(f) Loan of stockpile materials
The President may loan stockpile materials to the Department of Energy or the military
departments if the President-
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(1) has a reasonable assurance that stockpile materials of a similar or superior quantity and
quality to the materials loaned will be returned to the stockpile or paid for;
(2) notifies the congressional defense committees (as defined in Section 101(a) of Title 10), in
writing, not less than 30 days before making any such loan; and
(3) includes in the written notification under paragraph (2) sufficient support for the
assurance described in paragraph (1).
50 U.S.C. 98e– 1. Transferred (to Section 98h-7 of this title)
50 U.S.C. 98f. Special Presidential disposal authority
(a) Materials in the stockpile may be released for use, sale, or other disposition-
(1) on the order of the President, at any time the President determines the release of such
materials is required for purposes of the national defense;
(2) in time of war declared by the Congress or during a national emergency, on the order of
any officer or employee of the United States designated by the President to have authority to
issue disposal orders under this subsection, if such officer or employee determines that the
release of such materials is required for purposes of the national defense; and
(3) on the order of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, if the
President has designated the Under Secretary to have authority to issue release orders under
this subsection and, in the case of any such order, if the Under Secretary determines that the
release of such materials is required for use, manufacture, or production for purposes of
national defense.
(b) Any order issued under subsection (a) shall be promptly reported by the President, or by the
officer or employee issuing such order, in writing, to the Committee on Armed Services of the
Senate and the Committee on Armed Services of the House of Representatives.
50 U.S.C. 98g. Materials development and research
(a) Development, mining, preparation, treatment, and utilization of ores and other mineral
substances
(1) The President shall make scientific, technologic, and economic investigations concerning
the development, mining, preparation, treatment, and utilization of ores and other mineral
substances that (A) are found in the United States, or in its territories or possessions, (B) are
essential to the national defense, industrial, and essential civilian needs of the United States,
and (C) are found in known domestic sources in inadequate quantities or grades.
(2) Such investigations shall be carried out in order to-
(A) determine and develop new domestic sources of supply of such ores and mineral
substances;
(B) devise new methods for the treatment and utilization of lower grade reserves of such
ores and mineral substances; and
(C) develop substitutes for such essential ores and mineral products.
(3) Investigations under paragraph (1) may be carried out on public lands and, with the
consent of the owner, on privately owned lands for the purpose of exploring and determining
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the extent and quality of deposits of such minerals, the most suitable methods of mining and
beneficiating such minerals, and the cost at which the minerals or metals may be produced.
(b) Development of sources of supplies of agricultural materials; use of agricultural commodities
for manufacture of materials
The President shall make scientific, technologic, and economic investigations of the feasibility of
developing domestic sources of supplies of any agricultural material or for using agricultural
commodities for the manufacture of any material determined pursuant to Section 98b(a) of this
title to be a strategic and critical material or substitutes therefor.
(c) Development of sources of supply of other materials; development or use of alternative
methods for refining or processing materials in stockpile
The President shall make scientific, technologic, and economic investigations concerning the
feasibility of-
(1) developing domestic sources of supply of materials (other than materials referred to in
subsections (a) and (b)) determined pursuant to Section 98b(a) of this title to be strategic and
critical materials; and
(2) developing or using alternative methods for the refining or processing of a material in the
stockpile so as to convert such material into a form more suitable for use during an
emergency or for storage.
(d) Grants and contracts to encourage conservation of strategic and critical materials
The President shall encourage the conservation of domestic sources of any material determined
pursuant to Section 98b(a) of this title to be a strategic and critical material by making grants or
awarding contracts for research regarding the development of-
(1) substitutes for such material; or
(2) more efficient methods of production or use of such material.
50 U.S.C. 98h. National Defense Stockpile Transaction Fund
(a) Establishment
There is established in the Treasury of the United States a separate fund to be known as the
National Defense Stockpile Transaction Fund (hereinafter in this section referred to as the
"fund").
(b) Fund operations
(1) All moneys received from the sale of materials in the stockpile under paragraphs (5) and
(6) of Section 98e(a) of this title shall be covered into the fund.
(2) Subject to Section 98d(a)(1) of this title, moneys covered into the fund under paragraph
(1) are hereby made available (subject to such limitations as may be provided in
appropriation Acts) for the following purposes:
(A) The acquisition, maintenance, and disposal of strategic and critical materials under
Section 98e(a) of this title.
(B) Transportation, storage, and other incidental expenses related to such acquisition,
maintenance, and disposal.
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(C) Development of current specifications of stockpile materials and the upgrading of
existing stockpile materials to meet current specifications (including transportation, when
economical, related to such upgrading).
(D) Encouraging the appropriate conservation of strategic and critical materials.
(E) Testing and quality studies of stockpile materials.
(F) Studying future material and mobilization requirements for the stockpile.
(G) Activities authorized under section 98h–6 of this title.
(H) Contracting under competitive procedures for materials development and research to-
(i) improve the quality and availability of materials stockpiled from time to time in
the stockpile; and
(ii) develop new materials for the stockpile.
(I) Improvement or rehabilitation of facilities, structures, and infrastructure needed to
maintain the integrity of stockpile materials.
(J) Disposal of hazardous materials that are stored in the stockpile and authorized for
disposal by law.
(K) Performance of environmental remediation, restoration, waste management, or
compliance activities at locations of the stockpile that are required under a Federal law or
are undertaken by the Government under an administrative decision or negotiated
agreement.
(L) Pay of employees of the National Defense Stockpile program.
(M) Other expenses of the National Defense Stockpile program.
(3) Moneys in the fund shall remain available until expended.
(c) Moneys received from sale of materials being rotated or disposed of
All moneys received from the sale of materials being rotated under the provisions of Section
98e(a)(4) of this title or disposed of under Section 98f(a) of this title shall be covered into the
fund and shall be available only for the acquisition of replacement materials.
(d) Effect of bartering
If, during a fiscal year, the National Defense Stockpile Manager barters materials in the stockpile
for the purpose of acquiring, upgrading, refining, or processing other materials (or for services
directly related to that purpose), the contract value of the materials so bartered shall-
(1) be applied toward the total value of materials that are authorized to be disposed of from
the stockpile during that fiscal year;
(2) be treated as an acquisition for purposes of satisfying any requirement imposed on the
National Defense Stockpile Manager to enter into obligations during that fiscal year under
subsection (b)(2); and
(3) not increase or decrease the balance in the fund.
50 U.S.C. 98h-1. Strategic and Critical Materials Board of Directors
(a) Establishment
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There is established a Strategic and Critical Materials Board of Directors (in this subchapter
referred to as the “Board”).
(b) Members
The Board shall be composed, at a minimum, of the following:
(1) The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy, who shall serve as
chairman of the Board.
(2) One designee of each of the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of State, the Secretary
of Energy, and the Secretary of the Interior.
(3) One designee of each of the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Readiness
Subcommittee of the House Committee on Armed Services.
(4) One designee of each of the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Readiness
Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Armed Services.
(5) Four designees of the chairman of the Board, who shall have expertise relating to military
affairs, defense procurement, production of strategic and critical materials, finance, or any
other disciplines deemed necessary by the chairman to conduct the business of the Board.
(c) Duties of the Board
In addition to other matters assigned to it by the chairman, the Board shall conduct the following,
without power of delegation:
(1) Adopt by-laws that ensure sufficient oversight, governance, and effectiveness of the
National Defense Stockpile program.
(2) Elect or remove Board members.
(3) Advise the National Defense Stockpile Manager.
(4) Establish performance metrics and conduct an annual performance review of the National
Defense Stockpile Manager.
(5) Set compensation for the National Defense Stockpile Manager.
(6) Review and approve the annual budget of the National Defense Stockpile program and
conduct appropriate reviews of annual financial statements.
(7) Reallocate budget resources within the annual budget of the National Defense Stockpile
program.
(8) Review and approve the Annual Materials and Operations Plan required by Section 98h–
2(a)(2) of this title, including a review of the projected domestic and foreign economic effects
of proposed actions to be taken under the Annual Materials and Operations Plan.
(9) Complete and submit the annual Board Report, in accordance with Section 98h–2(b)(2) of
this title.
(10) Recommend to the Secretary of Defense-
(A) a strategy to ensure a secure supply of materials designated as critical to national
security; and
(B) such other strategies as the Board considers appropriate to strengthen the industrial
base with respect to materials critical to national security.
(d) Board meetings
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The Board shall meet as determined necessary by the chairman but not less frequently than once
every year to fulfill the duties described in subsection (c).
(e) Application of Federal Advisory Committee Act
Section 14 of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C. App.) 1 shall not apply to the Board.
(f) Definitions
In this section:
(1) Materials critical to national security
The term “materials critical to national security” means materials-
(A) upon which the production or sustainment of military equipment is dependent; and
(B) the supply of which could be restricted by actions or events outside the control of the
Government of the United States.
(2) Military equipment
The term "
“military equipment” means equipment used directly by the Armed Forces to carry out military
operations.
(3) Secure supply
The term “secure supply”, with respect to a material, means the availability of a source or sources
for the material, including the full supply chain for the material and components containing the
material.
50 U.S.C. 98h-2. Reports
(a) Reports to the Board
The National Defense Stockpile Manager shall submit to the Board the following:
(1) Not later than 40 calendar days after the last day of each of the first three fiscal quarters in
each fiscal year, unaudited financial statements and a Manager's Discussion and Analysis for
the immediately preceding fiscal quarter.
(2) Not later than 60 calendar days after the conclusion of the fourth quarter of each fiscal
year-
(A) audited financial statements and a Manager's Discussion and Analysis for the
immediately preceding fiscal year; and
(B) an Annual Materials and Operations Plan for the forthcoming year.
(b) Reports to Congress
(1) Reports by National Defense Stockpile Manager
Not later than 90 days after the conclusion of the fourth quarter of each fiscal year, the National
Defense Stockpile Manager shall submit to the congressional defense committees (as defined in
Section 101(a) of Title 10) a report that shall include-
(A) information with respect to foreign and domestic purchases of materials for the
stockpile during the preceding fiscal year;
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(B) information with respect to the acquisition and disposal of materials under this
subchapter by barter, during such fiscal year;
(C) information with respect to the activities by the National Defense Stockpile Manager
to encourage the conservation, substitution, and development of strategic and critical
materials;
(D) information with respect to the research and development activities conducted under
Section 98g of this title;
(E) audited annual financial statements for the Strategic and Critical Materials Fund
(F) other pertinent information on the administration of this subchapter as will enable the
Congress to evaluate the effectiveness of the program;
(G) details of all planned expenditures from the Strategic and Critical Materials Fund
over the Future Years' Defense Program and anticipated receipts from proposed disposals
of stockpile materials; and
(H) the report required by paragraph (2).
(2) Report by the Board
The Board shall prepare a written report to accompany the report required by paragraph (1) which
shall include-
(A) the activities of the Board to carry out the duties listed in Section 98h–1(c) of this
title; and
(B) the most recent Annual Materials and Operations Plan submitted under subsection
(a)(2)(B).
50 U.S.C. 98h-3. Definitions
For the purposes of this subchapter:
(1) The term "strategic and critical materials" means materials that (A) would be needed to
supply the military, industrial, and essential civilian needs of the United States during a
national emergency, and (B) are not found or produced in the United States in sufficient
quantities to meet such need.
(2) The term "national emergency" means a general declaration of emergency with respect to
the national defense made by the President or by the Congress.
(3) The term "national technology and industrial base" has the meaning given such term in
Section 2500 of Title 10.
50 U.S.C. 98h-4. Importation of strategic and critical materials
The President may not prohibit or regulate the importation into the United States of any material
determined to be strategic and critical pursuant to the provisions of this subchapter, if such
material is the product of any foreign country or area not listed in general note 3(b) of the
Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (19 U.S.C. 1202), for so long as the importation
into the United States of material of that kind which is the product of a country or area listed in
such general note is not prohibited by any provision of law.
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50 U.S.C. 98h-5. Biennial report on stockpile requirements
(a) In general
Not later than January 15 of every other year, the Secretary of Defense shall submit to Congress a
report on stockpile requirements. Each such report shall include-
(1) the Secretary's recommendations with respect to stockpile requirements; and
(2) the matters required under subsection (b).
(b) National emergency planning assumptions
Each report under this section shall set forth the national emergency planning assumptions used
by the Secretary in making the Secretary's recommendations under subsection (a)(1) with respect
to stockpile requirements. The Secretary shall base the national emergency planning assumptions
on a military conflict scenario consistent with the scenario used by the Secretary in budgeting and
defense planning purposes. The assumptions to be set forth include assumptions relating to each
of the following:
(1) The length and intensity of the assumed military conflict.
(2) The military force structure to be mobilized.
(3) The losses anticipated from enemy action.
(4) The military, industrial, and essential civilian requirements to support the national
emergency.
(5) The availability of supplies of strategic and critical materials from foreign sources during
the mobilization period, the military conflict, and the subsequent period of replenishment,
taking into consideration possible shipping losses.
(6) The domestic production of strategic and critical materials during the mobilization period,
the military conflict, and the subsequent period of replenishment, taking into consideration
possible shipping losses.
(7) Civilian austerity measures required during the mobilization period and military conflict.
(c) Period within which to replace or replenish materials
The stockpile requirements shall be based on those strategic and critical materials necessary for
the United States to replenish or replace, within three years of the end of the military conflict
scenario required under subsection (b), all munitions, combat support items, and weapons
systems that would be required after such a military conflict.
(d) Effect of alternative mobilization periods
The Secretary shall also include in each report under this section an examination of the effect that
alternative mobilization periods under the military conflict scenario required under subsection (b),
as well as a range of other military conflict scenarios addressing potentially more serious threats
to national security, would have on the Secretary's recommendations under subsection (a)(1) with
respect to stockpile requirements.
(e) Plans of President
The President shall submit with each report under this section a statement of the plans of the
President for meeting the recommendations of the Secretary set forth in the report.
(f) Briefings on shortfalls in stockpile
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(1) Not later than March 1 each year, the National Defense Stockpile Manager shall provide
to the congressional defense committees a briefing on strategic and critical materials that-
(A) are determined to be in shortfall in the most recent report on stockpile requirements
submitted under subsection (a); and
(B) the acquisition or disposal of which is included in the Annual Materials and
Operations Plan for the operation of the stockpile during the next fiscal year submitted
under Section 98h–2(b) of this Title.
(2) Each briefing required by paragraph (1) shall include-
(A) a description of each material described in that paragraph, including the objective to
be achieved if funding is provided, in whole or in part, for the acquisition of the material
to remedy the shortfall;
(B) an estimate of additional amounts required to provide such funding, if any; and
(C) an assessment of the supply chain for each such material, including any assessment of
any relevant risk in any such supply chain.
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Appendix B. Unclassified Strategic and Critical
Materials List
The following list of NDS inventories is taken from DOD’s unclassified Strategic and Critical
Materials 2023 Biennial Report on Stockpile Requirements, delivered to Congress on May 19,
2023. The inventories appear on pages 16 and 17 of the report. The list is current as of the end of
Fiscal Year 2022 (September 30, 2022).
Table B-1. Reported Unclassified NDS Inventories as of September 30, 2022
Material
Unit
Inventory
Antimony
LB
198,763
Beryl
LB
1,897
Beryllium Metal HPP
ST
48
Beryllium Metal Rods
LB
13,175
Beryllium Metal Vac Cast
ST
7
Beryllium Structural Powder
LB
15,541
Cadmium Zinc Telluride Substrates
EA
5
Carbon Fibers Pan
LB
49,890
Chromium – Ferro High Carbon
ST
18,930
Chromium – Ferro Low Carbon
ST
29,288
Chromium Metal (for sale)
ST
3,826
Cobalt
LB
666,135
Cobalt Alloys
LB
31,271
Columbium Metal Ingots
LB
22,099
Dysprosium
KG
203
Europium Oxide
KG
23,159
Europium (SEG)
KG
12,595
Ferro-dysprosium
KG
526
Ferroniobium
LB
1,199,301
Germanium Metal – Intrinsic
KG
14,047
Germanium Wafer
EA
68,671
Germanium Scrap
KG
6,905
Iron Alloys
LB
39,578
Lithium Ion – LCO
KG
752
Lithium Ion – LNCA
KG
2,698
Lithium Ion – MCMB
KG
2,205
Manganese Ferro High Carbon
ST
114,287
Manganese Metallurgical Grade Ore
SDT
320,238
Mercury
LB
9,781,604
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Material
Unit
Inventory
Nickel Alloys
LB
1,672,781
Platinum Group Metals – Iridium
Tr. Oz.
489
Platinum Group Metals – Palladium
Tr. Oz.
0.139
Platinum Group Metals – Platinum
Tr. Oz.
8,380
Platinum Group Metal Alloys – Pd-
Tr. Oz.
4
Co Wire
Platinum Group Metal Compounds
LB
195
– Iridium Alloy
Quartz Crystals
LB
15,712
Rayon
LB
207,295
Silicon Carbide Fibers
KG
1,563
Tantalum Columbium Concentrate
LB
202,921
Tantalum Metal
LB
187
Tantalum Alloy
LB
3
Tin
MT
3,578
Titanium Alloys
LB
229,076
Plastic Bonded Explosives (TATB)
LB
19,218
Tungsten Ores & Concentrates
LB
13,237,580
Tungsten Rhenium Ingots
KG
5,001
Yttrium Oxide High-Grade/Purity
KG
7,000
Yttrium Oxide Low-Grade/Purity
KG
18,004
Zinc
ST
7,118
Source: DOD, Strategic and Critical Materials 2023 Biennial Report on Stockpile Requirements, May 19, 2023, pp. 16-
17.
Notes: EA means each (i.e., individual items); KG means kilograms; LB means pounds; MT means metric tons;
SDT means short dry tons; ST means short tons; Tr. Oz. means troy ounces. Columbium is synonymous with
niobium, both referring to the chemical element with atomic number 41; see Department of the Interior,
“Niobium and Tantalum Statistics and Information,” web resource at https://www.usgs.gov/centers/national-
minerals-information-center/niobium-and-tantalum-statistics-and-information. An “NDS Strategic and Critical
Materials List” from a 2022 DLA-SM Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) includes the fol owing materials not
listed in the Table: Aluminum Oxide, Fused Crude; Aluminum-Lithium Alloys; Beryl Ore; Beryl ium-Copper
Master Alloy (BCMA); Bismuth; Boron; Cerium; Erbium; Ferrochrome; Fluorspar, Acid Grade; Fluorspar,
Metallurgical Grade; Gadolinium; Gallium; Graphite; Holmium; Indium; Lanthanum; Lead; Lutetium; Magnesium;
Neodymium; Praseodymium; Rhenium; Samarium; Scandium; Strontium; and Tellurium. See DLA-SM, SP8000-22-
R-BAA1: National Defense Stockpile (NDS) Research Broad Agency Announcement, 2022, p. 16.
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Author Information

Cameron M. Keys

Analyst in Defense Logistics and Resource
Management Policy

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