10 U.S.C. § 281 — Procurement of equipment by State and local governments through the Department of Defense: equipment for counter-drug, homeland security, and emergency response activities

(a) Procedures. (1) The Secretary of Defense must set up procedures letting states and local governments buy equipment for counter-drug, homeland security, and emergency response work through the Department of Defense. These procedures must require: (A) each state that wants to take part must send the Department, in the form and timing the Secretary sets, (i) a request for equipment and (ii) advance payment based on the Secretary's estimate of the equipment's cost and the Department's administrative costs; (B) a state can only request equipment listed in the catalog described in subsection (c); (C) the request must list what the state and its local governments want, and a governor can set up their own process for handling local government requests; and (D) a state that requests equipment must arrange and pay for shipping it to the state and its localities. (2) In setting up these procedures, the Secretary of Defense must coordinate with the General Services Administration and other federal agencies to avoid duplicating work. (b) Reimbursement of Administrative Costs. When a state or local government buys equipment this way, the Secretary of Defense must make them pay back the Department of Defense's administrative costs for that purchase. (c) GSA Catalog. The Administrator of General Services, working with the Secretary of Defense, must create and keep up a catalog of equipment suitable for these purposes, for states and local governments to buy from. (d) Definitions. (1) "State" includes the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, and any U.S. territory or possession. (2) "Unit of local government" means a city, county, township, town, borough, parish, village, or other general-purpose government under a state; an Indian tribe doing law enforcement or emergency response work; or a D.C. or federal agency doing law enforcement or emergency response for D.C. or the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. (3) "Equipment suitable for counter-drug, homeland security, and emergency response activities" means what the Secretary of Defense defines by regulation — but it cannot include equipment the Department of Defense doesn't buy for itself, and for homeland security equipment, it cannot include anything not on the Department of Homeland Security's Authorized Equipment List.