50 U.S.C. § 98h–1 — Strategic and Critical Materials Board of Directors

(a) A Strategic and Critical Materials Board of Directors (“the Board”) is created. (b) The Board must include, at minimum: (1) the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy, who chairs the Board; (2) one designee each from the Secretaries of Commerce, State, Energy, and the Interior; (3) one designee each from the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee; (4) one designee each from the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee; and (5) four people the Board's chairman picks, chosen for expertise in military affairs, defense procurement, production of strategic and critical materials, finance, or other fields the chairman thinks the Board needs. (c) Besides whatever else the chairman assigns, the Board itself — without delegating this work to anyone else — must: (1) adopt bylaws that ensure enough oversight, governance, and effectiveness for the stockpile program; (2) elect or remove Board members; (3) advise the Stockpile Manager; (4) set performance measures and review the program's management and operations every year; (5) review and approve the program's annual budget and review its annual financial statements; (6) reallocate budget resources within that annual budget; (7) review and approve the Annual Materials and Operations Plan required by section 98h–2(a) — and the report under section 98h–2(b)(2) must include the Board's views on the domestic and foreign economic effects of stockpile acquisitions and disposals; (8) complete and submit the annual Board Report under section 98h–2(b)(2); and (9) recommend to the Secretary of Defense (A) a strategy to secure a reliable supply of materials critical to national security, and (B) any other strategies the Board thinks would strengthen the industrial base for those materials. (d) The Board meets as often as the chairman decides is necessary, but at least once a year, to carry out subsection (c). (e) Section 1013(a) of title 5 — a rule about federal advisory committees — does not apply to this Board. (f) Definitions for this section: (1) “Materials critical to national security” means materials that (A) military equipment production or upkeep depends on, and (B) whose supply could be disrupted by events outside U.S. government control. (2) “Military equipment” means equipment the armed forces use directly to carry out military operations. (3) “Secure supply” means having a source, or sources, for a material — including its full supply chain and the parts that contain it.