Worth reading this NDAA info: I highlighted and underlined what I personally thought was important.
Below info is from an email exchange with Jim Sims about the NDAA on September 20, 2017. Jim said the following:
The Senate passed the NDAA (S. 1519 ) earlier this week, as you know. That is the statutory language of the NDAA. However, there is another component of the NDAA that is not voted upon on either the House or Senate floor, and this is the “Committee Report” that accompanies these statutory bills. Both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees each passed a Committee Report to accompany their respective NDAAs. Committee reports (sometimes called “Supplemental Reports”) contain directives to federal agencies that are not contained in the main statutory bill. While the directives and guidance to federal agencies in Committee Reports do not technically carry the force of law, federal agencies closely follow and adhere to these directives and guidance.
Given the planned initiation and production in the United States within the next 5 years of as much as 100 metric tons of Scandium, the committee directs the Secretary of Defense to provide a briefing on the potential defense and industrial uses of Scandium to the congressional defense committees by December 1, 2017.”
Because Committee Reports are not amendable on the floor of either Chamber when the statutory bills to which they are attached are considered and voted upon, Committee passage is generally their final approval step.
Our Scandium language is only contained in the Senate Committee Report, but you don’t need language in both Reports to constitute a directive to a federal agency. A directive in one or the other of the Committee Reports is sufficient.
The House and Senate will now convene a Conference Committee to iron out differences between their respective versions of the statutory bills (S. 1519 and H.R. 2810). Then, both chambers will vote one final time on the compromise version of the bill. Unless a Committee Report from one chamber contains language or a directive that the other chamber finds highly objectionable, the contents of the Committee Reports generally are not discussed in the House-Senate Conference Committee on the NDAA.
Thus, with the passage of each year’s NDAA, the DoD effectively is provided authorization by the Congress in three pieces of legislation: the House-Senate compromise version (or Conference version) of the statutory NDAA bill, and the two separate Committee Reports accompanying each Chamber’s NDAA. (The DoD also is provided direction by the House and Senate Defense Appropriations Committees in their appropriations bills, as well as separate House and Senate Appropriations Committee Reports that accompany those bills, but that is a topic for another day).
Note that the Senate Armed Services Committee also included this language in its Committee Report:
“Additionally, the committee strongly encourages the Department to make use of existing authorities under Section 303 of the Defense Production Act (50 U.S.C. 2093) to enter into commitments to purchase strategic and critical materials required to meet the defense, industrial, and essential civilian needs of the United States from domestic producers and domestic producers that the Department believes are likely to initiate commercial production of such materials within the next five years.”
This language could have relatively far-reaching and positive impacts on prospective producers of critical and strategic materials in the U.S., should the DoD one day elect to exercise this authority to enter into purchase agreements with producers that are not yet in active production (such as the Elk Creek Project). But the process by which the DoD agrees to purchase critical and strategic materials for the National Defense Stockpile is typically a multi-year process from start to finish. It took several years for the DoD to examine the criticality of Ferroniobium, including its uses, supply chains, geopolitical risk, market dynamics, etc. before it requested authorization from the Congress to purchase FeNb for the National Defense Stockpile. It then took about a year for that legislative request to be approved by the Congress. Any action DoD may ultimately take in purchasing Scandium for the National Defense Stockpile – if they decide that such purchases are necessary for the national defense – is not something that would happen in the near-term.
I hope this answers your question. The Congressional legislative process is admittedly arcane and difficult to follow. I spent 12 years in the U.S. Senate and still marvel at the complexity of the U.S. legislative ‘sausage making’ process. Of course, that also helps explains why Congress passes so few bills these days. Fortunately for us, the Congress has enacted an NDAA in every year for the past 55 years.
All the best, Jim Sims VP of External Affairs NioCorp Developments, Ltd. +1.303.503.6203 Jim.sims@NioCorp.com
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