When Congress passed the Defense Production Act in 1950, it handed America’s chief executives powers to act in times of emergency. Now President Biden is using these powers to force production of solar panels without any national security justification in sight. 

The Defense Production Act empowers a president to requisition products and lavish financial benefits on companies — in this case, ones producing a product the president favors — and even settle labor disputes to “facilitate the production of goods and services necessary for the national security, and for other purposes.”

The language “for other purposes” left the door open for presidents to invoke the DPA over the past 70 years for projects they couldn’t otherwise get enacted into law, a far cry from how President Truman used it to press heavy industries during the Korean War.

When Truman signed the DPA into law, he noted that America would “undoubtedly need further legislation as we go along later.” It was a signal that the act was not to be seen as the last word in facing any and all national crises.

President Eisenhower used the DPA to ensure that industry was diversified across the nation, to prevent a Soviet first strike from destroying our capacity to respond. In the 1960s and 1970s, the DPA funded the trans-Alaskan pipeline and other energy infrastructure vital to national security. 

In the 1980s the DPA was invoked to allow the Department of Defense to develop new technologies to improve America’s capacities to fight wars and explore for the resources necessary to do so. In the 21st century, President Obama used the act to combat cyber espionage by Communist China, and President Trump used it to produce resources necessary to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.

Each small step normalized the DPA’s use, to the point that the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, didn’t bother to offer a justification after a Fox News reporter, Edward Lawrence, asked, “What’s the real emergency in the solar industry?” 

The president invoked the DPA, she said, “to make sure that he’s delivering for the American people.” Yet the law wasn’t crafted to allow an unpopular president to make an end run around the legislature to fulfill campaign promises with a midterm wipeout looming. 

The road to delivering for hard-core Green New Deal supporters should run — like any other policy in our republic — through Congress, and involves the messy work of horse trading a democracy entails. Apparently the temptation to wield war powers proved too tempting to resist.

By using this blunt tool without even offering a fig leaf of legality, the president demonstrates that handing those in government powers to be used in times of emergency can result in them being used whenever the mood strikes.

With this danger in mind, Senator Scott, a Republican of Florida, proposes to sunset all federal laws after five years unless they are renewed by Congress — the elected representatives of the American people. 

Congress puts so many laws on the books that a president can always find one to fit the bill, and it’s impossible for the average citizen to keep track of government amassing power at our expense and that of the Constitution.

Consider the 3 percent tax passed on long-distance calls to fund the Spanish-American War. It was a burden borne by those of great wealth: They were the only Americans with telephones in 1898 who could afford to reach out and touch someone.

Our boys won that war in a few months, but the law remained on the books for more than a century, while Ma Bell expanded long-distance service to even the poorest Americans. It wasn’t until 2006 that Congress repealed the tax.

The transformation of the DPA from a Korean War-era law makes Mr. Scott’s case for restraining federal powers, clawing back the checks-and-balances that prevent a president from acting by fiat whenever he can’t get his agenda passed. 

If increasing solar power is a worthy policy goal, President Biden can make his case to the people. Using a law that was never meant to circumvent the legislative process on pet projects can only undermine our republic, laying the groundwork for future presidents to rule rather than govern.