5 Things Small Businesses Need to Know About the New Defense Production Act Orders

A Major Energy Move Just Landed

On April 20, 2026, the President signed five Presidential Determinations invoking Section 303 of the Defense Production Act of 1950. They were published in the Federal Register on April 23 and span the entire U.S. energy sector, petroleum, natural gas, grid infrastructure, large-scale energy projects, and coal.

This is a big deal. The Defense Production Act is the same authority used to scale up vaccine manufacturing during COVID and ventilator production before that. Invoking it five times in one day, across every major piece of the energy economy, is unusual. And it directly affects small businesses that manufacture, build, install, or supply anything connected to America's energy infrastructure.

Here are the five things to know.

1. The President Just Declared U.S. Energy "Essential to National Defense"

That phrase matters. Section 303 of the Defense Production Act lets the President provide direct financial support, purchases, purchase commitments, and financial instruments like loans and loan guarantees, to expand domestic production of anything declared "essential to the national defense."

The five determinations cover:

• Petroleum production, refining, and logistics
• Natural gas transmission, processing, storage, and LNG capacity
• Grid infrastructure, equipment, and supply chain capacity
• Large-scale energy and energy-related infrastructure manufacturing and deployment
• Coal supply chains and baseload power generation

Each one carries the same finding: U.S. industry cannot deliver this capacity on its own in time, due to "constrained financing, long lead times, permitting and infrastructure bottlenecks, and supply chain limitations." That language is the legal trigger for federal money to start flowing.

2. The List of Affected Equipment Is Surprisingly Specific

If you manufacture or distribute any of the items below, you should be paying close attention. The grid determination alone names:

• Transformers
• High-voltage transmission components and circuit breakers
• Advanced conductors
• Power electronics
• Substations and protective relay systems
• Capacitor banks
• Electrical core steel
• Raw materials and manufacturing tools used to produce all of the above

The other determinations sweep in refining equipment, pipeline components, LNG facilities, coal handling and processing, and large-scale energy infrastructure of essentially every kind. If you make a part that ends up in any of these systems, federal procurement officers now have a much broader mandate, and a much bigger budget, to buy from domestic suppliers.

3. Procedural Guardrails Were Waived for Speed

Each of the five determinations includes a waiver of Section 303(a)(1) through (a)(6) of the Defense Production Act. In plain English: the standard procedural steps that normally slow these investments down have been set aside.

That means the Department of Energy can move faster on purchase commitments, loan guarantees, and direct financial support than it normally could. For small manufacturers waiting on a federal contract or financing decision, the practical effect is shorter timelines. For small businesses that haven't engaged with federal procurement before, it means there is a window where the government is actively looking to onboard new domestic suppliers.

4. Subcontractors and Suppliers Benefit Even Without a Federal Contract

You don't have to win a direct federal contract to feel the impact of these determinations.

When primes ramp up under DPA authority, that demand flows downstream. Subcontractors, parts suppliers, raw material providers, logistics companies, and specialty fabricators in these supply chains will see new orders, new RFQs, and new requirements pushed down by their larger customers. If your business makes anything that ends up inside a transformer, a refinery, an LNG terminal, a substation, or a coal-handling facility, your customers are about to be busier.

The flip side: those same primes will pass new compliance, sourcing, and reporting requirements down to you. Federal money comes with federal strings, Buy American, domestic content rules, audit obligations. Be ready for those to show up in your purchase orders.

5. This Builds on a Standing Energy Emergency Declaration

These determinations don't sit alone. They build on Executive Order 14156, the national energy emergency declared on January 20, 2025. That earlier order is what made the Section 303 invocations possible at this scale and this speed.

The practical takeaway: this is not a one-off announcement. It is the latest move in a sustained, multi-step federal push to expand domestic energy capacity. More agency guidance, more solicitations, more loan and grant programs, and more contract opportunities are very likely to follow in the coming weeks. Businesses that get oriented now will be ahead of the ones that wait for the headlines to slow down.

What Should You Do?

If your business touches energy infrastructure in any way, even indirectly, there are a few practical steps worth taking:

1. Check your NAICS codes and SAM.gov registration. Federal procurement officers will be sourcing aggressively from domestic suppliers. If you are not registered or your codes are wrong, you are invisible to them. Our guide to NAICS codes walks through the basics.
2. Watch for new agency solicitations and funding announcements. DOE, DOD, and the Department of Commerce will all play a role. New programs and contract vehicles tend to roll out within 30 to 90 days of a determination like this.
3. Map your supply chain. Even if you don't sell to the government directly, your customers might. Knowing where your parts end up helps you anticipate the compliance and sourcing demands that will travel down to you.
4. Track the follow-on regulations. Each determination will generate implementation guidance, procurement notices, and likely new state-level rules in energy-producing states. The compliance surface will expand.

You don't need to read the Federal Register every morning to keep up with this. You need a system that watches for you.

This is exactly why we built Bizmoon. Within hours of these five determinations being published, Bizmoon had already read each one, identified the businesses they affect, and translated them into plain-English action items.

Bizmoon does this every day, for every new regulation and grant opportunity that touches your business. It monitors federal and state sources, translates dense regulatory language into clear next steps, and sends you alerts when something needs your attention.

Stay Ahead of What Is Coming

Five Defense Production Act determinations in a single day is the kind of move that reshapes industries. But it is also just one example of how quickly the regulatory landscape can shift right now. New executive orders, new agency rules, new state laws, and new funding programs are arriving at a pace that is hard for any small business to track manually. Our guide on how to monitor regulations for your business covers the sources and workflow for doing exactly that.

Create a free Bizmoon account to see how the Defense Production Act determinations and other recent regulations affect your specific business. Setup takes five minutes, and Bizmoon starts monitoring immediately.