http://news.yahoo.com/obama-executiv...220408916.html
Most of it combines existing executive orders from Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Those earlier orders refined similar statements from Presidents Harry Truman and Richard Nixon.
And Truman and Nixon, it turns out, were both updating language from President Roosevelt after the passage of the Defense Production Act in 1950.
But in large part, the function of this executive order ? in all its historical incarnations ? is to clearly delineate what each cabinet secretary is responsible for if the country should go kablooey.