House Republicans are putting pressure on Democrats and President Joe Biden to back efforts to expand domestic production of critical minerals, saying Biden’s aggressive climate goals will increase U.S. reliance on China and other adversaries for the materials used in green technology.
GOP lawmakers on the House Natural Resources Committee are reintroducing legislation Friday that seeks to speed up permitting for the mining of critical minerals such as lithium, copper, and cobalt. Those minerals are used in everything from military equipment to renewable energy.
The legislation would also bar the interior secretary from blocking critical minerals mining on federal lands and in federal waters without the approval of Congress.
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Co-sponsors of the legislation include Arkansas Rep. Bruce Westerman, the top GOP lawmaker on the House Natural Resources Committee, as well as Florida Rep. Michael Waltz, Minnesota Rep. Pete Stauber, and Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar. The measure is part of a package of bills Republican lawmakers are pegging as their alternative to Biden’s aggressive climate policy proposals.
The GOP lawmakers say they’re hopeful their bill can ultimately earn some Democratic support, especially as their colleagues across the aisle come to terms with the massive increase in lithium and other minerals that greening the grid and electrifying transportation will require.
For the most part, bipartisan support for critical minerals has centered on boosting research dollars for the production and recycling of the materials. A portion of the House GOP bill that created a new critical research program at the Energy Department was passed in year-end spending legislation, spearheaded by Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski and West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who had a similar provision in their minerals bill.
“The question should be asked: Why is there not bipartisan support for a bill like this?” Westerman told reporters on a press call. “We can’t force Democrats to come along and support the bill, but hopefully they will have a rational approach and look at it and realize this is what’s best for Americans on multiple levels.”
Westerman and the other Republican lawmakers also said they hope to see the Biden administration engage on the issue. In February, Biden signed an executive order directing federal agencies to determine vulnerabilities in U.S. supply chains, including for critical minerals and for the batteries that power electric vehicles.
Biden has also met with bipartisan House and Senate lawmakers on ways to bolster the U.S. supply chain.
Nonetheless, it’s unlikely many Democrats would support provisions in the GOP bill that seek to speed up environmental reviews for mining projects under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA
The Biden administration, under the leadership of newly confirmed White House Council on Environmental Quality Chairwoman Brenda Mallory, is also expected to reverse the Trump administration’s overhaul of NEPA that mining groups, among others in industry, had praised.
Environmentalists said the Trump changes shut out input from the people, often minority and low-income, who would see projects developed in their backyards and essentially removed consideration of a project’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Republicans, however, say the United States has a wealth of untapped critical minerals resources that should be extracted so the U.S. doesn’t have to rely on China and other nations for its supply. Currently, companies are deterred from investing in mining projects in the U.S. because they take so long to permit, Stauber said, pointing to a project in northern Minnesota that is in its 19th year of permitting.
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Westerman slammed Rep. Raul Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat and chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, for a hearing held earlier this week that would protect a region in Arizona from attempts to mine copper. The Biden administration withdrew an environmental impact statement in early March issued in the Trump administration’s waning days that would have allowed the copper mine to move forward.
“We shouldn’t be having hearings like we had [Tuesday] on shutting down a copper mine that would provide 25% of the projected demand of copper in the United States,” Westerman said, adding there is nearly 5 tons of copper in every wind turbine, along with rare earth elements.
