The House passed a bill to expedite the domestic mining of critical minerals, aiming to decrease the United States’s reliance on China.
House lawmakers voted 224-195 on Wednesday to pass the Critical Mineral Dominance Act, written by Rep. Pete Stauber (R-MN), chairman of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources. The bill would codify specific provisions of President Donald Trump’s executive orders on domestic mining and hardrock mineral resources.
Critical minerals are essential for producing applications in both the defense and energy sectors, ranging from batteries to missiles.
Specifically, the bill would direct the interior secretary to report to Congress on the costs of importing critical minerals and the overall economic effects. The Interior Department would be required to include cost information in every U.S. Geological Survey Mineral Commodity Summary.
The resolution would expedite mining permits by directing the Interior Department to submit to the committee a list of every mining project on federal land that has pending permits or is seeking approvals. The department would identify priority projects and take action to move them through the permitting process. The bill says the Interior and Agriculture departments should identify federal land that can be permitted quickly for mining projects.
In addition, the bill directs both departments to identify burdensome regulations and submit recommendations to Congress for changes. The bill said the Interior Department should prioritize accelerating geological mapping of the U.S. to identify deposits of hardrock minerals, with a progress report within one year of the bill’s enactment.
Stauber testified before the House Rules Committee on Rules on Tuesday, saying, “We need to mine more, and we need to mine now.”
The U.S. has sought to quickly expand the domestic critical mineral supply to reduce its dependence on China, which controls the market. China has used its dominance as leverage against the U.S. and others by imposing export restrictions, leading key industries, such as the auto sector, to seek alternative mineral sources.
“Unfortunately, our country has moved in the opposite direction in recent decades, becoming dangerously reliant on mineral imports,” Stauber said. “This dependency plays right into the hands of our adversaries. Most notably, China controls approximately sixty percent of global critical mineral production, ninety percent of processing, and seventy-five percent of manufacturing.”
“We’ve repeatedly seen the CCP impose mineral export restrictions and use its stranglehold over rare earth minerals as a bargaining chip in trade negotiations, increasing uncertainty across key sectors of our economy,” he added.
Democrats argued that the legislation would harm the environment.
Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ), who spoke against the bill at the House Rules Committee on Tuesday, said the bill would allow the mining industry to tell the Interior Department and the Forest Service which regulations to eliminate.
“While there are some parts of this bill that direct the government to conduct studies on some of these findings, it’s clear the primary purpose is to gut regulations and hand over even more power to an industry that is already getting pretty much everything that they’ve asked for,” she said.
US SEEKS TRADING BLOC TO COUNTER CHINA GRIP ON CRITICAL MINERALS, VANCE SAYS
The Trump administration has sought to expand the domestic critical mineral supply, including by partnering with other allied nations to diversify the supply.
On Wednesday, the State Department held its Critical Mineral Ministerial, which featured over 50 countries to discuss ways to reduce dependence on Chinese critical minerals. At the conference, the Trump administration announced plans to establish a trading bloc with allied countries to institute price floors for critical minerals, reassure companies that there will be demand, and coordinate financing of critical mineral mining.
