[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                          EXAMINING THE METHODOLOGY 
                            AND STRUCTURE OF THE
                           U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY'S 
                           CRITICAL MINERALS LIST

=======================================================================

                           OVERSIGHT HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                       SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND
                           MINERAL RESOURCES

                                 OF THE

                     COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                     Wednesday, September 13, 2023

                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-58

                               __________

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Natural Resources
       
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]       


        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
                                   or
          Committee address: http://naturalresources.house.gov
          
                               ________

                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
53-407 PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2024                    
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------     
 
                     COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES

                     BRUCE WESTERMAN, AR, Chairman
                    DOUG LAMBORN, CO, Vice Chairman
                  RAUL M. GRIJALVA, AZ, Ranking Member

Doug Lamborn, CO			Grace F. Napolitano, CA
Robert J. Wittman, VA			Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, 	
Tom McClintock, CA			    CNMI
Paul Gosar, AZ				Jared Huffman, CA
Garret Graves, LA			Ruben Gallego, AZ
Aumua Amata C. Radewagen, AS		Joe Neguse, CO
Doug LaMalfa, CA			Mike Levin, CA
Daniel Webster, FL			Katie Porter, CA
Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, PR		Teresa Leger Fernandez, NM
Russ Fulcher, ID			Melanie A. Stansbury, NM
Pete Stauber, MN			Mary Sattler Peltola, AK
John R. Curtis, UT			Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, NY
Tom Tiffany, WI				Kevin Mullin, CA
Jerry Carl, AL				Val T. Hoyle, OR
Matt Rosendale, MT			Sydney Kamlager-Dove, CA
Lauren Boebert, CO			Seth Magaziner, RI
Cliff Bentz, OR				Nydia M. Velazquez, NY
Jen Kiggans, VA				Ed Case, HI
Jim Moylan, GU				Debbie Dingell, MI
Wesley P. Hunt, TX			Susie Lee, NV
Mike Collins, GA
Anna Paulina Luna, FL
John Duarte, CA
Harriet M. Hageman, WY

                    Vivian Moeglein, Staff Director
                      Tom Connally, Chief Counsel
                 Lora Snyder, Democratic Staff Director
                   http://naturalresources.house.gov
                                 ------                                

              SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND MINERAL RESOURCES

                       PETE STAUBER, MN, Chairman
                     WESLEY P. HUNT, TX, Vice Chair
              ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, NY, Ranking Member

Doug Lamborn, CO                     Jared Huffman, CA
Robert J. Wittman, VA                Kevin Mullin, CA
Paul Gosar, AZ                       Sydney Kamlager-Dove, CA
Garret Graves, LA                    Seth Magaziner, RI
Daniel Webster, FL                   Nydia M. Velazquez, NY
Russ Fulcher, ID                     Debbie Dingell, MI
John R. Curtis, UT                   Raul M. Grijalva, AZ
Tom Tiffany, WI                      Grace F. Napolitano, CA
Matt Rosendale, MT                   Susie Lee, NV
Lauren Boebert, CO                   Vacancy
Wesley P. Hunt, TX                   Vacancy
Mike Collins, GA
John Duarte, CA
Bruce Westerman, AR, ex officio


                               ---------
                               
                                CONTENTS

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Hearing held on Wednesday, September 13, 2023....................     1

Statement of Members:

    Stauber, Hon. Pete, a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of Minnesota.........................................     1
    Ocasio-Cortez, Hon. Alexandria, a Representative in Congress 
      from the State of New York.................................     3
    Grijalva, Hon. Raul M., a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of Arizona...........................................     4
    Westerman, Hon. Bruce, a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of Arkansas..........................................     6

Statement of Witnesses:

    Nassar, Nedal, Chief of Minerals Intelligence Research, U.S. 
      Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia........................     7
        Prepared statement of....................................     9
        Questions submitted for the record.......................    14
    Blakemore, Reed, Director of Research and Programs, Global 
      Energy Center, Atlantic Council, Washington, DC............    15
        Prepared statement of....................................    17
    Eggert, Roderick, Research Professor of Economics and 
      Business and Coulter Foundation Chair in Mineral Economics, 
      Colorado School of Mines, Golden, Colorado.................    23
        Prepared statement of....................................    24
    Mulvaney, Dustin, Professor, Environmental Studies, San Jose 
      State University, San Jose, California.....................    31
        Prepared statement of....................................    32
        Questions submitted for the record.......................    39

    Somers, Brian, President, Utah Mining Association, Salt Lake 
      City, Utah.................................................    41
        Prepared statement of....................................    43

Additional Materials Submitted for the Record:

    Submissions for the Record by Representative Westerman

        Letter from the Committee to Hon. Deb Haaland, Secretary 
          of the Interior, dated February 3, 2022................    59



 
  OVERSIGHT HEARING ON EXAMINING THE METHODOLOGY AND STRUCTURE OF 
            THE U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY'S CRITICAL MINERALS LIST

                              ----------                              


                     Wednesday, September 13, 2023

                     U.S. House of Representatives

              Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources

                     Committee on Natural Resources

                             Washington, DC

                              ----------                              

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:18 a.m., in 
Room 1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Pete Stauber 
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.

    Present: Representatives Stauber, Lamborn, Wittman, Gosar, 
Fulcher, Curtis, Tiffany, Boebert, Collins, Westerman; Ocasio-
Cortez, Mullin, Magaziner, Dingell, Grijalva, and Lee.
    Mr. Stauber. The Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral 
Resources will come to order.
    Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a 
recess of the Subcommittee at any time.
    Under Committee Rule 4(f), any oral opening statements at 
hearings are limited to the Chairman and the Ranking Minority 
Member.
    I now recognize myself for an opening statement.

    STATEMENT OF THE HON. PETE STAUBER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
              CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA

    Mr. Stauber. Today, the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral 
Resources will host an oversight hearing to examine the U.S. 
Geological Survey's critical minerals list.
    I would like to begin by thanking all of the witnesses for 
being here today for this important hearing.
    By now we have all seen the numbers: demand for hardrock 
minerals like nickel, cobalt, zinc, silver, lithium, and many 
other commodities is expected to climb rapidly in the coming 
years. Our modern way of life relies on these resources for 
satellites, cell phones, defense systems, and virtually all 
other high-tech devices.
    Luckily, here in the United States, we are blessed to have 
some of the most prolific deposits of hardrock minerals, 
including the district that I represent in northeastern 
Minnesota, which will power our 21st century economy forward. I 
use the term ``hardrock minerals,'' which includes nearly all 
mineral commodities except hydrocarbons and aggregates. 
However, since the Trump administration's 2017 Executive Order, 
the term ``critical minerals'' has been used for a subset of 
these minerals.
    We now have the critical minerals list, which is created 
and overseen by the U.S. Geological Survey at the Department of 
the Interior, also known as USGS.
    We discuss the importance of mining and minerals in this 
Committee often, as we should. But what exactly is a critical 
mineral compared to other hardrock minerals?
    Are there tangible benefits to being listed as critical, 
such as increased access to funding, higher prioritization by 
Federal permitting agencies, or protection from frivolous 
lawsuits brought by activists and interest groups?
    If so, what happens to those mineral commodities that are 
not listed?
    I am also interested to hear about the similarities and 
distinctions between the USGS Critical Minerals list and the 
recently released critical materials list published by the 
Department of Energy. It is important to fully understand how 
these lists differ. If minerals benefit in different ways from 
being on one list or the other, and if there are any 
considerations given to the DOE list that the USGS might 
incorporate into its own analysis.
    Finally, we need to understand the impact of these 
decisions on domestic mining projects. We will hear testimony 
today about how investments in a mineral rich state like my 
home state of Minnesota can be affected by Federal decisions 
about which minerals are considered critical and how changes to 
the list can bring uncertainty to economic development.
    One would reasonably assume that if a particular mineral is 
listed on the critical minerals list, the Administration would 
prioritize domestic access to and development of it. As we 
begin the hearing today, I am once again struck by the 
hypocrisy of this Administration's policy on domestic mineral 
production.
    On the one hand, the Administration advocates for increased 
renewables and EV mandates, policies that will certainly speed 
up demand for the minerals needed to build them. The White 
House has even provided billions of dollars in taxpayer funds 
for midstream and downstream mineral production.
    But on the other hand, we have seen this Administration 
repeatedly choose to lock up lands with high mineral potential 
across our nation, such as the 225,504 acres withdrawn from 
development in Minnesota this past January in the Duluth 
complex, the biggest copper nickel find in the world.
    Just last month, the Administration created a new national 
monument outside the Grand Canyon, blocking access to some of 
the richest uranium deposits in the United States.
    For that matter, I am very curious why uranium was listed 
as a critical mineral in the 2018 version of the list, but for 
some reason it no longer qualified just a few years later for 
the 2022 list under this current Administration. I hope this 
policy change was not political, but given this 
Administration's anti-mining agenda, I am skeptical.
    For the sake of our country, I strongly urge the 
Administration to accept that shutting down domestic mining 
while increasing demand at the same time will lead the United 
States to disaster. This Administration must drop its anywhere-
but-America, any-worker-but-American anti-mining agenda. I hope 
my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join me today in 
a robust and meaningful discussion of the critical minerals 
list and any potential changes that will help put the United 
States into the greatest position possible to meet future 
challenges to our supply chain and our national security.
    Thank you again to the witnesses for their willingness to 
join us today and share their testimony.
    I now yield to the Ranking Member for her opening 
statement.

       STATEMENT OF THE HON. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, A 
     REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK

    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you so much, Chairman Stauber, and 
thank you to our witnesses for joining us this morning to 
discuss the U.S. Geological Survey's critical minerals list.
    Thank you for joining us, gentlemen.
    Recognizing the foundational role many minerals play in our 
economy, Congress has recently tasked USGS with creating and 
regularly updating a list of critical minerals. These are 
minerals that are deemed essential to U.S. economic or national 
security, and are vulnerable to supply chain disruption. These 
critical minerals will play a crucial role in our clean energy 
transition.
    For example, we use lithium, cobalt, and nickel among many 
other minerals in batteries for electric vehicles, in wind 
turbines, and solar panels, all renewable energy technologies 
that will help us end our reliance on polluting fossil fuels 
and stave off the worst effects of the climate crisis. Critical 
minerals will be especially important for the transition of our 
transportation sector.
    Transportation is currently the No. 1 source of carbon 
emissions in the United States, which makes this sector crucial 
to decarbonizing quickly. An important aspect of electrified 
transportation is demand for minerals, and the most non-
replaceable critical mineral for electric vehicle batteries is 
lithium.
    I would like to use lithium as a prescient example here. 
Lithium is already a bottleneck in the global and domestic 
supply chains for electric vehicles, or EVs. Today, there is 
only one operational lithium mine in the entire United States. 
Most of our lithium is currently imported from countries like 
Chile and Argentina, and our demand for lithium is only 
expected to skyrocket in the coming decades. Studies show that 
if today's demand for electric vehicles is projected outward, 
the global demand for lithium will increase 42 times by 2040. 
The vast majority of this new demand will be driven by the 
United States.
    If demand for EVs continues at our current pace, the 
lithium requirements for the U.S. EV market alone in 2050 would 
require triple the amount of lithium currently produced on the 
entire planet today. Corporate interests and their allies in 
Congress see this as potential for astronomical demand, and 
point to it as a reason for cutting our bedrock environmental 
protections, ignoring community input, and abusing vulnerable 
communities among our international trade partners.
    These private interests and their allies will say that we 
need to spark a rush to the bottom in order to compete with 
China; that we can't afford our 200-year-old mining law because 
China's mining regulations are weaker; that we can't afford to 
pay union wages to U.S. auto workers because Chinese auto 
workers already make less; and essentially, major corporations 
are asking us to engage in a global race to the bottom because 
when they drive costs down they profit. But they use those 
profits to then surge and skyrocket their own CEO pay and not 
drive costs down, but drive them up.
    These race-to-the-bottom arguments prey on a fear of 
scarcity that is emotionally appealing. But like so many 
arguments based in fear, this is a false choice.
    For one, these arguments fail to acknowledge the work the 
United States can do in other sectors to reduce our reliance on 
these minerals in the first place. A recent study by UC Davis 
and the Climate Community Project shows that by increasing mass 
transit options, bringing EV batteries in line with other 
nations, and creating a robust battery recycling system, we can 
reduce our dependence on lithium by as much as 92 percent.
    In a world where lithium is hard to come by, these reforms 
would have huge advantages for our energy and economic 
security. Race-to-the-bottom arguments also ignore a painful 
legacy when it comes to mining. Namely, we must recognize that 
to this day mining disproportionately harms Indigenous 
communities in the United States and across the globe.
    In the United States, 97 percent of known nickel deposits, 
89 percent of copper, 79 percent of lithium, and 68 percent of 
cobalt, all critical energy transition minerals, are within 39 
miles of tribal lands. And, unfortunately, mining on public 
lands in the United States is still governed by the long-
outdated Mining Law of 1872, which lacks provisions for tribal 
consultation, environmental safeguards, permitting 
requirements, or even royalties so American citizens can see 
even a return on these publicly-owned resources.
    But the clean energy transition is an opportunity to 
reimagine our supply chain from mineral extraction all the way 
to end use. And we do not need to choose between sacrifice 
zones and creating jobs. Using non-partisan data from the USGS, 
we can improve mineral efficiency, increase recycling, and 
build economic security. We can require meaningful consultation 
with tribes. We can work in partnership with organized labor to 
build family-sustaining union jobs in mineral processing and 
manufacturing. And lastly, we can develop trade policy that 
holds our global partners accountable to the same environmental 
and labor standards established here so that businesses have no 
incentive to leave the United States for cheaper labor or 
resources.
    It won't be easy, and I firmly believe that with a 
coordinated, whole-of-supply-chain approach, we can reduce 
demand, prevent environmental and cultural harms, and uphold 
Indigenous sovereignty while enforcing strong labor standards. 
Thank you.

    Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much. The Chair will now 
recognize the Ranking Member of the Full Committee, Ranking 
Member Grijalva.

  STATEMENT OF THE HON. RAUL M. GRIJALVA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
               CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA

    Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Ranking 
Member, for the hearing. And let me join in thanking the 
witnesses for being here today.
    The USGS critical minerals list determines which minerals 
are important for our national and economic security. But what 
is often left out of that determination is the damage that 
mining for these critical minerals causes, especially for 
tribes and other vulnerable communities.
    As we have seen over and over, our outdated Mining Law of 
1872 doesn't have the appropriate or necessary safeguards in 
place to protect these communities and the public engagement 
that is necessary. Mining has repeatedly destroyed public lands 
and nearby communities, our environment as well, our public 
health, and our sacred and special places.
    With that in mind, we need to think very carefully about 
how we use the critical minerals list. Some of my colleagues 
think this list is a free pass to open new mines and rush 
through or ignore environmental reviews and public input. But 
doubling down on the mining industry's free-for-all is simply 
not a viable solution. Advancing environmental justice, 
strengthening tribal and community engagement, and ensuring a 
fair return for taxpayers is imperative.
    There are no royalties collected from mining at all. And 
that alone is reason enough to deal with the Mining Law of 
1872. We are premising all discussions on the law that is 150 
years old, outdated, not part of this century, and the 
conflicts that come from that law. It is time to modernize it, 
reform it, bring it up to date, and put in the guarantees and 
safeguards that is going to make the public believe that truly 
they are part of the decision-making. As it stands now, they 
are not.
    In fact, just yesterday the Interior Department-led 
Interagency Working Group on Mining Reform released a report 
informed by more than 26,000 public comments that include 65 
recommendations to do exactly that, to advance environmental 
justice, to strengthen tribal and community engagement, and 
assure a fair return for taxpayers.
    When it comes to critical minerals, we also need to 
recognize that, yes, we will need certain minerals for our 
clean energy transition. Which minerals, in what amounts, and 
from what sources are far from set in stone. What is critical 
today may not be critical tomorrow. Demand and a critical 
status can change quickly, but the mines cannot. Mines take 
years to start producing, and they cannot simply change the 
type of minerals they produce when the critical minerals list 
changes.
    The legacy of environmental and cultural harms created by 
mines last long past the actual life of the mine. That is why 
we must be more careful with where and how we mine, and not 
less careful.
    We must also take a holistic approach to addressing the 
risks identified by the critical minerals list. That means 
using our powers as Congress to promote efficient use and 
recycling of minerals for the benefit of the environment and 
communities.
    What we should not do is consider every single change to 
the critical minerals list as an excuse to impulsively open a 
bunch of new mines whenever and however the industry wants.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.

    Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much. The Chair now recognizes 
the Chairman of the Full Committee, Chairman Westerman, for 5 
minutes.

  STATEMENT OF THE HON. BRUCE WESTERMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
              CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARKANSAS

    Mr. Westerman. Thank you, Chairman Stauber, and thank you 
to the witnesses for being here today.
    The people in this room know that we will need to mine six 
times more in the future than what we mine today to meet our 
mineral demands. This demand is increasing at a greater and 
greater rate the more this Administration and international 
bodies prioritize renewable energy technologies.
    I think where we are blessed is the fact that the United 
States has many of these commodities in our geology. But our 
national strategy to develop them seems to be all over the 
place. Over the past 30 years, we have allowed refineries and 
processing facilities to close and let Federal bureaucracy sink 
our mineral production into a quagmire of red tape and 
predatory litigation. Instead, we have become increasingly 
reliant on imports from other countries to meet our mineral 
needs, many of whom are not allies of the United States.
    Our mineral dependency is now threatening our future. Over 
the August break, like many Members of Congress, I spent a lot 
of time in my district. I have a couple of nuclear power plants 
in my district that I visited, and as we were wrapping up I 
asked them, ``Where do you get your uranium pellets?''
    They immediately said, ``One hundred percent from Russia.''
    One hundred percent of 40 percent of the energy in my state 
is dependent on uranium pellets from Russia. To me, that is 
unacceptable. And we can do better than that. We have deposits 
of uranium. Unfortunately, the next day the Biden 
administration put our most valuable uranium deposits in an 
off-limits zone where we can't mine them. That makes absolutely 
no sense to me.
    The problems are clear, but the solutions seem to, for some 
reason, be complicated. In an attempt to identify the most 
vulnerable supply chains, the U.S. Geological Survey has put 
together a list of minerals they deem critical. This was a 
helpful way to focus our nation's attention on the issue, and I 
appreciate the effort to quantify such a complex issue. 
However, many questions remain about how effective this list 
has been in actually reducing our national dependency.
    Further, I would like to consider ideas to improve the list 
methodology so that we can best capture changing demand trends 
with the highest accuracy possible. The critical minerals list 
is binary, and what I mean by that is a mineral either makes 
the list or it doesn't. Looking at minerals in this way as 
either critical or not critical has its limitations, obviously.
    I would like to consider the value of different approaches, 
such as incorporating forecasting into the list-making process 
or looking at supply chain vulnerability on a sliding scale. 
Some of the supply chains we are looking at can change 
radically with one global event, and the critical minerals list 
needs to be nimble enough to respond to account for such 
changes.
    Finally, we have to remember that the critical minerals 
list exists in the context of domestic mining policy overall. 
Just yesterday, we finally received the Interagency Working 
Group's report on mining reform. I regret that many of the 
Administration's policy recommendations will take us even 
farther from mineral independence. The Biden administration can 
talk about the importance of mineral development all they want, 
but when they recommend an ill-advised conversion to a leasing 
system, high royalties, and putting mineral-rich areas off 
limits to development, their actions are speaking louder than 
their words.
    For both sides of the aisle and for all Americans, ensuring 
a stable supply of mineral resources is essential for our 
national security and future economic well-being. A thorough 
examination of the USGS critical minerals list, why some 
minerals are on it and others are not, and how it might be 
improved is a necessary piece of that puzzle.
    I look forward to a robust discussion on this extremely 
important topic.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.

    Mr. Stauber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    We will now move to introduce our witnesses. Each witness 
will have 5 minutes to make their opening statements.
    Our first witness is Dr. Nedal Nassar, who serves as Chief 
of Minerals Intelligence Research, U.S. Geological Survey, in 
Reston, Virginia.
    Dr. Nassar, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

   STATEMENT OF NEDAL NASSAR, CHIEF OF MINERALS INTELLIGENCE 
       RESEARCH, U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, RESTON, VIRGINIA

    Dr. Nassar. Good morning, Chairman Stauber, Ranking Member 
Ocasio-Cortez, and members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for 
the opportunity to discuss the U.S. Geological Survey's 
critical minerals work. My name is Nedal Nassar, and I am the 
Chief of Minerals Intelligence Research at the U.S. Geological 
Survey.
    The USGS provides the nation's data on domestic and global 
mineral commodity supply chains. Under the Energy Act of 2020, 
the USGS analyzes those data in coordination with other Federal 
agencies to develop a whole-of-government list of critical 
minerals. The analysis identifies commodities for which supply 
risk is elevated, including how the supply risk has changed 
over time. It also identifies bottlenecks in supply chains, 
quantifies import dependencies, and highlights industries that 
may be most vulnerable to supply disruptions.
    The 2022 list of critical minerals identified gallium as 
having the greatest U.S. supply risk, a risk that has become a 
reality as a result of recent export controls imposed by the 
People's Republic of China on gallium and germanium products. 
Gallium is, of course, important to semiconductors that are 
used in telecommunications, including 5G cellular networks, 
consumer electronics, solar photovoltaics, electric vehicles, 
and defense applications. Our data indicate that in 2022, the 
People's Republic of China produced 98 percent of the world's 
primary gallium, 98 percent.
    Over time, we expect the list to evolve. The Energy Act of 
2020 requires that the list be updated once every 3 years. As 
supply chains are diversified and strengthened, commodities may 
come off the list. Similarly, commodities may be added to 
future lists if their supply becomes less secure, or the U.S. 
economy becomes more dependent on them.
    The methodology for developing the list will also continue 
to evolve as we gather additional data and develop better tools 
to anticipate and quantify supply and demand disruptions and 
their impacts.
    Since the release of the most recent list of critical 
minerals, the list and its underlying analysis have informed 
some of the nation's largest investments in mineral commodity 
supply chains. These include recent Defense Production Act 
investments and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law critical mineral 
provisions focused on multiple supply chain stages. USGS data 
and analyses are informing partner agencies' decision-making 
for a number of these investments.
    Within the USGS, we are accelerating the Earth Mapping 
Resource Initiative's assessment of areas with potential to 
contain critical minerals both still in the ground and in waste 
streams. Under the Energy Act of 2020, the USGS also uses the 
list of critical minerals to help prioritize mineral resource 
assessments.
    The USGS analyzes supply chains across sectors, which 
allows us to understand cumulative supply risks. For example, 
we examine cross sectoral demand for mineral materials needed 
for energy, transportation, and construction, and quantify the 
economic impact the supply disruption may have on mineral-
consuming industries, the ripple effects on the downstream 
industries that rely on them, and the economy as a whole. We 
provide these analyses and data to a variety of Federal 
decision-makers, including the Defense Logistics Agency 
stockpile managers, the National Security Council, the State 
Department, the Department of Commerce, the U.S. Trade 
Representative, and the intelligence community.
    Over the past several years, our data have provided 
evidence of supply chain disruptions in mineral commodity 
production and shipping attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic, 
natural disasters, regional conflicts, as well as export 
restrictions imposed by trading partners. We continuously 
monitor the effects of such disruptions across the suite of 
mineral commodities that we track.
    The Energy Act of 2020 also calls for the USGS to further 
develop its forecasting capability. Accordingly, the USGS has 
expanded the range of official statistics reported annually in 
the mineral commodity summaries, and are developing new series 
of mineral outlooks. The President's 2024 budget request 
proposes to further increase the speed and responsiveness of 
USGS scenario modeling capabilities.
    In summary, the USGS provides cross-sectoral, demand-driven 
analyses that inform whole-of-government efforts to strengthen 
supply chains. The list of critical minerals is one tool to 
identify concerns and inform actions. The list and the 
underlying analysis provide a rich set of data and tools that 
can be used to better understand the specific risks affecting 
individual technologies, industries, and commodities 
originating from a particular geographic region or trading 
partner. The information can help policymakers target 
interventions that will increase the security of our nation's 
mineral commodity supplies.
    Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I look 
forward to your questions.

    [The prepared statement of Dr. Nassar follows:]
     Prepared Statement of Dr. Nedal T. Nassar, Chief of Minerals 
   Intelligence Research, National Minerals Information Center, U.S. 
                           Geological Survey

    Good morning, Chairman Stauber, Ranking Member Ocasio-Cortez, and 
Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss 
the U.S. Geological Survey's critical minerals work. My name is Nedal 
T. Nassar and I am the Chief of Minerals Intelligence Research at the 
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
Background

    The USGS is the science arm of the Department of the Interior and 
brings impartial, actionable science to an array of stakeholders and 
partners, including decision-makers like yourselves, resource managers, 
and the public.
    Congress passed the USGS's Organic Act in 1879, in part to gain 
greater understanding of our Nation's mineral resources. That remains 
central to our mission 144 years later, although our tools have 
changed, and today our science serves a wider range of objectives. For 
example, through the Earth Mapping Resources Initiative (Earth MRI) and 
our growing national mine-waste inventory, we are mapping the potential 
for mineral occurrence with advanced instruments that are deployed in 
space, in the air, in the laboratory, and on the ground, all leading to 
a better understanding of our country's mineral resources both in the 
ground and in waste streams. And through our mineral supply chain 
analyses, we advise other federal agencies on supply chain risks and 
investments in their sectors of expertise.
    The United States remains a major mineral producer, and in 2022, 
the domestic mineral industry mined $98.2 billion worth of mineral 
commodities.\1\ However, over the past half-century, mineral supply 
chains have become more complex as both new and established 
technologies rely on an increasing volume and variety of minerals. Most 
future energy-sector technologies are mineral-intensive, and therefore 
also potentially land-intensive and water-intensive; neither domestic 
production nor trade eliminates these challenges. Other economic 
sectors' mineral demands are also increasing. The U.S. economy is 
demanding traditional mining products like iron, aluminum, copper, 
sand, gravel, and cement. We also see rising demand for nontraditional 
mineral commodities that are required for new technologies essential to 
our national and economic security. While the USGS addresses all of 
these mineral commodities, a set of essential mineral commodities for 
which there are significant supply chain risks are designated as 
critical minerals, and they are at the center of the USGS' minerals-
related research.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ U.S. Geological Survey, 2023, Mineral commodity summaries 2023: 
U.S. Geological Survey, 210 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/mcs2023.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
List of Critical Minerals and Changes to the List

    The USGS provides the Nation's data and statistics on domestic and 
global production and consumption of minerals. Under the Energy Act of 
2020, the USGS regularly analyzes those data to develop a whole-of-
government list of critical minerals based on global mineral supply 
chains across all economic sectors. This cross-sectoral approach is 
coordinated across the Federal Government through the National Science 
and Technology Council's Critical Minerals Subcommittee (NSTC CMS), 
which is co-chaired by the White House Office of Science and Technology 
Policy, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the USGS. The initial 
methodology and list, published in 2018 \2\ under the direction of 
Executive Order 13817, was updated in 2021 in response to the Energy 
Act of 2020,\3\ reviewed by other Federal agencies through the NSTC CMS 
and by the public, and a final list of 50 critical mineral commodities 
was published in the Federal Register on February 24, 2022.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ Fortier, S.M., et al., 2018, Draft critical mineral list--
Summary of methodology and background information--U.S. Geological 
Survey technical input document in response to Secretarial Order No. 
3359: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2018-1021, 15 p., https:/
/doi.org/10.3133/ofr20181021.
    \3\ Nassar, N.T., and Fortier, S.M., 2021, Methodology and 
technical input for the 2021 review and revision of the U.S. Critical 
Minerals List: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2021-1045, 31 
p., https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20211045.
    \4\ 2022 Final List of Critical Minerals https://
www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/02/24/2022-04027/2022-final-
list-of-critical-minerals.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In developing the list of critical minerals, we apply data on the 
Nation's production and consumption of mineral commodities, all 
provided voluntarily by industry, to evaluate supply risk. When 
sufficient data to support quantitative analysis are not available, we 
analyze supply risk qualitatively, for example by identifying supply 
chains that include a single point of failure. Table 1 shows the 2022 
list of critical minerals and their rationale for inclusion. Table 1 
also highlights that many mineral commodities on the list are recovered 
as byproducts from mining and processing of other, non-critical mineral 
commodities.
    Figure 1 lists the commodities for which supply risk was evaluated 
using quantitative tools, including how the supply risk for each has 
changed over time; it also shows the countries that are the major 
producers of each of those commodities. The 2022 list of critical 
minerals identifies gallium as having the greatest U.S. supply risk, a 
risk that has become a reality as a result of the recent export 
controls imposed by the People's Republic of China on gallium and 
germanium.
    Over time, we expect the list of critical minerals to evolve. The 
Energy Act of 2020 requires that the list be updated at least once 
every three years. As supply chains are strengthened for minerals 
currently on the list, or if specific minerals become less important to 
the U.S. economy or national security, those minerals may come off the 
list. Similarly, minerals may be added to future lists if their supply 
becomes less secure or the U.S. economy becomes more dependent on 
applications for which those minerals are primary inputs.
    The methodology for developing the list will evolve as we and our 
interagency partners gather additional data and develop better tools to 
anticipate and quantify supply and demand disruptions.
Recent Federal Investments Guided by USGS Analysis

    Since we released the most recent list of critical minerals, the 
list and its underlying analysis have informed some of the Nation's 
largest investments in mineral supply chains. These investments include 
recent Defense Production Act investments and Bipartisan Infrastructure 
Law (BIL) critical minerals provisions focused on multiple supply chain 
stages. USGS data and analyses are informing partner agencies' 
decision-making for a number of these investments. Within the USGS, we 
are accelerating Earth MRI mapping of areas with potential to contain 
critical minerals and investing in the preservation of historical data 
and samples related to critical minerals. Under the Energy Act of 2020, 
the USGS also uses the list of critical minerals to help prioritize 
mineral resource assessments. The USGS is focusing its next series of 
resource assessments on critical minerals needed for high-capacity 
batteries and grid-energy storage applications before assessing other 
critical minerals (Figure 2).
Scenario Analysis and Forecasting

    The USGS monitors supply chains across sectors, which allows us to 
understand cumulative supply risks. For example, we examine cross-
sectoral competition for materials needed for energy, consumer 
electronics, and construction. We provide mineral supply chain data and 
analyses to a variety of Federal decision-makers, including the Defense 
Logistics Agency's stockpile managers, the National Security Council, 
the State Department, the Department of Commerce, the U.S. Trade 
Representative, and the Intelligence Community.
    Over the past several years, our data have provided evidence of 
supply chain disruptions in mineral production and shipping 
attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as evidence of recovery. 
Mineral supply chains have also seen disruptions associated with 
natural disasters and with export restrictions imposed by trading 
partners. We continuously monitor the effects of such disruptions 
across the suite of minerals we track.
    The Energy Act of 2020 calls for the USGS to further develop its 
forecasting capability. Accordingly, the USGS has expanded the range of 
official statistics reported annually in the Mineral Commodity 
Summaries and is developing a new series of five-year global mineral 
outlooks. The President's 2024 budget request proposes to further 
increase the speed of USGS critical mineral supply chain forecasting 
and its responsiveness to current events.

    This focus on supply chain analysis and forecasting supports whole-
of-government efforts to strengthen supply chains. The USGS works to 
provide strong scientific evidence on the feasibility and impacts of 
domestic primary and secondary (recycling and reprocessing of waste) 
production and on the potential to secure supplies through trade with 
reliable partners. Under the BIL, the NSTC CMS is authorized to 
coordinate investments in science and technology to support these 
strategies. In support of these efforts, the USGS identifies potential 
future critical minerals and evaluates whether these investments are in 
fact strengthening supply chains.

Summary

    In summary, the USGS provides cross-sectoral, data-driven supply 
chain analyses that inform whole-of-government efforts to strengthen 
supply chains. The list of critical minerals is one tool to inform 
investments in supply chains. The list and its underlying analyses also 
provide a rich set of data and tools that can be used to better 
understand the specific risks potentially affecting individual 
technologies, industries, or commodities originating from a particular 
geographic area or trading partner; to identify key trade relationships 
that may need strengthening; and to target investments in alternative 
sources of supplies for economically vital products. The USGS has deep 
expertise in near- and long-term mineral supplies, supply risk, and the 
potential for supply shocks. By partnering with other agencies that 
specialize in sector-specific demand forecasting and the potential for 
demand shocks associated with the emergence and growth of specific 
technologies, we can provide an even richer picture of the future risks 
to mineral supply chains. This information can help policymakers target 
interventions that will increase the security of our Nation's minerals 
supply.

    Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I look forward to 
your questions.

                                 *****

Table 1. Results of quantitative and qualitative evaluation of supply 
        risk and the 2022 list of critical minerals.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ Ranked in order from highest to lowest risk based on a recency-
weighted mean of the commodities' overall supply risk scores. See the 
published methodology (https://doi.org/10.3133/ ofr20211045) for 
further details.
    \6\ Most mineral commodities are recovered as byproducts to some 
degree, but the share of primary production as a byproduct for the 
mineral commodities that are not identified as byproducts in the table 
is typically small. Rare earth elements (REEs) are mined both as 
byproducts of other mineral commodities (for example, iron ore or 
heavy-mineral sands) and as the main product. Where REEs are mined as 
the main product, the individual REEs are either byproducts or 
coproducts of each other. For simplicity, all REEs are labeled in the 
table as having been produced mostly as byproducts. Byproduct status 
can and does change, although notable changes over short periods of 
time are rare.
    \7\ Commodities that were not evaluated using the quantitative 
evaluation are not given a rank and are ordered alphabetically.

[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


    .eps(Source: adapted from https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-
2021-11-09/pdf/2021-24488.pdf)
Figure 1. Supply risk for 54 commodities with sufficient data for 
        quantitative evaluation, for the years 2007-2018. Warmer (i.e., 
        orange to red) shades indicate a greater degree of supply risk. 
        As indicated by the dashed horizonal line, 36 commodities with 
        a recency-weighted mean supply risk greater than or equal to 
        0.40 are included on the list of critical minerals. Leading 
        producing countries for each commodity are listed.

[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
        

    .eps(Source: Nassar, N.T., and Fortier, S.M., 2021, Methodology and 
technical input for the 2021 review and revision of the U.S. Critical 
Minerals List: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2021-1045, 31 
p., https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20211045.)

Figure 2. Areas with potential subsurface mineral resources required 
        for high-capacity batteries (cobalt, graphite, lithium, 
        manganese, and rare earth elements) across the conterminous 
        United States.

[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
        

    .eps(Source: Dicken, C.L., and Hammarstrom, J.M., 2020, GIS for 
focus areas of potential domestic resources of 11 critical minerals--
aluminum, cobalt, graphite, lithium, niobium, platinum group elements, 
rare earth elements, tantalum, tin, titanium, and tungsten: U.S. 
Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P95CO8LR)

                                 ______
                                 

   Questions Submitted for the Record to Dr. Nedal Nassar, Chief of 
         Minerals Intelligence Research, U.S. Geological Survey

Dr. Nassar did not submit responses to the Committee by the appropriate 
deadline for inclusion in the printed record.

             Questions Submitted by Representative Stauber

    Question 1. In response to a question from Congressman Collins 
regarding the possibility of incorporating subcategories of critical 
minerals by sector or end use into the critical minerals list, you 
replied this was an interesting idea to consider. How might USGS go 
about creating such categorizations?

    Question 2. When can Congress expect the publication of the Annual 
Critical Mineral Outlook as required by the Energy Act of 2020?

    Question 3. Given the requirements for forward-looking data 
gathering in the Energy Act of 2020, does USGS have all the statutory 
authority it needs to utilize forecasting analysis in the formation of 
future iterations of the critical minerals list should it be directed 
to do so by Congress?

    Question 4. How was the Fraser Institute's policy perception index, 
an opinion survey of mining executives, decided on for the sole source 
of data on a country's ability to supply resources (ASI)?

    Question 5. Were non-subjective sources of data on the socio and 
geopolitical stability of source countries (for example, Uppsala 
University's Uppsala Conflict Data Program) considered as measures of a 
country's ability to supply (ASI)? If so, why were they not utilized?

    Question 6. The methodology for trade exposure (TE) reviews trade 
activity for a mineral at a single point in time. How does this 
methodology address minerals with no immediate critical need, but which 
are predicted to become critical under common scenario analyses?

    Question 7. The methodology relies heavily on the accurate and 
fulsome identification of source countries. How were the source 
countries identified, and what criteria was used in determining whether 
a single or multiple countries would be examined as a source for a 
mineral?

    Question 8. If USGS had not interpreted the Energy Act of 2020 as 
barring uranium from consideration as a critical mineral, would the 
known vulnerabilities in the uranium supply chain have otherwise 
qualified it for inclusion in the updated 2022 Critical Minerals List?

             Questions Submitted by Representative Wittman

    Question 1. How frequently is the Critical Mineral List updated, 
and what factors trigger updates or revisions to the list? Are there 
any plans to make this process more regular or responsive to changing 
market conditions?

    Question 2. Are there fixed or universally defined thresholds fo 
criteria to determine if a mineral is classified as critical? ff not, 
why not?

    Question 3. How transparent is the decision-making process for what 
minerals are classified as critical?

                                 ______
                                 

    Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much for your testimony. Our 
next witness is Mr. Reed Blakemore. He is the Director of 
Research and Programs for the Global Energy Center with the 
Atlantic Council, based right here in Washington, DC.
    Mr. Blakemore, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF REED BLAKEMORE, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH AND PROGRAMS, 
     GLOBAL ENERGY CENTER, ATLANTIC COUNCIL, WASHINGTON, DC

    Mr. Blakemore. Thank you, Chairman Stauber and Ranking 
Member Ocasio-Cortez, and thank you to the distinguished 
members of the Subcommittee for the invitation to appear before 
you today. My name is Reed Blakemore, and I am the Director of 
Research and Programs at the Atlantic Council's Global Energy 
Center, a non-partisan, non-profit think tank headquartered 
here in Washington, DC.
    Before I begin, I would like to note that my remarks and 
written testimony represent my observations as an expert, and 
do not necessarily represent the views of my colleagues or 
institution.
    To summarize my more detailed testimony, I would like to 
provide a broad overview of our understanding of what makes a 
mineral critical, and how we should approach a global economy 
increasingly dependent on an ever-diverse set of minerals and 
materials.
    As many of my colleagues today will reiterate and as has 
been reiterated by the Chairman and Ranking Member, many 
minerals, many of which are supply constrained, are fundamental 
to strategically important industries of the United States, 
such as defense, energy, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors. 
Access to these minerals is essential to limiting inflation, 
our global economic leadership, and our national security. The 
security of supply for such minerals has been strategically 
relevant to the United States for some time, and will continue 
to be so.
    Nonetheless, as has already been noted, the rapidly 
expanding mineral requirements of the energy sector are 
reshaping how much attention is needed to secure these supply 
chains. These demands are not only reframing how we think about 
energy security, but new energy technologies, opportunities for 
exports, and additional economic leadership. Resource security 
is critical to enabling this leadership in emerging sectors 
such as electric vehicles and renewable power.
    Importantly, the United States is not alone in observing 
this shift. Allies, partners, peers, and rivals are moving 
quickly to seize the strategic value of influence in mineral 
supply chains, exacerbating geopolitical risk and supply 
concentration, which have long been features of minerals 
markets. For instance, in just one example here, through 
tariffs and export bans many mineral-rich countries are 
enacting policies to push investment toward value-added 
economic activities, so they can capture the economic windfall 
opportunities beyond simply extracting raw materials for 
export. This shapes how we need to think about supply chain 
intervention and securing our resources moving forward for the 
next 30 years.
    The risks of inaction here abound. This is why a priority 
of the U.S. Government across consecutive administrations has 
been to identify specific minerals that it deems critical, and 
focus policy attention on improving access to or the security 
of these supply chains.
    Deciding which minerals are critical, of course, is based 
on dependency, our demand, and the ability to access them 
reliably, the available supply. However, with 50 minerals now 
on at least one of the three critical minerals lists being 
produced across the U.S. Government, we would do well to think 
through the relative criticality of minerals that are 
designated to this list to mature our strategic planning and 
act effectively.
    Though there are a number of mineral-specific factors that 
apply to this notion, several stand out as useful first steps 
for consideration. On the demand side, these include the growth 
rate of specific mineral demands over time, the demand 
elasticity and substitutability of certain minerals, and 
differing technology deployment scenarios.
    On the supply side, I applaud the critical efforts of the 
USGS to improve our knowledge of the resource base. 
Nonetheless, the supply picture is also increasingly shaped by 
several additional features, including difficult project 
economics and ore quality declines, lengthy project life cycles 
and permitting challenges, and new sourcing methods such as 
recycling or waste conversion.
    Contextualizing these features is an appreciation for the 
vulnerability of supply to disruption, namely trade exposure 
and supply chain concentration. Provided that the United States 
cannot supply all of its mineral needs domestically, mitigating 
these supply risks requires work to build trusted supply chain 
partnerships that limit the possibility of physical 
interruptions, market imbalances, and government interventions. 
This balance defines the space for how we should resolve a 
particular criticality, which is equally if not more important 
than listing a particular mineral in the first place.
    To conclude, there are certain minerals that are 
structurally important to our national and economic security, 
and our needs for them are diverse, dynamic, and growing. 
Identifying these minerals signals a need for action and forms 
the basis for interagency coordination. But while lists are 
important, we shouldn't rely on lists alone. We need to ensure 
that our minerals policy does not become overly clerkish, 
prescribing problems rather than solving them. Capturing the 
supply and demand dynamism between each critical mineral will 
illuminate the pathways to build a cohesive mineral strategy.
    To be clear, many of the foremost issues in our minerals 
policy stem from a need for broader reform, be it through 
permitting or deeper international engagement. Nonetheless, a 
properly curated list helps inform decisions on those fronts. I 
therefore commend this Committee for attention to this issue, 
and look forward to continuing to support its efforts in this 
area. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Blakemore follows:]
    Prepared Statement of Reed Blakemore, Director of Research and 
            Programs, Global Energy Center, Atlantic Council

I. Introduction

    Chairman Stauber, Ranking Member Ocasio Cortez, and distinguished 
members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the invitation to appear 
before you today.

    My name is Reed Blakemore, and I am the Director of Research and 
Programs at the Atlantic Council's Global Energy Center.

    The Atlantic Council is a non-partisan, non-profit policy 
organization headquartered in Washington, DC. Our work at the Global 
Energy Center develops and promotes pragmatic and nonpartisan policy 
solutions designed to advance global energy security, enhance economic 
opportunity, and accelerate pathways to net-zero emissions. Critical 
minerals and materials is one of the core pillars of our work.
    Before I begin, I should note that my remarks and written testimony 
represent my observations, and do not necessarily represent the views 
of my colleagues or institution.
    This hearing focuses on the methodology and structure of the USGS 
Critical Minerals List. However, I would like to provide a broad 
overview on our understanding of what makes a mineral ``critical'' and 
how the United States can best prepare to act on the vulnerabilities 
inherent in a world of diverse mineral demands.
    The distinction of a mineral or material as `critical' ascribes 
that a mineral should be treated with additional concern, intended to 
inform the strategic thinking of policymakers with respect to domestic 
mining legislation, public investments, trade policy, development 
policy, and more. It can also signify a need for action from 
policymakers and government officials, whether that is an addition of a 
material to the National Defense Stockpile, the DOE Loan Programs 
Office making an investment in a processing plant at home, or 
Development Finance Corporation investing in a project abroad.
    Yet what determines criticality is ultimately in the eye of the 
beholder. Minerals that are critical to one industry or policy 
objective may not be essential for another, and the minerals that are 
critical for the United States may not be so for another nation. As 
such, continued reflection on what is `critical' and how one plans to 
address that criticality is essential in a minerals and materials-
intense world, and I commend this committee for their efforts in this 
regard. My esteemed co-panelists will explain in detail the methodology 
of critical minerals list-making and the implications for minerals that 
are placed on that list. However, I would like to begin with a top-
level overview of what factors, generally-speaking, influence the 
determination of what makes certain minerals or materials fall into 
this category.
II. Why are certain minerals and materials `critical'

    A suite of core minerals and materials are fundamental pieces of 
the structure of our economy and national security. While the 
importance of certain metal commodities to the United States' national 
economic health is well-understood, a small number of niche, supply-
constrained minerals are equally-as important to industries such as 
pharmaceuticals and semiconductors. Access to these minerals is key/
essential to limiting inflation and maximizing economies of scale, 
making them central to prosperity at home and economic leadership 
abroad.
    Defense needs also entail demand for certain materials that have 
been deemed critical, such as gallium, ferromanganese, antimony, 
lithium, nickel, and many others. Every SSN-774 Virginia-class 
submarine requires about 9,200 pounds (half the weight of a school bus) 
of rare earth elements, while F-35 Lightning II aircraft require 
roughly 920 pounds.\1\ Cobalt is an important component of permanent 
magnets which are used in energy technologies, but also military 
technologies such as smart bombs, aircraft, and guided missiles.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Runde, Daniel F., and Austin Hardman. ``Elevating the Role of 
Critical Minerals for Development and Security.'' CSIS, September 1, 
2023. https://www.csis.org/analysis/elevating-role-critical-minerals-
development-and-security#::text=Critical%20minerals%20are%20also%20 
characterized,the%20economy%20or%20national%20security.%E2%80%9D.
    \2\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The security of supply of these minerals, therefore, has been 
strategically relevant to the United States for some time and will 
continue to be so.
    Now, the mineral and material requirements of the energy sector 
demands equal attention, especially as the energy transition changes 
the structural makeup of the global economy.
    Much of this demand is policy driven. Electrifying large swaths of 
the economy necessarily implies the use of a significant number of 
materials that can carry that electricity. Furthermore, renewable 
energy generation technologies require a large quantity of durable 
materials, as opposed to our present energy system, which relies on 
consumable fossil fuels.
    Over time, our energy generation, storage, and transmission 
technologies will become increasingly dependent on materials such as 
copper, nickel, manganese, graphite, lithium, cobalt, and many others. 
Since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, forecasts of demand 
in 2035 for lithium have increased by 15 percent, and nickel by 13 
percent.\3\ The United States' total combined energy technolgy-related 
demand for lithium, nickel and cobalt will be 23 times higher in 2035 
than it was in 2021.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ ``United States Faces New Challenges Meeting Increased Demand 
for Critical Minerals One Year after Historic Inflation Reduction Act, 
S&P Global Study Finds.'' News Release Archive. Accessed September 11, 
2023. https://press.spglobal.com/2023-08-15-United-States-Faces-New-
Challenges-Meeting-Increased-Demand-for-Critical-Minerals-One-Year-
After-Historic-Inflation-Reduction-Act,-S-P-Global-Study-
Finds#::text=Adding%20the%20post%2DIRA%20demand,than 
%20it%20was%20in%202021.
    \4\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Similar trends around the world amplify the importance of these 
minerals to the global economy. Globally, policies to decrease 
greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 are accelerating. A higher reliance on 
critical minerals is already being observed as a result--since 2010, 
the average amount of minerals needed for a new unit of power 
generation capacity has increased by 50 percent as the share of 
renewables in new investment has risen.\5\ Some minerals such as 
lithium, copper, graphite and nickel may see a 40-fold increase in 
demand globally due to their importance in batteries, electric 
vehicles, semiconductors, transmission lines, and clean electricity 
generation technologies.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ International Energy Association. ``Executive Summary--the Role 
of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions--Analysis.'' IEA. 
Accessed September 11, 2023. https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-
critical-minerals-in-clean-energy-transitions/executive-summary.
    \6\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Meanwhile, the steady transformation of a new energy system is 
opening market opportunities for new clean energy technology exports, 
with resource security a critical component of the supply chains that 
will enable leadership in industries new and old.
    We have seen this manifest in industrial ambitions for several 
nations associated with building out mining and processing 
infrastructure which can meet future demand. For instance, Indonesia is 
developing polysilicon plants to feed solar panel manufacturing, while 
also banning unrefined nickel exports, which is necessary for the 
manufacturing of materials for lithium-ion.\7\ Many mineral-rich 
countries are enacting policies to push investment towards downstream 
`value-added' economic activities so they can more effectively control 
their supply chains during the global transition and capture the 
windfall that will be associated with producing those materials for 
export. The latter is particularly true for those countries that view 
critical mineral industries as a development opportunity, such as 
Zimbabwe and Namibia, which have banned exports of unprocessed lithium 
ore, to keep more economic activity in their nations.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \7\ Listiyorini, Eko. ``Tropical Indonesia Wants t Start Making a 
Key Solar Panel Part.'' Bloomberg.com, January 24, 2022. https://
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-25/tropical-indonesia-wants-to-
start-making-a-key-solar-panel-part?sref=a9fBmPFG; International Energy 
Association. ``Prohibition of the Export of Nickel Ore--Policies.'' 
IEA, October 31, 2022. https://www.iea.org/policies/16084-prohibition-
of-the-export-of-nickel-ore.
    \8\ Dempsey, Harry, and Joseph Cotterill. ``How China Is Winning 
the Race for Africa's Lithium.'' Financial Times, April 3, 2023. 
https://www.ft.com/content/02d6f35d-e646-40f7-894c-ffcc6acd9b25.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    This drive to capture value from the economic opportunity of the 
new energy technologies extends down the energy technology value 
chain.\9\ Global EV sales increased from 716,000 vehicles in 2015 to 
10.6 million vehicles in 2022.\10\ Solar power saw global growth of 
nearly 200 Gigawatts--equivalent to the grid of Brazil--the most of any 
form of electricity generation.\11\ Growth in areas such as these form 
the impetus to capture the value stemming from such a dramatic economic 
transformation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\ Blakemore, R., & Ryan, P. (2023, August 16). One year after the 
IRA, the hard work to build resilient mineral supply chains is only 
beginning. Atlantic Council Global Energy Center. September 11, 2023, 
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/energysource/one-year-after-the-
ira-the-hard-work-to-build-resilient-mineral-supply-chains-is-only-
beginning/
    \10\ Department of Energy. ``2023 Critical Materials Assessment--
Department of Energy.'' 2023 U.S. Department of Energy Critical 
Materials Assessment, July 2023. https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/
files/2023-05/2023-critical-materials-assessment.pdf.
    \11\ International Renewable Energy Agency. ``Record Growth in 
Renewables Achieved despite Energy Crisis.'' IRENA, March 21, 2023. 
https://www.irena.org/News/pressreleases/2023/Mar/Record-9-point-6-
Percentage-Growth-in-Renewables-Achieved-Despite-Energy-Crisis.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Clearly, there is an emerging dynamic wherein influence and access 
across critical mineral supply chains is viewed as a strategic lever. 
By a similar vein, concentration and geopolitical risk abound in 
critical mineral supply chains. One country, the Democratic Republic of 
the Congo, accounts for 70 percent of global cobalt production.\12\ 
Indonesia holds about 22 percent of the world's total nickel reserves, 
and about 40 percent of global nickel output.\13\ Roughly 50-60 percent 
of lithium resources are found in three countries in Latin America 
(Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia).\14\ Many of the countries that produce 
and process critical minerals are not our preferred trade partners by 
means of a free trade agreement. By 2035, it is forecast that as much 
as 90 percent of all nickel products, for instance, will be processed 
by countries that do not hold a free trade agreement with the United 
States.\15\ China, meanwhile, enjoys significant control across the 
minerals supply chain through near-monopolistic control of processing 
for key minerals, and a dominant position in the financing or ownership 
of upstream mineral resource development.\16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \12\ Kelly, Lauren. ``Top 10 Cobalt Producers by Country (Updated 
2023).'' INN, August 19, 2023. https://investingnews.com/where-is-
cobalt-mined/.
    \13\ Falak Medina, Ayman. ``Unleashing Nickel's Potential: 
Indonesia's Journey to Global Prominence.'' ASEAN Business News, June 
20, 2023. https://www.aseanbriefing.com/news/unleashing-nickels-
potential-indonesias-journey-to-global-prominence/
#::text=Indonesia's%20 
nickel%20reserves,22%20percent%20of%20global%20reserves.
    \14\ Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. 
``Lithium Extraction and Industrialization: Opportunities and 
Challenges for Latin America and the Caribbean.'' CEPAL, July 2023. 
https://www.cepal.org/en/publications/48965-lithium-extraction-and-
industrialization-opportunities-and-challenges-latin.
    \15\ Goodman, Peter S, and Ulet Ifansasti. ``How Geopolitics Is 
Complicating the Move to Clean Energy.'' The New York Times, August 18, 
2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/18/business/indonesia-nickel-
china-us.html.
    \16\ Wilson Center. ``Critical Mineral Maps.'' Wilson Center, March 
17, 2022. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/critical-mineral-maps; 
Wells, Katherine. ``China's Monopoly over Critical Minerals.'' 
Georgetown Security Studies Review, May 31, 2023. https://
georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2023/06/01/chinas-monopoly-over-
critical-minerals/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Taken together, though minerals have long had a significant role in 
ensuring the prosperity and security of the United States, the makeup 
of this role is changing dramatically as the mineral requirements 
underpinning US energy and geo-economic priorities become more diverse 
and competitive in response to projected changes in energy markets

III. The Characteristics of `Listmaking' and Increasing Importance of 
        Relative Criticality

    As the `minerals intensity' of the global economy increases, 
assessing and acting upon possible vulnerabilities or opportunities 
will be a feature of the strategic landscape. This is why a priority of 
the US Government across consecutive administrations has been to 
identify specific minerals that it deems ``critical'' and therefore 
focus policy attention on improving access to or the security of those 
supply chains.

    Though `listing' has been a feature of US policymaking for over a 
century, these efforts intensified in 2008 with a National Academy of 
Sciences study, which informed the creation of the first contemporary 
critical materials list, the DOE's 2010 Critical Materials Strategy. 
With Executive Order 13818 under the Trump Administration came the 
direction for the Department of the Interior to publish a critical 
minerals list--which has now been published in 2018, and updated in 
2022. Other countries have been developing Critical Mineral lists 
modeled after the US lists, including the EU, UK, South Korea, Japan 
and Australia, but their definitions of ``critical'' are different and 
reflect independent strategic priorities.

    Yet as policymakers' attention to the possible vulnerabilities of a 
minerals-intensive world has grown, the scope of these lists has also 
evolved considerably. The first mineral list, titled War Minerals, was 
created in 1917 to aid the US WWI effort. It was comprised of only 5 
minerals: tin, nickel, platinum, nitrates, and potash. Now, almost 
every element on the periodic table is used in global manufacturing, 
and 50 minerals are now on at least one of the three formal lists being 
produced across the USG.

    This suggests that the United States would do well to think through 
the features of what makes a particular mineral critical, with 
particular attention to the relative criticality of minerals that are 
designated to these lists. Doing so will allow the United States to 
better understand its mineral and material vulnerabilities, communicate 
those priorities to partners in the marketplace, and more effectively 
act to secure key supply chains.

    Fundamentally, a determination of which minerals are critical is 
broadly based on dependency on those minerals (demand--or the impact of 
supply risk) and the ability to access them reliably (supply--or the 
risk of supply disruption). Though the relationship between the two is 
at the core of whether a mineral should be deemed `critical' or not, 
there are some independent features of each that provide some necessary 
color to a mineral's relative criticality.

    The risk of not meeting future demand for minerals is not just a 
function of global geopolitical risks. It is also affected by the 
economic forces that impact the ability of mineral supply chains to 
meet future demand, and thus adequately supply the market.

IV. Demand

    Assessing mineral demand is mostly an exercise in forecasting. As 
mentioned above, the accelerating momentum of renewable energy 
technology deployment has led to a general consensus of demand growth 
for key minerals for the next several decades. However, particularly 
for transition minerals and metals, several additional characteristics 
of demand warrant consideration. These include:

  1.  The trendline of demand over time. The growth in demand for 
            certain materials will be larger at the outset of the 
            energy transition than it will be over a prolonged period 
            of time. Demand for certain minerals required for the 
            buildout of transition infrastructure will grow rapidly in 
            response to the energy transition but may become steadier 
            over time given the long life cycle of those projects. 
            Certain minerals may offer opportunities for recycling, as 
            technology matures, suggesting that while a large demand 
            signal for mined material will present itself initially, 
            recycling can alleviate demand stress. Either example 
            offers a framing to better understand vulnerability to 
            certain mineral demands now vs. those over time.

  2.  Demand elasticity. The relative sensitivity of a particular 
            mineral to being replaced by an alternative in response to 
            disruption also helps contextualize how severe certain 
            mineral vulnerabilities are relative to each other. While 
            the unique properties of most minerals limit elasticity on 
            a 1-1 basis, marginal input elasticity for technologies is 
            emerging--for example in battery chemistries where concerns 
            around cobalt resourcing have enabled the development of 
            zero-cobalt or lithium-phosphate chemistries. Additionally, 
            minerals used for EV batteries will not be necessary for 
            batteries used for stationary grid storage, enabling 
            substitution within that end-use.\17\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \17\ Blakemore, Reed, Paddy Ryan, and William Tobin. ``Alternative 
Battery Chemistries and Diversifying Clean Energy Supply Chains.'' 
Atlantic Council, September 13, 2022. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/
in-depth-research-reports/issue-brief/alternative-battery-chemistries-
and-diversifying-clean-energy-supply-chains/.

  3.  Transition Technology Criticality (and corresponding elasticity). 
            Related is the notion that some technologies (and their 
            underlying minerals) will be more or less replaceable in 
            the energy system of the future. For example, while there 
            are few options to replace transmission infrastructure 
            required for expanding the grid, there are a wide range of 
            possibilities as to the scale of the hydrogen economy. 
            Similar principles apply to highly innovation-exposed 
            sectors of the economy and national defense. The potential 
            variation in deployment of certain technologies implies a 
            range in corresponding materials needed for manufacturing--
            this is observed in the stark variation observed in 
            modelling of future demand for key minerals.\18\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \18\ ``IEF Critical Minerals Outlooks Comparison.'' International 
Energy Forum. Accessed September 11, 2023. https://www.ief.org/focus/
ief-reports/critical-minerals-outlooks-comparison.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
V. Supply

    Assessment of available supply to fulfill mineral demand is 
twofold: an understanding of the resource base both now and in the 
future, and the vulnerability of the resource base to disruption.

    Our understanding of the resource base continues to mature, and I 
applaud the efforts of the USGS to continue to improve our knowledge of 
where certain minerals are available and in what quantities. 
Nonetheless, the supply picture is increasingly shaped by a number of 
additional features that bear strongly on relative criticality.

  1.  Project Economics & Ore Quality. Mining project economics are 
            typically defined by the concentration of the desired 
            material that is found in the ore at the mine site--ore 
            being the naturally occurring sediment or brine. However, 
            ore grades for certain materials are declining globally, 
            precisely as we are in need of more. Mines for those metals 
            are being dug deeper at greater expense and environmental 
            impact (due to higher tailings--wastewater and waste rock). 
            This increases prices to obtain the same quantity of the 
            desired material. In Chile, for instance, which has borne 
            the brunt of this problem due to its degrading copper 
            mines, the capital intensity of new mines has ballooned 
            from 4-5,000 dollars per ton of copper, to as much as 
            44,000 dollars per ton.\19\ Many materials also require 
            specialized technologies and processes to adjust extraction 
            to certain ore profiles. This is the case for lithium, 
            where ore bodies can differ drastically, and for nickel, 
            where new technology has been necessary to adjust to the 
            predominating variety of nickel ore.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \19\ ``Copper mines becoming more capital intensive and costly to 
run'' Ahead of the Herd. Accessed September 11, 2023. https://
aheadoftheherd.com/copper-mines-becoming-more-capital-intensive-and-
costly-to-run/
    \20\ Tang, J. (2023, April 25). Infographic: Indonesian projects to 
boost Nickel Supply. S&P Global Commodity Insights. https://
www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/
metals/042423-infographic-indonesian-projects-to-boost-nickel-supply

  2.  Project Lifecycle. Certain mining projects require much more time 
            to bring supply to market than others. This not only varies 
            between minerals, but in some cases from project to 
            project, with a new lithium brine project requiring much 
            less time to come to production than a lithium hard rock 
            project. Challenging lead times induced by regulatory 
            processes such as permitting also make it difficult for new 
            entrants and projects to break into the market.\21\ For 
            instance, critical materials projects in the United States 
            such as Pebble copper mine in Alaska, the Twin Metals 
            copper mine in Minnesota, and a titanium mine in Georgia 
            have failed to progress due to this process.\22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \21\ Blakemore, R., Ryan, P., & Bell, R. (2022, March 27). The 
United States, Canada, and the minerals challenge. Atlantic Council 
Global Energy Center. September 11, 2023, https://
www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/the-united-
states-canada-and-the-minerals-challenge/
    \22\ Northey, H., & Holzman, J. (2022, August 15). Biden wants 
minerals, but mine permitting lags. E&E News by POLITICO. https://
www.eenews.net/articles/biden-wants-minerals-but-mine-permitting-lags/

  3.  Non-traditional Sourcing. New sources of supply are increasingly 
            being developed in response to tightening markets. Full-
            value mining, which uses tailings from existing material 
            processing to retrieve other critical minerals, is emerging 
            as a useful corollary to circular economies of recycling 
            minerals. These non-traditional sources of supply can offer 
            both additional as well as marginal sources of supply, 
            depending on the mineral. Materials R&D also remains 
            vitally important to developing new processes or materials 
            that can reduce supply chain constraints--whether in 
            recycling, or producing critical materials from other forms 
            of waste, such as captured carbon.\23\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \23\ Tobin, W. (2022, April 28). The US should leverage 45Q for the 
graphite supply crunch. Atlantic Council Global Energy Center. 
September 11, 2023, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/energysource/
the-us-should-leverage-45q-for-the-graphite-supply-crunch/

    Each of these features add necessary color to our understanding of 
how big the gap between supply and demand for certain minerals may be 
and what obstacles may shape the manner in which that gap can be 
filled.
    Supply risk, meanwhile, can manifest in several ways.\24\ Though it 
primarily comes in the form of trade exposure, wherein there is a high 
degree of import reliance, these risks are complicated by 
overconcentration of supply in a certain country, which can create a 
risk of disruption of supply in certain cases. Provided that the United 
States cannot supply the entirety of its mineral needs domestically, 
mitigating supply risk is more art than science--requiring an 
assessment of which minerals have relatively clearer pathways to build 
trusted supply chain partnerships that hedge against or limit the 
possibility of physical interruptions in the supply chain, market 
imbalances, and government interventions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \24\ Neumann Strengthened Federal Approach Needed to Help Identify 
and Mitigate Supply Risks for Critical Raw Materials, J., Strengthened 
Federal Approach Needed to Help Identify and Mitigate Supply Risks for 
Critical Raw Materials.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Taken together, these elements of what shapes the relative risk of 
a critical mineral or material offers some additional nuance to an 
increasingly diverse suite of minerals that underpin national security 
and economic prosperity. It helps us understand when risks to certain 
minerals will be more or less severe (an exercise I commend the 
Department of Energy for beginning to undertake in its most recent 
Critical Minerals Assessment), and how policymakers should consider 
intervening in a world where nearly every mineral and metal is of 
strategic importance.
VI. Conclusion

    To conclude, there are certain minerals that are structurally 
important to our national and economic security. As energy transition 
proceeds, those mineral requirements are increasingly diverse and 
dynamic.
    As a result, the practice of designating minerals as critical is 
necessary as a strategic review of national vulnerabilities in a 
minerals-intensive world, and the work of USGS and their interagency 
peers to this end is deeply important.
    However, I will end with some final thoughts.
    Lists signify a need for action and form the basis for interagency 
coordination, where it is invariably the case that we need to show our 
receipts and provide justification for actions that leverage the US 
taxpayer dollar in an environment of increasing demand for public 
money.
    But while lists are important, we shouldn't rely on lists alone. We 
need to ensure that our minerals policy does not become overly 
clerkish, prescribing problems rather than solving them. Maturing those 
lists to capture the supply/demand dynamism between each critical 
mineral will illuminate the pathways to address the relative 
criticality inherent in these lists.
    Many of the foremost issues in our minerals policy stem from a need 
for broader reform, whether in permitting, benefit-sharing, or 
international engagement.
    Nonetheless, a properly curated list helps inform decisions on 
those fronts.
    Thank you and I look forward to your questions.

                                 ______
                                 

    Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much for your testimony. I am 
going to yield to Representative Lamborn to introduce our next 
witness.
    Mr. Lamborn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to 
introduce Dr. Roderick Eggert, Deputy Director of the Critical 
Minerals Institute at the DOE Energy Innovation Hub and 
Research Professor at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, 
Colorado.
    Colorado School of Mines is a leading center of education 
for geology and mining engineering, and represents the foremost 
level of academia in this industry. They are on the cutting 
edge of mineral and mining innovation, and are training the 
next generation of leaders in the mining industry, which we 
know is sorely needed.
    Dr. Eggert, we are pleased to have you here representing 
the mining industry, the Colorado School of Mines, and the 
great state of Colorado.

 STATEMENT OF RODERICK EGGERT, RESEARCH PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS 
AND BUSINESS AND COULTER FOUNDATION CHAIR IN MINERAL ECONOMICS, 
           COLORADO SCHOOL OF MINES, GOLDEN, COLORADO

    Dr. Eggert. Well, thank you very much for that kind 
introduction.
    Chairman Stauber, Ranking Member Ocasio-Cortez, other 
members of the Committee, thank you very much for the 
opportunity to testify today. Let me use my oral remarks to 
summarize two of the issues from my written testimony.
    First, let's think about and compare the 2022 USGS 
assessment with the 2023 Department of Energy assessment and 
list.
    So, what is the USGS assessment? It is broad in scope, a 
screening of something like 70 non-fuel minerals and their 
supply chains in the context of their importance for national 
security and, really, overall economic affairs in the country.
    It is U.S.-centric and asks the question for what minerals 
is the United States at risk. It is based on data from the 
present and recent past, so it is only forward-looking to the 
extent that the indicators themselves provide insight into the 
future, which, to be fair, some sense of which can be gained 
from looking at the 10-year trends which are part of the 
assessment.
    Finally, it is a single list with 50 of the 70 elements 
scored designated as critical.
    The DOE lists an assessment of critical materials for 
energy. It is narrower in scope. Not surprisingly, it focuses 
on energy technologies. It is also global in scope in the sense 
that the question that this assessment asks is what are the 
material risks that threaten the development and deployment of 
energy technologies.
    It is explicitly forward-looking by incorporating demand 
scenarios into its analysis, demand scenarios that have two 
time frames: out to 2025, and then a longer look out to 2035.
    It presents a more nuanced list. In some sense, it is 
actually four lists of materials. There are critical materials 
and then, separately, near-critical materials for both time 
frames, near term or short term out to 2025, and the medium 
term out to 2035.
    So, the USGS list is U.S.-centric, broad, and based largely 
on the present and recent past. The DOE assessment is energy-
centric, narrower, and more forward-looking. So, that is my 
first topic.
    The second topic, more broadly and philosophically: why 
have a list? The simple answer, perhaps a statement of the 
obvious, is to inform public policy, to prioritize things like 
research and development activities, geologic mapping, market 
analysis, aspects of commercial policy such as tax credits and 
other issues.
    A more complicated answer, in my view, a list is most 
useful when it is viewed as an intermediate product rather than 
the final word. It is really an initial screening and 
identification of minerals and materials deemed important for 
further, more detailed assessment in more specific contexts. 
The danger of a simple list of minerals and materials as either 
critical or not critical is that it obscures the complexity of 
criticality, suggesting that criticality is yes or no, rather 
than a continuum of risk and importance. The longer a list is, 
the less it represents a prioritization and the less useful the 
designation ``critical'' is. As many have said, if everything 
is critical, then is anything really critical?
    Finally, a couple of comments more specifically about the 
USGS list. The list is long, 50 elements or minerals. The scope 
is broad, encompassing both national security and economic 
affairs. Thus, in my view, the primary uses of the list should 
be two: first, to signal in a very broad way the importance of 
minerals, their essentiality, and the degree to which they are 
subject to supply chain risks; and second, to identify specific 
supply chains for further analysis.
    Designation as critical should by itself not qualify a 
mineral or material for special treatment, which should require 
more in-depth analysis of particular supply chains. In other 
words, and this is finally-finally, the USGS list should 
inform, but not determine public policy.
    Thank you very much.

    [The prepared statement of Dr. Eggert follows:]
   Prepared Statement of Roderick G. Eggert, Research Professor and 
Coulter Foundation Chair in Mineral Economics, Colorado School of Mines
    Chairman Stauber, Ranking Member Ocasio-Cortez, and other Members 
of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony 
on the U.S. Geological Survey's Critical Minerals List. I am a research 
professor in the Department of Economics and Business at Colorado 
School of Mines and hold the Coulter Foundation Chair in Mineral 
Economics. As part of my university responsibilities, I am deputy 
director of the Critical Materials Institute, an Energy Innovation Hub 
established by the U.S. Department of Energy in 2013, to accelerate 
innovation in energy materials and led by the Ames National Laboratory.
    Of relevance for this hearing, I have been involved in the topic of 
critical minerals and materials for more than 15 years. In 2007-2008, I 
chaired the committee of the National Research Council that developed a 
conceptual framework for criticality assessment that is reflected in 
many of the criticality assessments since the committee's report was 
published (National Research Council, 2008).
    My testimony represents my personal views, although these views 
reflect work I have done and opportunities I have had at Colorado 
School of Mines and with the Critical Materials Institute.
    I organize my testimony around four topics: the concept of a 
critical mineral or material; a review of selected other (non-U.S. 
Geological Survey) assessments of mineral and material criticality; a 
comparison of the U.S. Geological Survey's 2022 assessment with the 
2023 assessment by the U.S. Department of Energy; and consideration of 
the question, why have a list?
Concepts
    A critical mineral or material provides essential functionality to 
a modern engineered material, component or system; has few if any easy 
substitutes; and is subject to supply-chain risks or longer-term 
concerns about availability. It is the combination all three of these 
characteristics that makes a mineral or material `critical' in the 
specialized sense of the concept--not simply that a mineral or material 
is indispensable or essential, the common meaning of the word.

    Five key aspects of critical minerals and materials are:

    First, risks come in two basic forms: physical unavailability and 
price. Physical-unavailability risk reflects the probability and 
consequences of not being able to obtain a needed mineral or material. 
Price risk reflects the probability and consequences of unexpected 
fluctuations in price.

    Second, the consequences of lack of physical availability or 
unexpected price changes differ from circumstance to circumstance. In 
other words, something important is at risk but exactly what is at risk 
depends on the circumstance. For a company, profits and growth are at 
risk if a supply disruption leads to physical unavailability of a 
material or to unexpected increases in input costs. For a nation's 
manufacturing sector, at risk are the viability of the sector and jobs 
in the sector. For national security, at risk is the ability of a 
nation's military and associated civilian infrastructure to respond 
during and immediately following a national emergency. For the energy 
transition, at risk is the transition itself if input minerals and 
materials are not available in sufficient quantities and at affordable 
costs from sources that are secure, environmentally sustainable and 
socially responsible.

    Third, the sources of risk vary from one mineral and material to 
another and differ between the short term and long term. In the short 
term (one or a few years, up to about a decade), the principal sources 
of risk relate to the fragility of the geography of existing 
production, processing and use of minerals and the materials. More 
specifically, these risks include:

    --  Geographically concentrated production in a small number of 
            mines, companies or countries;

    --  Geopolitical risks in important producing countries;

    --  The small, opaque markets that exist for many of the minor 
            metals included in most assessments of critical minerals 
            and materials, which leaves market participants vulnerable 
            to unexpected disruptions and, moreover, discourages 
            investment in the sector because investors do not 
            sufficient knowledge about a sector to make them 
            comfortable investing in the sector; and

    --  Reliance on byproduct production of a mineral or metal, in 
            which case the availability of the byproduct is a function 
            not just of market conditions for the byproduct but also 
            conditions facing the main product.

    In the long term (a decade or more into the future), the principal 
sources of risk relate to more fundamental determinants of mineral 
availability:

    --  How abundant is a mineral in the earth's crust?

    --  Is there a technology proven at scale that can recover the 
            mineral at prices customers are willing to pay, with 
            environmental impacts that are acceptable to society?

    --  Can companies and local communities work together to 
            effectively manage the environmental and social impacts 
            that often accompany mining and processing?

    --  Given the long lead times in developing new mines, will there 
            be sufficient investment today to ensure that a decade or 
            two from now we have sufficient and affordable quantities 
            of minerals to meet the growing demands of society?

    Fourth, criticality is dynamic. Which specific minerals and 
materials are `critical' changes over time. As technologies evolve and 
change, so too do material requirements. As we transition from lead-
acid batteries in internal-combustion engines to lithium-ion batteries 
in electric vehicles, lead becomes less critical, while lithium and 
other associated battery materials (such as nickel and cobalt) become 
more critical. Another example comes from lighting. As society moved 
from compact-fluorescent bulbs to light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs, the 
demand and prices for the rare-earth element europium fell considerably 
as did europium's criticality.

    Fifth, it's about processing, not just mining. While mining is the 
essential starting point for mineral-derived materials, in many cases 
what is missing in the United States or represents a choke point 
elsewhere in the world is processing and the production of intermediate 
products that occur after mining.
Selected Assessments of Critical Minerals and Materials

    Many entities have conducted formal assessments. For a recent paper 
that reviews criticality studies and methods, see Schrijvers and others 
(2020). For an earlier and detailed discussion of methodology from the 
perspective of corporations, nations and the world, see Graedel and 
others (2012).
    One of the early studies in the modern era of concern about 
critical minerals and materials (beginning in about 2005) was National 
Research Council (2008), which I referred to earlier in my testimony. 
The major contribution of this study was a conceptual framework for 
assessing material criticality emphasizing two criticality dimensions: 
likelihood of a supply disruption, and the consequence of the 
disruption should it occur. Indicators of a supply disruption include 
those listed in the previous section of this testimony, which differ 
depending on whether one is concerned about the short term or long 
term. Many subsequent studies use modified versions of this conceptual 
framework, customizing the assessment around those factors that are 
important in a particular circumstance.

    Corporate assessments: A number of companies evaluate their raw 
material risks through assessments of materials criticality. For 
example, Ku and Hung (2014) describe General Electric's approach that, 
at the time, evaluated the materials used in its manufacturing and 
commercial operations, scoring each material in two dimensions: supply 
and price risk, and impact on General Electric operations.

    National or regional assessments: A number of countries or regions, 
other than the United States, have assessed the raw material risks 
faced by their economies or that threaten national security. Notably, 
the European Union assessed critical raw materials and published lists 
in 2011, 2014, 2017, 2020 and 2023 (European Commission, 2023). All 
these assessments are organized around two determinants of criticality: 
supply risk, and economic importance. Hatayama and Tahari (2015) 
evaluated critical minerals and materials from the perspective of 
Japan. Lusty and others (2021) assessed minerals and materials critical 
for technology applications in the United Kingdom (UK), based on two 
considerations: global supply risk, and UK economic vulnerability. The 
Indian Ministry of Mines (2023) identifies 30 minerals critical to 
India's economy.
    Nearly all assessments of critical minerals and materials, 
including the national assessments listed above, reflect the 
perspective of mineral and material consumers. However, two nations, 
Australia and Canada, have assessed critical minerals and established 
lists of critical minerals that reflect opportunities for these nations 
to produce and export minerals to customers in countries facing supply-
chain risks (Australian Government Department of Industry, Science and 
Resources 2023, Natural Resources Canada 2023).

    Energy-transitions assessments: The International Energy Agency 
(2021) and the International Renewable Energy Agency (Gielen 2021) 
published assessments of minerals essential for low-carbon energy 
technologies subject to supply-chain risks and uncertainties about 
long-term availability.

    World: For an evaluation of material criticality for the world as a 
whole, see Graedel and others (2015), which assesses criticality in 
three dimensions: supply risk, vulnerability to a supply restriction, 
and environmental implications of mineral and material production.
Comparing U.S. Assessments

    We in the United States have three current, public and published 
assessments and lists of critical minerals and materials: the U.S. 
Geological Survey 2022 list that is the focus of this hearing, the U.S. 
Department of Energy's 2023 assessment and list of critical materials 
for energy (U.S. Department of Energy 2023), and the Defense Logistics 
Agency's evaluation and list of strategic materials for military and 
essential civilian uses (see https://www.dla.mil/Strategic-Materials/). 
Table 1 presents a basic comparison of the U.S. Geological Survey and 
U.S. Department of Energy assessments and lists. Table 2 summarizes the 
lists emerging from these two assessments. I have not included the 
assessment of the Defense Logistics Agency because I am less familiar 
with this assessment than the other two assessments.

Table 1. Comparing Two U.S. Assessments and Lists of Critical Minerals 
                             and Materials

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                U.S. Geological Survey 2022  U.S. Geological Survey 2023
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Narrow         To comply with the Energy     To inform DOE strategy on
 purpose        Act of 2020, and more         critical minerals &
                broadly inform government     materials research,
                and the public about          development,
                critical minerals             demonstration, and
                                              commercialization
------------------------------------------------------------------------
What or who    U.S. national security and    The global development and
 is at risk     economic development          deployment of low-carbon
                                              energy technologies
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Material       70 nonfuel mineral            Screening analysis of 37
 scope          commodities (usually listed   materials, detailed
                as chemical elements)         evaluation of 23 materials
                                              with important uses in
                                              energy technologies
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Time frame     Not explicitly forward        Explicitly forward looking
                looking, except to the        (short term = 2020-2025,
                extent that data on the       medium term = 2025-2035)
                present and recent past
                provide insight into the
                future
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Key            Disruption potential          Importance to energy
 criticality    (essentially lack of          applications, supply risk
 indicators     diversity in supply),
                international trade
                exposure (net import
                dependence), and economic
                vulnerability aggregated
                into a single supply-risk
                score. A single point of
                failure.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Role of data,  Draft list relies to the      Relies on both (a)
 expert         extent possible on            objective data on the
 judgment,      objective data on the         present and recent past
 forecasts      present and recent past.      and (b) future demand
 and future     Final list also includes      scenarios compared to
 scenarios      consideration of              current production
                interagency feedback and      capacity. Preliminary list
                public comment.               of critical and near
                                              critical materials
                                              released for public
                                              comment prior to issuance
                                              of the final report.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of      50 critical minerals, 36 on   A number of critical
 minerals in    the basis of quantitative     materials for energy. For
 the list       assessment, 3 based on a      the short term (to 2025):
                single point of failure,      7 critical, 9 near
                and 11 based on qualitative   critical. For the medium
                assessment when               term (2025-2035): 13
                insufficient data were        critical, 6 near critical.
                available to allow for
                quantitative assessment.
------------------------------------------------------------------------


    Sources: Nassar, N.T., and Fortier, S.M., 2021. Methodology and 
technical input for the 2021 review and revision of the U.S. Critical 
Minerals List: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2021-1045, 31 
p., https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20211045; U.S. Department of Energy, 
Critical Materials Assessment, July 2023, available at: https://
www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2023-07/doe-critical-material-
assessment_07312023.pdf.

 Table 2. The Priorities Identified by the U.S. Geological Survey and 
                     the U.S. Department of Energy

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                   U.S. Department of Energy, 2023, Critical
                                     U.S. Geological Survey,    Materials for Energy, Near Critical or Critical
        Element or Material          2022, Critical Minerals ---------------------------------------------------
                                                               Short Term (2020-2025)    Medium Term (2025-2035)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aluminum                                                  X                                                   X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Antimony                                                  X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arsenic                                                   X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Barite                                                    X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Beryllium                                                 X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bismuth                                                   X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cerium                                                    X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cesium                                                    X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chromium                                                  X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cobalt                                                    X                         X                         X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copper                                                                                                        X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dysprosium                                                X                         X                         X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Electrical steel                                                                    X                         X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Erbium                                                    X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Europium                                                  X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fluorspar                                                 X              X (fluorine)              X (fluorine)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gadolinium                                                X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gallium                                                   X                         X                         X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Germanium                                                 X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Graphite                                                  X               X (natural)               X (natural)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hafnium                                                   X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Holmium                                                   X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Indium                                                    X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Iridium                                                   X                         X                         X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lanthanum                                                 X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lithium                                                   X                         X                         X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lutetium                                                  X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Magnesium                                                 X                         X                         X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Manganese                                                 X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neodymium                                                 X                         X                         X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nickel                                                    X                         X                         X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Niobium                                                   X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Palladium                                                 X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Platinum                                                  X                         X                         X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Praseodymium                                              X                         X                         X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rhodium                                                   X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rubidium                                                  X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ruthenium                                                 X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Samarium                                                  X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scandium                                                  X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Silicon                                                                                                       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Silicon carbide                                                                     X                         X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tantalum                                                  X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tellurium                                                 X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terbium                                                   X                         X                         X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thulium                                                   X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tin                                                       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Titanium                                                  X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tungsten                                                  X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Uranium                                                                             X                         X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vanadium                                                  X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ytterbium                                                 X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yttrium                                                   X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zinc                                                      X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


    Sources: U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior, 2022, 
``2022 Final List of Critical Minerals,'' Federal Register, 87 FR 
10381, pp.10381-10382. February 24; U.S. Department of Energy, Critical 
Materials Assessment, July 2023, available at: https://www.energy.gov/
sites/default/files/2023-07/doe-critical-material-
assessment_07312023.pdf.

    The U.S. Geological Survey list consists of 50 minerals that meet 
the threshold for designation as critical minerals. But this assessment 
presents much more detail than implied by the single list. Fifty-four 
minerals are ranked from most to least risky when sufficient data were 
available to allow for quantitative assessment. Eleven additional 
minerals were evaluated qualitatively. Three minerals were designated 
critical on the basis of a single point of failure in the domestic 
(U.S.) supply chain even though they did not qualify as critical on the 
basis of the quantitative assessment.

    The U.S. Department of Energy designates materials as critical, 
near critical and not critical and makes these determinations over two 
time periods--the short term (2020-2025) and the medium term (2025-
2035). A larger number of materials are critical or near critical for 
the medium term compared to the short term--19 for the medium term, 16 
for the short term. Aluminum, copper and silicon are critical or near 
critical in the medium term but not in the short term.

    Overall, the U.S. Geological Survey assessment is broad and U.S.-
centric, focusing on minerals important for U.S. national security and 
economic activity; and is based on data from the present and recent 
past, and thus is forward-looking only to the extent that these data 
provide insight into the future. The U.S. Department of Energy 
assessment is energy-centric and takes a global perspective, focusing 
on materials important for energy technologies, and is explicitly 
forward looking with perspectives on the short term (2020-2025) and 
medium term (2025-2035). Both assessments are described in sufficient 
detail that others can easily see the basis for a material's 
designation as critical. Others also could replicate the analysis or 
modify the approach if they wish.
Why Have a List?

    Broad considerations: An evaluation of mineral and material 
criticality can be indispensable in setting priorities and informing 
private-sector decisions and government policies. A list is simply the 
most basic of the outputs of an evaluation.
    A list is most useful when it is viewed as an intermediate product 
rather than the final word--the result of an initial screening and 
identification of minerals and materials deemed important for further, 
more-detailed evaluation.
    The danger of a simple list of minerals and materials as either 
critical or not critical is that it obscures the complexity of 
criticality, suggesting that criticality is ``yes/no'' rather than a 
continuum of risk and importance.
    The longer a list is, the less it represents a prioritization and 
the less useful the designation `critical' is. If everything is 
critical, then is anything really critical?
    The broader the scope of analysis is, the less useful it is for 
specific decisions and policies. A narrow focus, for example, on 
military preparedness or energy technologies is potentially more useful 
for policy making than an assessment and list based on all economic 
sectors of an economy, especially for a large economy such as the 
United States.

    The U.S. Geological Survey list: The list is long (50 minerals), 
and the scope is broad (national security, national economic activity). 
Thus, the primary uses of the list should be (1) to signal to 
government officials and the broader public that minerals are essential 
and subject to supply-chain risks and (2) to identify specific supply 
chains for further analysis. Designation as `critical' should not by 
itself qualify a mineral for special treatment, which should require 
this more in-depth analysis of particular supply chains.
    In other words, the U.S. Geological Survey list should inform but 
not determine public policy. A list should simply be one of several 
inputs to the formulation of public policy.

References

Australian Government Department of Industry, Science and Resources, 
2023. Critical Minerals Strategy 2023-2030. Available at: https://
www.industry.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-06/critical-minerals-
strategy-2023-2030.pdf.

European Commission, 2023. Study on the critical raw materials for the 
EU 2023--Final report. Directorate-General for Internal Market, 
Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs. M. Grohol and C. Veeh. 
Publications Office of the European Union. Available at: https://
data.europa.eu/doi/10.2873/725585.

Gielen, D., 2021. Critical materials for the energy transition, 
International Renewable Energy Agency. Available here: https://
www.irena.org/Technical-Papers/Critical-Materials-For-The-Energy-
Transition.

Graedel, T.E. and others, 2012. ``Methodology of Metal Criticality 
Determination,'' Environmental Science and Technology. DOI: https://
dx.doi.org/10.1021/es203534z.

Graedel, T.E. and others, 2015. ``Criticality of metals and 
metalloids,'' PNAS, vol. 112, no. 14, 4257-4262. DOI: www.pnas.org/cgi/
doi/10.1073/pnas.1500415112.

Hatayama, H. and K. Tahara, 2015. ``Criticality assessment of metals 
for Japan's resource strategy,'' Mater. Trans. 56, 229-235. DOI: 
https://doi.org/10.2320/matertrans.M2014380.

International Energy Agency, 2021 (revised corrected version, March 
2022). The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions. 
Available at: https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/ffd2a83b-8c30-
4e9d-980a-52b6d9a86fdc/TheRoleof 
CriticalMineralsinCleanEnergyTransitions.pdf.

Ku, A. and S. Hung, 2014. ``Manage Raw Material Supply Risks,'' Chem. 
Eng, Prog. 110, 28-35.

Lusty, P.A.J. and others, 2021. UK criticality assessment of technology 
critical minerals and metals. British Geological Survey Commissioned 
Report CR/21/120. Available at: https://www.bgs.ac.uk/download/uk-
criticality-assessment-of-technology-critical-minerals-and-metals/.

Ministry of Mines (India), 2023. Critical Minerals for India, Report of 
the Committee on Identification of Critical Minerals. Available at: 
https://mines.gov.in/admin/storage/app/uploads/
649d4212cceb01688027666.pdf.

Nassar, N.T., and Fortier, S.M., 2021. Methodology and technical input 
for the 2021 review and revision of the U.S. Critical Minerals List: 
U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2021-1045, 31 p., https://
doi.org/10.3133/ofr20211045.

National Research Council. 2008. Minerals, Critical Minerals, and the 
U.S. Economy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://
doi.org/10.17226/12034.

Natural Resources Canada, 2023. The Canadian Critical Minerals 
Strategy. Available at: https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/nrcan-rncan/
site/critical-minerals/Critical-minerals-strategyDec09.pdf.

Schrijvers, D., and others, 2020. ``A review of methods and data to 
determine raw material criticality,'' Resources, Conservation and 
Recycling. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.104617.

U.S. Department of Energy, Critical Materials Assessment, July 2023, 
available at: https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2023-07/doe-
critical-material-assessment_ 07312023.pdf.

U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior, 2022. ``2022 Final 
List of Critical Minerals,'' Federal Register, 87 FR 10381, pp.10381-
10382. February 24.

                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Stauber. Thank you, Dr. Eggert. I will now introduce 
our next witness, Dr. Dustin Mulvaney. Dr. Mulvaney is a 
professor at the Environmental Studies Department at San Jose 
State University in San Jose, California.
    Dr. Mulvaney, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF DUSTIN MULVANEY, PROFESSOR, ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES, 
        SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY, SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA

    Dr. Mulvaney. Greetings, Chairman Stauber, Ranking Member 
Ocasio-Cortez, and other members of the Subcommittee on Energy 
and Minerals. It is a great honor to be with you today. Thank 
you for the invitation, and special thanks to the Committee 
staff for all their work putting together this hearing.
    My name is Dustin Mulvaney. I am a Professor of 
Environmental Studies at San Jose State University and a fellow 
at the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School 
of Mines. This testimony reflects my views and expertise on the 
topics herein, and I am not speaking on behalf of my affiliated 
organizations or anyone but myself.
    The development and strengthening of supply chains to 
support metals, minerals, and materials that we will need for 
decarbonization, green infrastructures, transportation, health 
care, defense is of serious national importance. Supply chain 
disruptions from bottlenecks, geographic concentration, and 
trade restrictions in recent years have shown vulnerabilities 
to the economy and decarbonization efforts.
    The dependence on critical minerals of many key 
technologies to the U.S. economy makes securing adequate 
supplies crucial to the success of other important public 
policies, including the 2021 Inflation Reduction Act and the 
Energy Act of 2020, as well as efforts by states and local 
governments.
    The development of a critical minerals list is an excellent 
starting point for a conversation about how to develop clean 
energy supply chains responsibly, and to the highest possible 
labor and environmental standards. We need a framework also 
that brings together both new, responsible critical minerals 
development, but also one that emphasizes circular economy 
approaches that can augment supply significantly.
    To date, much of the conversation and public policy effort 
has focused on domestic mining. But recycling, alternative 
extraction techniques, resource efficiency, harvesting 
materials from waste streams offer significant promise for 
enhancing the nation's supply of critical minerals and 
lessening the risks and exposures to supply chain disruptions. 
These latter activities are more recently gaining attention and 
policy support, including from this Congress, which is welcome 
news to those of us who have been working on waste and 
recycling issues.
    While we cannot recycle or mine our way out of these 
challenges, we should be collecting as much of these critical 
materials from the waste stream as feasible. It seems 
profoundly wasteful that we would allow critical materials to 
be landfilled at the same time we talk about the dire economic 
and national security consequences of a lack of supply and 
promote greenfield mine development elsewhere. Today in the 
United States, less than 40 percent of copper is recycled, only 
5 percent of lithium is recycled. No gallium is recycled, and 
only small amounts of germanium are recovered and exported for 
recycling. These are lost resources that we should not be 
throwing away.
    I have several suggestions for areas in my experience and 
understanding that would result in helping make critical 
minerals supplies less vulnerable, while at the same time 
safeguarding environmental protection, cultural resources, and 
respecting Native American self-determination and sovereignty, 
and at the same time creating high-quality, high-road domestic 
jobs, and I detail these more in my written testimony.
    But to summarize, building a circular economy on critical 
minerals should: (1) promote more cradle-to-cradle approaches 
to the critical minerals challenge; (2) develop robust takeback 
and collection systems to enhance the prospects of recycling; 
(3) recover more critical materials from waste streams and 
increase resource efficiency; (4) advance materials science, 
input substitution, and alternatives to hardrock mining; (5) 
strengthen tribal consultation; (6) reform the 1872 Mining Law; 
(7) avoid unnecessary groundwater and ecological impacts; (8) 
strengthen environmental review; and (9) provide community 
benefits.
    Emphasizing these aspects will result in more secure 
critical mineral supplies, as well as more community acceptance 
of and consent to mining and extractive industry activities. 
Taken together, these suggestions will help get more public 
support for responsible natural resource development, product 
stewardship policies, public investments and innovations in 
materials science, increased resource efficiency, and better 
processing to augment supplies of critical minerals for the 
U.S. economy.
    Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today 
on these important matters.

    [The prepared statement of Dr. Mulvaney follows:]
    Prepared Statement of Dustin Mulvaney, Professor, Environmental 
                   Studies, San Jose State University

Introduction

    My name is Dustin Mulvaney and I am a Professor of Environmental 
Studies at San Jose State University, and a Fellow at the Payne 
Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines. This 
testimony reflects my views and expertise on the topics herein, and I 
am not speaking on behalf of my affiliated organizations or anyone but 
myself.
    My areas of expertise and research are on land use change, life 
cycle analysis, recycling & waste, and the environmental justice 
impacts of energy technologies, supply chains, and infrastructures. I 
have published research on numerous energy technologies with extensive 
emphasis on the life cycle impacts of solar photovoltaics and lithium-
ion batteries. I have a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies from the 
University of California, Santa Cruz, a Master's of Science degree in 
Environmental Policy Studies, and a Bachelor's of Science degree in 
Chemical Engineering, the latter two from the New Jersey Institute of 
Technology. My professional private sector experience includes work in 
chemical manufacturing, environmental remediation, and environmental 
consulting. I have been an expert witness at the California Public 
Utilities Commission for 13 years, and have participated in the 
development of waste, land use, and energy policy with California 
legislators, and state and county agencies over the past decade. I 
serve on the Technical Advisory Committee to the Recycling and Waste 
Reduction Commission of Santa Clara County, the Technical Committee for 
an Ultra-Low Carbon Solar Standard for photovoltaics recently developed 
by the Green Electronics Council, and am part of the Lithium Valley 
Equity Technical Advisory Group advising Comite Civico del Valle on 
issues related to the development of geothermal and lithium near the 
Salton Sea in Imperial County, California.
    Thank you for the opportunity to testify before this committee. 
Special thanks to the committee staff, and thank you for your attention 
to these important matters.
    The development and strengthening of supply chains to support 
metals, minerals, and materials that we will need for decarbonization, 
green infrastructures, transportation, healthcare, and defense is of 
serious national importance.
    Supply chain disruptions from bottlenecks, geographic 
concentration, and trade restrictions in recent years have shown 
vulnerabilities to the domestic economy and decarbonization efforts.
    The dependence on critical minerals of many key technologies to the 
U.S. economy make securing adequate supplies crucial to the success of 
other important public policies including the 2021 Inflation Reduction 
Act and the Energy Act of 2020, and well as efforts by states and local 
government. The development of a critical minerals list is an excellent 
starting point for a conversation about how to develop clean energy 
supply chains responsibly and to the highest possible labor and 
environmental standards. We need a framework that brings together both 
the need for new responsible critical minerals development, but also 
that emphasizes circular economy approaches that can augment critical 
mineral supplies significantly in the short term.
    To date, much of the conversation and public policy effort has 
focused solely on mining. But recycling, alternative extraction 
techniques, resource efficiency, and harvesting materials from waste 
streams offer significant promise for enhancing the nation's supply of 
critical minerals, and lessening the risks of and exposures to supply 
chain disruptions. These latter activities are more recently gaining 
attention and policy support, including from this Congress, which is 
welcome news to those of us that have long been working on waste and 
recycling issues.
    While we cannot recycle or mine our way out of these challenges, we 
should be collecting as much of these critical minerals in the waste 
stream as feasible. It seems profoundly wasteful that we would allow 
critical materials be landfilled at the same time we talk about the 
dire national security consequences of a lack of supply and promote 
greenfield mine development elsewhere.
    In the testimony that follows, I have several suggestions for areas 
that in my experience and understanding would result in helping make 
critical minerals supplies less vulnerable, while at the same time 
safeguarding environmental protection, cultural resources, respecting 
Native American self-determination and sovereignty, and creating 
quality high-road domestic jobs.
    Building a circular economy on critical minerals should (1) Promote 
more circular economy approaches to the critical minerals challenge, 
(2) Develop robust take back and collection systems and recycling, (3) 
Recover more critical minerals from waste and increase resource 
efficiency, (4) Advance materials science, input substitution, and 
alternatives to hard rock mining, (5) Strengthen Tribal consultation, 
and (6) Reform the 1872 mining law, (7) Avoid unnecessary groundwater 
and ecological impacts, (8) Strengthen environmental review, (9) 
Provide community benefits.
    Emphasizing these aspects will result in more secure critical 
minerals supplies as well more community acceptance of mining 
activities. Taken together these suggestions will help get more public 
support for responsible natural resource development, product 
stewardship policies, increased resource efficiency, and innovations in 
materials science and processing to augment supplies of critical 
minerals for the U.S. economy.
1. Promote more circular economy approaches to the critical minerals 
        challenge

    The National Academy of Sciences 2008 report recognized the need to 
analyze the risks posed by critical mineral supply chains for national 
security and domestic industries. The U.S. in 1973 was the top producer 
of non-fuel minerals, and that position 50 years later has been ceded 
largely overseas. The United States has recognized this in a series of 
public policies intended to strengthen the resilience of supply chains, 
which will have the added benefits of geographic diversification and 
reduced environmental impact.
    The idea of criticality as the United States Geologic Survey uses 
it involves understanding supply risks across three domains (1) how 
likely a disruption is to occur, (2) how exposed a supply chain is to 
disruption, and (3) whether the disruption can be overcome. Copper for 
example is sourced from a wide variety of places. This geographic 
diversity means that disruption due to anything from geopolitics to 
natural disaster, does not rise to the level of risk of say gallium or 
germanium, where over 90% of production is concentrated in one regional 
geography.
2. Develop robust take back and collection systems and recycling

    Despite concerns about the availability of copper and other metals, 
minerals, and materials, the federal government has no comprehensive 
electronics and electronical equipment waste take back and recovery 
law. This is missing opportunities to recover important inputs the 
United States economy will need from waste flows, and to avoid 
unnecessary mining. Recycling can significantly augment critical 
minerals supplies. Some estimates put these values at 25% for lithium, 
35% for cobalt and nickel and 55% for copper, based on projected demand 
and technology adoption scenarios. According to the Copper Alliance, 
less than 40% of global copper is currently recycled. According to 
research from Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation, two-
thirds of end-of-life copper are sent to landfills annually.
    Waste flows from end-of-life electronic products often have 
significantly more critical minerals by percent than the ores they are 
obtained from in mining. Rare earth elements in end-of-life electronics 
are mostly lost through waste flows in the United States. Less than 5% 
of rare earth elements globally are recycled according to the trade 
press Recycling International. Recycling consumer electronic products 
and utilizing byproducts of other materials processing could yield 
double to ten times the rare earth elements that could be extracted 
through processing the raw materials. Three to four times more 
dysprosium can be obtained from recycling headphones than from rare 
earth element ores. An iPhone touch screen has more lanthanum to make 
those bright colors, than is typically found in rare earth element 
ores. Similarly, there is a higher percent of neodymium obtained from 
recycling wind turbine magnets, than are found in those rare earth 
element ores. In an era of declining ore grades, these waste flows 
should be seen as resources to boost critical mineral supplies.
    Lithium-ion battery recycling rates are slowly ticking up, but 
still most collected at end-of-life are only recovered for copper, 
cobalt, nickel, graphite, and aluminum. We have not developed a lithium 
battery recycling ecosystem in the United States and as a result most 
lithium-ion batteries are sent to China, South Korea, and Europe for 
reprocessing into new feedstocks. This means not only are these places 
securing new supplies, they are developing the technologies to do so. 
Developing recycling infrastructure in the United States would allow 
battery recyclers to be suppliers of metal and minerals to materials 
refiners producing battery input precursors.
    Developing recycling programs for electronic waste will hasten 
United States innovation in this space and allow it to catch up with 
the rest of the world on recycling technology.
    Germanium and gallium were in the news last month (August 2023) as 
critical minerals that would be restricted from export by China. Yet we 
do very little recycling of LEDs, scrap materials, and everyday devices 
and appliances containing germanium- and gallium-based semiconductors 
including microwaves, blue ray players, and other electronic products 
that are often landfilled today. No gallium is recycled in the United 
States. Small amounts of germanium are recovered and exported for 
recycling.
    Tellurium is used in cadmium telluride photovoltaics and night 
vision goggles, and is 1000 times more rare than rare earths. Over 40% 
of the global tellurium supply goes to one photovoltaic supply chain. 
But tellurium also goes into steel dissipatively, meaning that the 
amount in the product is lower than that found in typical copper and 
gold ores where tellurium is obtained. Dissipative uses of critical 
metals typically means losing them to future products forever. More 
research into substitutes for materials used this way will free up 
existing supplies and encourage more recovery.
    Indium is a critical mineral used to make indium tin oxide, 
essential to the functioning flat-panel displays, mobile phones, 
photovoltaics, aerospace and other telecommunications applications 
because of its conductivity and transparency. The production of indium 
is mostly in China, and countries like Japan have secured supplies of 
indium from indium tin oxide scrap at electronic waste recovery 
facilities.
    Comprehensive electronic waste recycling rules can foster these 
emerging industries and technologies. Singapore created an extended 
producer responsibility law, and in 2021 opened its first battery 
recycling facility. Rules for end-of-life products can help ensure that 
emerging recyclers are recovering as much of the waste stream as 
possible. For these nascent recycling industries, getting waste volumes 
is critically important to economic viability and scale.
    A recent Wall Street Journal article about Redwood Materials noted 
that the company is now valued at $5 billion. Redwood Materials claims 
a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions using recycled cathode 
product as feedstock for new battery cathodes. These investments show 
that the battery recycling industry is ripe for growth and passing laws 
to encourage the take back and collection of batteries for recycling 
will only help these industries grow. American Battery Technology 
Company, Li-Cycle, and Ascend Elements are a few more companies in this 
space employing thousands of people and attracting private sector 
investment to recycling lithium ion batteries.
    The European Union's Battery Directive and battery passport system 
requires supply chain due diligence, has strong environmental 
protections, from sourcing through end-of-life. A similar policy in the 
United States could go a long way to utilizing recycling to augment 
supplies of critical minerals. Battery manufacturers in the United 
States currently fund a non-profit to do some collection, but it still 
only about 5% of lithium-ion batteries that are collected; in Europe 
this number is closer to 40%.
    PV Cycle has developed take back and recycling infrastructure for 
photovoltaics since 2007 and in Europe over 95% of photovoltaics are 
recycled, compared to less the 5% in the United States. This is because 
of the Waste Electronics and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) Directive 
promotes cradle-to-cradle materials handling and added photovoltaics to 
mandatory take back and recycling policy in 2014. The United States on 
the other hand, uses only a cradle-to-grave approach to materials 
management, only managing the most hazardous of electronics products. 
With the few photovoltaics collected in the United States today, very 
little silver, an element considered by not listed currently as a 
critical mineral, is recovered as the modules are mainly used as 
smelter flux and those smelters are not designed to recover silver. The 
solar industry uses over 10% of the global silver supply for 
metallization pastes.
    The Green Electronics Council has developed an Electronic Product 
Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) to leverage procurement in 
raising the environmental standards of photovoltaics, which supports 
companies with comprehensive take back and recycling programs. Federal 
government procurement could further help develop these programs as 
described by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: ``EPA recommends 
the following private sector standards/ecolabels be used when 
purchasing photovoltaic modules and inverters or energy savings 
performance contracts or power purchase agreements.'' \1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ https://www.epa.gov/greenerproducts/photovoltaic-modules-and-
inverters
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    It seems imprudent to be letting critical minerals go to landfill 
or dissipative uses. We need to build the infrastructures for a 
circular economy in--not just critical minerals--but all metals and 
mineral flows that are practicable. One way to bring value to waste is 
to not let it be landfilled or disposed of for free. Extended producer 
responsibility and other product stewardship laws and programs can 
ensure that materials are diverted from landfill where it will never 
return to products.
3. Recover more critical minerals from waste and increase resource 
        efficiency

    Waste is an important resource for critical metals. With over 
400,000 to 500,000 abandoned mines in the United States, according the 
several estimates, policies and practices that encourage waste and 
``tailings valorization'' is another strategy to augment critical 
mineral supplies. There are also opportunities to recover these 
materials from coal ash, red mud, slag piles, mine tailings, and other 
wastes. Recovery of critical minerals from mine waste particularly 
looks promising in environmental remediation, where work to process 
materials may be underway anyways for cleanup.
    Environmental remediation can be expensive, which is why it is 
important to modernize our mining laws, payments, and royalty programs. 
Effective reforms could raise revenues to clean up legacy mine waste 
and further augment needed supplies of critical minerals. Some 
materials recovery may require novel processing that needs more 
research and development support. Abandoned mine lands sites in 
particular provide an opportunity to augment critical mineral supplies, 
while cleaning up and remediating legacy pollution from past mining 
activities. Unfortunately there has been a historic lack of interest 
for among other reasons, there is little information about the 
composition and potential value of most of these legacy wastes.
    Materials recovery in mining and downstream processing is optimized 
for profitability not maximizing materials or biproducts. More 
incentives to develop biproducts, recover materials at smelters, or 
increase recovery rates could help drive up recycling of materials. 
Smelters in the United States are not designed to recover many critical 
minerals. For example, there are no smelters that can recover cobalt in 
the United States.
    There are also excellent examples of resource efficiency avoiding 
significant amounts of materials. A photovoltaic module today, thanks 
to increased resource efficiencies, uses about five times less silver 
than a photovoltaic module today. Similar, semiconductor wafers in the 
same technology are two to three times thinner than just a decade ago. 
This has translated to lower energy inputs and silicon feedstocks 
needed for the solar industry.
    There are other ways to increase resource efficiency across society 
as well. In a recent report from the Climate and Community Project they 
found up to 90% of lithium demand can be reduced by encouraging public 
transportation and more lightweight electric vehicles and other modes 
of transportation.
4. Advance materials science, input substitution, and alternatives to 
        hard rock mining

    It is fundamentally important to emphasize incentives and policy 
that develops substitutes and alternatives to critical minerals as 
sustainable ways to secure domestic supplies. This would help mitigate 
extensive impacts from extractive industries, which can be poorly 
regulated and environmentally-damaging.
    The critical mineral of concern a few years ago for lithium-ion 
batteries was cobalt. In a few short years, projections for use of 
cobalt--75% of which according to Benchmark Minerals currently goes to 
making lithium-ion batteries--has fallen dramatically with lowering of 
cobalt content and advances non-cobalt batteries. Companies concerned 
about bottlenecks and reputational risks have begun to eschew cobalt 
supply chains. We are already seeing companies move away from nickel 
and manganese as well in next generation in lithium iron phosphate 
batteries.
    These shifts in technology are sometimes beyond the horizon. We do 
not necessarily know the battery chemistries and composition of 
tomorrow's lithium-ion batteries, how do we know which materials to 
prioritize for development today?
    The next generation batteries may have no lithium at all. We are 
also seeing the development of non-lithium batteries. One of the 
largest battery makers in the world BYD announced in August 2023 a 
partnership to build sodium-ion batteries and has plans to put in their 
popular and inexpensive Seagull electric vehicle. It is not clear how 
widespread this technology will eventually be, but it is a perfect of 
example of how materials demand can change in a short time.
    Not far off in the future, we are likely to see batteries that 
altogether avoid graphite, currently used as the anode in 95% of 
lithium-ion batteries today, as well.
    We are also using many of these critical minerals in ways that make 
it difficult or expensive to recover germanium and gallium for example 
often are alloyed in a way that complicates recovery. Use of critical 
minerals in low concentrations in alloys like this is another area 
where research into substitutes could allow more minerals to be 
available for green infrastructures.
    Supply chain diversification also means supporting alternative 
mining methods. While might be too early to characterize environmental 
impacts, the prospects of direct lithium extraction seems to offer 
significant benefits over hard rock mining for lithium.
5. Strengthen Tribal consultation

    The energy transition is likely to be significantly impactful to 
Native American tribes. Most mining activity in the United States is in 
the American West, and within close proximity to Native American 
communities. 79% of lithium mining claims, 89% of copper, and 97% of 
nickel deposits are within 35 miles of a Native American reservation. 
Furthermore, the Bureau of Land Management has an obligation to conduct 
prior consultation on projects proposed across public lands because of 
important sacred sites off-reservation on their ancestral territories.
    Mining activities puts both drinking water, cultural resources at 
risk, making it of the utmost importance to ensure community acceptance 
and respect for tribal sovereignty and cultural resources. I have read 
many public comments and spoken with representatives from Tribes over 
the years in my research and it is not uncommon to hear that the 
federal consultation process for National Historic Preservation Act to 
take one example is ``failing tribes'' on adequate and meaningful 
consultation.
    Instead of looking for ways to short circuit environmental and 
cultural resource review--by undermining nation-to-nation consultation 
or expediting review--the United States should strengthen Tribal 
consultation in the National Environmental Policy Act around the ideas 
of self-determination and ``Free, Prior and Informed Consent'' as 
described by International Labour Organization's Convention number 169, 
the United Nation Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 
There is often emphasis on how the United States' mining practices are 
the best in the world because they have the strongest global 
regulations. But the issue of Tribal consultation needs significant 
improvement to catch up with international norms and standards on 
relations between mining activities and Indigenous peoples.
6. Reform the 1872 mining law

    The 1872 mining law makes mining the highest and best use of public 
lands and reflects a time long since passed. The exploratory claims-
based system is outdated, with most other parts of the world having 
lease-based systems that are more competitive and result in better 
decision-making on land uses.
    Reform to the royalty system would benefit taxpayers, given there 
are no royalties for hard rock mining under the law today. Reform of 
the royalty program could raise substantial revenues to help finance 
the clean up and remediation of legacy mine pollution.
    Mining law needs a better plan to pay for remediation of old mines. 
The 1872 mining law set the bar too low for bonding mine sites for 
reclamation and cleanup. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) 
estimates that federal agencies spent $2.9 billion in the decade from 
2008 to 2017 on cleanup activities, and this could cost taxpayers up to 
$54 billion to clean up the nation's 400,000 to 500,000 abandoned mine 
sites that pose hazardous threats to communities.
    The Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) could be a 
model for reforming the 1872 law. IRMA allows for independent audits of 
mines to ensure environmental and social performance. Even the White 
House refereed to IMRA as a ``method for U.S. companies and the Federal 
Government to ensure that minerals are being sourced from mines with 
robust environmental, social, and financial responsibility policies.'' 
\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ The White House, Building Resilient Supply Chains, Revitalizing 
American Manufacturing, and Fostering Broad-Based Growth: 100-Day 
Reviews Under Executive Order 14017, June 2021, https://
www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/100-day-supply-chain-
review-report.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The 1872 law was intended for settler colonialism on the western 
frontier not for mining in a modern high-tech economy. Federal and 
public lands should not be new sacrifice zones for decarbonization. 
Without key reforms, the antiquated mining law will continue to cause 
unnecessary environmental degradation and environmental inequality.
7. Avoid unnecessary groundwater and ecological impacts

    The impacts of mining to water resources and riparian habitat 
across the United States cannot be understated. According to an 
analysis from Trout Unlimited, ``half of the known critical mineral 
deposits in the U.S. are within trout and salmon habitat, and one in 
ten deposits are in protected public land areas like wilderness.'' \3\ 
The same report notes that many critical minerals overlap with sage 
grouse habitat and major big game wildlife corridors. Rhyolite Ridge is 
a lithium mining project proposed by an Australian mining company that 
will impact Tiehm's buckwheat (Eriogonum tiehmii), a species that only 
exists on that particular site.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ https://www.tu.org/cmr-a-path-forward/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Across the American West, impacts to groundwater are of particular 
concern. Groundwater depletion can easily occur from over-pumping. The 
recently permitted Thacker Pass mine will use 2,500 acre feet per year 
for 41 years, which is about 104,000 acre-feet of water total, posing 
threat to the Kings River aquifer. There are several new gold mines 
under development and proposed in Nevada not far from Death Valley 
National Park, that are using substantial amounts of water, including 
one mining operation that will use water from a spring in the park, 
which receives about two inches of rain per year.
    In Amargosa Valley near the Ash Meadows reserve, an exploratory 
lithium development project was almost allowed under that 1872 law to 
drill 30 boreholes without any environmental review, within 2,000 feet 
of springs that are critical habitat for the endangered Ash Meadows 
Amargosa pupfish. If not for the community and an environmental group 
recognizing the BLM mistake, this critical habitat could have been 
comprised by a speculative venture.
    As far as alternative extraction techniques go, we also at this 
point do not have the full picture of the groundwater impacts from 
Direct Lithium Extraction for example in the Salton Sea area, where 
several pilot projects are underway.
    Public policy efforts to develop critical minerals should do so 
responsibly and should not undermine bedrock environmental laws. 
Predictability to developers is often the emphasis when describing 
environmental oversight, but predictability is also important to 
environmental groups and tribes to know what land is protected, and 
that there are community safeguards like strong environmental rules and 
opportunities for public participation.
8. Strengthen environmental review

    The need to prioritize development of domestic minerals supplies 
should not undermine meaningful environmental review. In my experience, 
conservation groups, Indigenous peoples, and local communities feel 
that environmental review, even where an environmental impact statement 
might be required, is a foregone conclusion. Many communities view the 
NEPA process as a ``decide-announce-defend'' development strategy where 
developers and investors decide where they want to propose a project, 
announce it to the public, and then spend the review process defending 
the project.
    Instead, more collaborative approaches are shown to be effective at 
gaining community support and trust. Transparent and meaningful public 
participation processes should result in responsible mine development 
and reduced community opposition to new mines.
    It is often claimed that it takes 7 to 10 years or more to permit a 
new mine. The reality is the time to permit a hard rock mine is two 
years according to the GAO. The GAO did find variation with some mines 
taking up to eleven years, but their interviews with agencies and mine 
operators found delays were overwhelming caused by the applicant. More 
broadly, another GAO report found only 1% of NEPA covered projects need 
an Environmental Impact Statement. Only 5% of covered projects require 
an Environmental Assessment, a shorter environmental disclosure 
document that typically is completed in nine months or so.
    There have been recent changes that promise to address any 
lingering NEPA issues. The IRA made the FAST-41 Act permanent, extended 
the provisions of the law to mining, and provided significant funding 
for agencies to process permits.
    Thacker pass for example initiated the NEPA process in 2020 shortly 
after they submitted an operating plan to the BLM and is under 
construction today, despite being incredibly controversial.
    To build infrastructure projects getting community support in a 
collaborative way is important. Finding a way to get communities, NGOs, 
and Tribes involved from the start can help ensure the community 
accepts and gives consent to the project, an makes it more likely 
benefits from the project recirculate in the community.
    Some are concerned that the funding available through the IRA will 
be undermined by environmental review and make it difficult to spend 
all of the money. Lessons from the American Recovery and Reinvestment 
Act projects are a great example of how projects can be built on time. 
None of the $90 billion in clean energy projects missed deadlines 
because of environmental review. This includes large scale solar and 
wind facilities, a nuclear power plant, and photovoltaic, electric 
vehicle, and battery manufacturing plants. Concerns that IRA projects 
will be stopped by environmental review are overblown.
9. Provide community benefits

    Where mines will be developed, bringing community benefits to the 
table will be important tools for public support, buy-in, and trust. 
Furthermore, to reap more community benefits, more value added 
industries to support the development of critical minerals supplies can 
ensure more jobs and local revenues are generated. Mining tends to have 
a very low value added without these downstream manufacturing 
activities.
    Community benefits should be broadly construed to benefit as many 
as possible. The widely celebrated community benefits agreement between 
Lithium Americas and Thacker Pass and the Fort McDermitt Paiute and 
Shoshone Tribe is a one example worth looking at closely. While 
benefits accrue to some communities from this project, other tribes 
with ancestral claims to the landscape such as the People of Red 
Mountain feel their voices were not acknowledged and will receive no 
benefits.

    Other examples that could be a model for how to build in community 
benefits is the approach used in the Salton Sea and suggested by the 
Blue Ribbon Commission on Lithium Extraction in California. That 
process is early on, but will be worth watching closely.

    Community benefits will help gain local acceptance and 
collaboration with project development.
Conclusion

    To conclude, securing supplies of critical minerals is essential to 
national security, domestic industries, and decarbonization efforts. 
More emphasis on diverting waste flows that contain critical minerals 
from landfills to supply chains will encourage a circular economy in 
materials that results in less waste, fewer greenhouse gas emissions, 
the development of domestic industries, and the reduction of risks and 
exposures to vulnerabilities in global supply chains.
    We need to move beyond the ``take-make-waste'' cradle-to-grave 
management approach to critical minerals and create a circular economy 
based on practices and policies to encourage us to ``make-use-recycle'' 
in a cradle-to-cradle framework.
    I appreciate this opportunity to offer these remarks and I look 
forward to the oversight hearing.

                                 ______
                                 

   Questions Submitted for the Record to Dustin Mulvaney, Professor, 
            Environmental Studies, San Jose State University

             Questions Submitted by Representative Grijalva

    Question 1. Is recycling critical minerals a net energy winner or 
loser? In other words, does it take more energy to mine a critical 
material and turn it into a product, or to recycle a critical material 
for the same product? What are the environmental benefits of using 
recycled materials, and can you share any examples?

    Answer. Recycling metals to recover critical minerals is nearly 
always a net energy winner. It takes far less energy to recover metals 
from recycled electronic and electrical equipment waste than the energy 
required to liberate metals from ores and brines. Some metals that have 
very high rates of recycling because it is not only energy saving, but 
it is highly economic. This is because some waste materials have very 
high concentrations of metals, much higher than one can find in ores, 
brines, or other natural resources.

    The exception to this rule is when metals are used dissipatively, 
in lower concentrations than found in ores. Steel for example uses very 
low quantities of tellurium and aluminum and recovering such low 
concentrations requires correspondingly more energy. This is what I 
emphasized in my original testimony innovations in materials science to 
replace materials used dissipatively which if substituted can be found 
can augment critical minerals supplies. Some screenings of critical 
metals have found that most have dissipative use rates over 50%, which 
is consistently much higher than other metals. But to the main 
question, there is extensive research documenting the high energy 
savings associated with recovering and recycling metals. Recycling and 
other waste recovery efforts help bring a life cycle approach to the 
critical minerals challenge.

    Many end-of-life items that are recycled at high rates include 
automobiles, where steel where over 90% of steel is recovered and made 
into new steel. A report from McKinsey suggests that a battery made of 
recycled metals has four times fewer energy requirements than a battery 
made from virgin natural resources (McKinsey 2023). Another example is 
aluminum, which is also recycled at high rates because of relatively 
low energy requirements than recovery of bauxite. Recycling these 
metals can result in the avoidance of up to 90% of the energy used to 
produce these material from natural resources. The reason these 
materials go uncollected is the lack of rules and regulations that 
require their recovery and collection. According to a 2022 GAO report, 
``DOE officials stated that most critical minerals, such as rare earth 
elements (REE), are not collected for recycling on a large scale, in 
part because of variations in recycling programs'' (p 16, GAO 2022). 
``Moreover, according to an EPA report, U.S. recyclable collection 
infrastructure is outdated.'' (p. 17, GAO, 2022).

    Question 2. Could you expand upon the social and economic benefits 
of developing circular economy approaches to mitigating critical 
minerals supply chain risks?

    Answer. The social and economic benefits of developing a circular 
economy for critical minerals supplies are manyfold. Critical area that 
would benefit from expanded recycling and collection systems for 
materials include job creation, infrastructure investments, and 
workforce development. Developing a value chain for various critical 
metals here in the United States can help buffer supplies that might be 
vulnerable to disruption. Developing leadership in this space could 
result in valuable industry as the value of battery recycling alone is 
poised to be over $95 billion per year by 2040 (McKinsey 2023).

    Question 3. Please expand on the community and environmental 
benefits of reforming the Mining Law of 1872, and why these reforms are 
needed to build a sustainable domestic supply chain for critical 
minerals and materials.

    Answer. The interagency working group report on Responsible Mining 
on Public Lands identified over sixty actions that can help create 
better predictability for environmental groups, Tribes, and mining 
companies. Reforming the 1872 mining law according the report and other 
experts suggest that community benefits from these reforms come in a 
variety of forms including more certainty, accountability, and 
stakeholder perspectives that result in better project outcomes.

    Question 4. How should Tribal consultation, cultural heritage, 
water supplies, and endangered species factor into mine permitting?

    Answer. Water supplies particularly across the American West's 
public lands system are critical to thriving communities and 
ecosystems. Given the extensive legacy contamination of water it is 
critical that new mine permitting processes take water concerns 
seriously and ensure that there are revenues set aside to clean up 
potential groundwater contamination during operations through mine 
closure and reclamation. Ongoing regional droughts across the west mean 
that its important to ensure that groundwater and surface waters are 
not over drafted for mining activities.

    Tribal consultation is often described as failing Tribes. It is 
important that Tribes are consider more than merely stakeholders or 
members of the public but as sovereign nations with important expertise 
on cultural resources. We need to collectively do more to center Tribal 
voices in mining permitting decisions because often these perspectives 
are in strong alignment with sustainable land use stewardship and 
protecting cultural heritage and endangered species.

References

Damgaard, A., Larsen, A.W., & Christensen, T.H. (2009). Recycling of 
metals: accounting of greenhouse gases and global warming 
contributions. Waste Management & Research, 27(8), 773-780. https://
doi.org/10.1177/0734242X09346838

Government Accountability Office, 2022. Critical Minerals Building on 
Federal Efforts to Advance Recovery and Substitution Could Help Address 
Supply Risks. 2022-06-01. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-104824

Interagency Working Group. 2023. Recommendations to Improve Mining on 
Public Lands. https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/biden-harris-
administration-report-outlines-reforms-needed-promote-responsible-
mining

McKinsey, 2023. Battery recycling takes the driver's seat. March 13, 
2023. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/our-
insights/battery-recycling-takes-the-drivers-seat

                                 ______
                                 

    Mr. Stauber. Thank you for your testimony. I will now yield 
to Representative Curtis to introduce our final witness.

    Mr. Curtis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is my honor to 
introduce Mr. Brian Somers. I am grateful that we had the 
opportunity to invite him here. Brian has been the President of 
the Utah Mining Association, or UMA, since 2019.
    UMA works tirelessly to ensure that the country has a 
stable supply of minerals for the United States to lead 
globally in energy and other industries.
    Brian, it is a delight to have you with us. Thanks for 
traveling to Washington, DC.

STATEMENT OF BRIAN SOMERS, PRESIDENT, UTAH MINING ASSOCIATION, 
                      SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH

    Mr. Somers. Thank you for that kind introduction, 
Congressman, and good morning to Chairman Stauber, and Ranking 
Member Ocasio-Cortez, and other members of the Committee. I 
appreciate the invitation to testify in today's hearing. My 
name is Brian Somers, and I am the President of the Utah Mining 
Association, or UMA.
    UMA was founded in 1915 and represents Utah's hardrock, 
coal, and industrial mineral mine operators and related support 
industries. UMA also works closely with the National Mining 
Association and other state and regional industry groups. UMA's 
mission is to advocate on behalf of Utah's mining industry, its 
workers, and the communities they support.
    Mining is a critical industry in Utah, contributing $7.7 
billion to the state's GDP, supporting nearly 57,000 direct and 
indirect jobs, and powering Utah's broader economy by producing 
the coal which provides 62 percent of Utah's low-priced 
electricity. Mining jobs in Utah are family and community-
sustaining jobs, with mining salaries averaging 46 percent more 
than the average Utah wage.
    Since Utah's first commercial mining district was 
established in 1863, 33 years before Utah became a state, 
Utah's mining industry has labored diligently to develop Utah's 
vast mineral wealth and provide the mined commodities markets 
demand. I believe the fundamental reason a hearing like this, a 
discussion about how and why particular minerals have been 
deemed critical is even necessary, is due to interference by 
bad actors like China who seek to distort and control commodity 
markets, and by misguided regulatory burdens, policy decisions, 
and investment signals by the Federal Government.
    A recent report entitled, ``Critical Minerals of Utah'' 
released by the Utah Geological Survey states, ``The concept of 
critical minerals is not new. And in the United States, various 
lists of commodities and definitions of what qualifies as 
critical have been developed since the early 1900s.''
    Again, the fact that a hearing like today's is still 
necessary more than 100 years on is prima facie evidence that 
making lists, however methodologically sound, is not as useful 
as letting the diverse demands of free markets, environmental 
responsibility, operational efficiency, technological 
innovation, economic security, and national security determine 
which minerals are critical at any given time.
    More simply, perhaps we could adopt the definition of 
criticality put forth by our friends at the National Mining 
Association, which is that minerals that are unavailable when 
we need them should be considered critical.
    Utah provides an example of how, as NMA presciently 
observed in a comment letter on the original critical minerals 
list, ``World events can redefine criticality in an amazingly 
short period of time.''
    A 2020 report from the Utah Geological Survey stated that 
Utah hosts 28 of the 35 minerals on the original critical 
minerals list, and had active production of 8 of them. When the 
U.S. Geological Survey released the revised critical minerals 
list in 2022, 4 of those 8 critical minerals Utah was producing 
were removed from the list: uranium, potash, helium, and 
rhenium.
    Just 2 days before the revised critical minerals list was 
published in the Federal Register, Russia invaded Ukraine. In 
the aftermath of the invasion, global prices for uranium spiked 
and remained at near-record highs as alternatives to uranium 
supplied by Russia and Russian-aligned countries are explored, 
especially in light of the greatly diminished capacity of the 
United States' once thriving uranium mining, milling, and 
enrichment industries. Prices for potash also spiked after the 
invasion and have remained high, given that Russia and Belarus 
account for 41 percent of global trade in potash, with 
resulting negative effects on food supply and prices.
    Ongoing shortages and high prices for helium also continue, 
putting further strains on the global semiconductor shortage 
which began during the COVID pandemic, as semiconductor 
manufacturing constitutes the second largest use of helium 
worldwide.
    Almost in real time, world events was highlighting the 
criticality of uranium and potash and helium as the USGS was 
downgrading their critical status.
    I should also note that Utah is home to the nation's last 
functioning conventional uranium mill in Mr. Curtis' district 
and is also the only state in the Union which produces the 
higher-value sulfate of potash, or SOP, which made the 
exclusion of uranium and potash in the revised critical 
minerals list especially puzzling to Utahns.
    There are many other concerns and inconsistencies related 
to the Federal Government's designation of critical minerals 
and its management of the nation's mineral estate, which I hope 
we can discuss today. These include competing Federal mineral 
and material criticality assessments, such as the Department of 
Energy's critical materials list and the Defense Logistics 
Agency's National Defense Stockpile; the accelerated withdrawal 
of public lands from mineral production during the Biden 
administration; implications of the fact that many minerals 
designated as critical are collocated and produced with other 
minerals which may not share a criticality designation; the 
severe diminishment of domestic mineral processing, smelting, 
refining, and other beneficiation capacity over the last few 
decades; and the Federal Government's Byzantine and burdensome 
permitting processes which are far outside the norm of other 
allied countries with similar labor and environmental 
protections, and which discouraged capital investment.
    Again, I urge the Committee to consider the idea that any 
minerals that are unavailable when we need them should be 
considered critical. There are far too many minerals which are 
unnecessarily unavailable and constrained because we have 
neglected our nation's vast mineral resources, our highly 
trained mining workforce, and our unrivaled capacity for 
innovation. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Somers follows:]
 Prepared Statement of Brian Somers, President, Utah Mining Association

    Good morning, Chairman Stauber and members of the Committee. I 
appreciate the invitation to testify in today's hearing. My name is 
Brian Somers and I am the president of the Utah Mining Association 
(UMA). UMA was founded in 1915 and represents Utah's hardrock, coal, 
and industrial mineral mine operators and related support industries. 
UMA also works closely with the National Mining Association and other 
state and regional industry groups.
    UMA's mission is to advocate on behalf of Utah's mining industry, 
its workers, and the communities they support. Mining is a critical 
industry in Utah, contributing $7.7 billion to the state's GDP, 
supporting nearly 57,000 direct and indirect jobs,\1\ and powering 
Utah's broader economy by producing the coal which provides 62% of 
Utah's low-priced electricity.\2\ Mining jobs in Utah are family- and 
community-sustaining jobs with mining salaries averaging 46% more than 
the average Utah wage.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ McCarty, T.J., Wang, Z., Kim, M., and Evans, J., 2022, The 
economic contribution of Utah's energy and mining industries: Utah 
Geological Survey Miscellaneous Publication 176, 12 p., 4 appendices, 
https://doi.org/10.34191/MP-176
    \2\ https://www.nei.org/resources/statistics/state-electricity-
generation-fuel-shares
    \3\ https://jobs.utah.gov/jsp/utalmis/#/industry/list
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Since Utah's first commercial mining district was established in 
1863--33 years before Utah became a state--Utah's mining industry has 
labored diligently to develop Utah's vast mineral wealth and provide 
the mined commodities markets demand. I believe the fundamental reason 
a hearing like this--a discussion about how and why particular minerals 
have been deemed ``critical''--is even necessary is due to interference 
by bad actors like China who seek to distort and control commodity 
markets, and by misguided regulatory burdens, policy decisions, and 
investment signals by the federal government.
    A recent report entitled ``Critical Minerals of Utah'' released by 
the Utah Geological Survey states, ``The concept of critical minerals 
is not new, and in the United States various lists of commodities and 
definitions of what qualifies as critical have been developed since the 
early 1900s.'' \4\ Again, the fact that a hearing like today's is still 
necessary more than 100 years on is prima facie evidence that making 
lists--however methodologically sound--is not as useful as letting the 
diverse demands of free markets, environmental responsibility, 
operational efficiency, technological innovation, economic security, 
and national security determine which minerals are ``critical'' at any 
given time.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ Mills, S.E., and Rupke, A., 2023, Critical minerals of Utah, 
second edition: Utah Geological Survey Circular 135, 47 p., https://
doi.org/10.34191/C-135.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    More simply, perhaps we could adopt the definition of criticality 
put forth by our friends at the National Mining Association (NMA), 
which is that, ``. . . minerals that unavailable when we need them 
should be considered critical.'' \5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ Sweeney, Katie. National Mining Association letter to Secretary 
of the Interior Ryan Zinke. 19 March 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Utah provides an example of how, as NMA presciently observed in a 
comment letter on the original critical minerals list, ``World events 
can redefine criticality in an amazingly short period of time.'' \6\ A 
2020 report from the Utah Geological Survey stated that Utah hosts 28 
of the 35 minerals on the original critical minerals list and had 
active production of eight of them.\7\ When the U.S. Geological Survey 
(USGS) released the revised critical minerals list in 2022, four of the 
eight critical minerals Utah was producing were removed from the list: 
uranium, potash, helium, and rhenium.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ ibid.
    \7\ Mills, S.E. and Rupke, A., 2020, Critical minerals of Utah: 
Utah Geological Survey Circular 129, 49 p., https://doi.org/10.34191/C-
129. The report notes that uranium was not produced from ores mined 
directly in Utah--despite proven reserves and significant historical 
production--but from the extraction of uranium from alternate feeds 
from out-of-state sources which were processed at the White Mesa 
uranium mill in Blanding, Utah.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Just two days before the revised critical minerals list was 
published in the Federal Register, Russia invaded Ukraine. In the 
aftermath of the invasion, global prices for uranium spiked and remain 
at near-record highs \8\ as alternatives to uranium supplied by Russia 
and Russian-aligned countries are explored, especially in light of the 
greatly diminished capacity of the U.S.' once thriving uranium mining, 
milling, and enrichment industries. Prices for potash also spiked after 
the invasion and have remained high given that Russia and Belarus 
account for 41% of global trade in potash,\9\ with resulting negative 
effects on food supply and prices. Ongoing shortages and high prices 
for helium also continue, putting further strains on the global 
semiconductor shortage which began during the Covid pandemic as 
semiconductor manufacturing constitutes the second-largest use of 
helium worldwide.\10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \8\ https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/uraniumhttps://
tradingeconomics.com/commodity/uranium
    \9\ https://www.ifpri.org/blog/russia-ukraine-war-after-year-
impacts-fertilizer-production-prices-and-trade-flows
    \10\ https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/76/9/18/2908156/
Helium-prices-surge-to-record-levels-as-shortage
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Almost in real-time, world events were highlighting the criticality 
of uranium, potash, and helium as the USGS was downgrading their 
critical status. I should also note that Utah is home to the nation's 
last functioning conventional uranium mill and is the only state in the 
union which produces the higher-value sulphate of potash or SOP,\11\ 
which made the exclusion of uranium and potash from the revised 
critical minerals list especially puzzling to Utahns.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \11\ Rupke, A., Mills, S.E., Vanden Berg, M.D., and Boden, T., 
2023, Utah mining 2022--metals, industrial minerals, uranium, coal, and 
unconventional fuels: Utah Geological Survey Circular 136, 32 p., 
https://doi.org/10.34191/C-136.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    There are many other concerns and inconsistencies related to 
federal government's designation of critical minerals and its 
management of the nation's mineral estate which I hope we can discuss 
during committee questions. These include: Competing federal mineral 
and material criticality assessments such as the Department of Energy's 
Critical Materials List and the Defense Logistics Agency's National 
Defense Stockpile; the accelerated withdrawal of public lands from 
mineral production during the Biden administration; implications of the 
fact that many minerals designated as critical are co-located and 
produced with other minerals which may not share a criticality 
designation; the severe diminishment of domestic mineral processing, 
smelting, refining, and other beneficiation capacity over the last few 
decades; and the federal government's byzantine and burdensome 
permitting processes which are far outside the norm of other allied 
countries with similar environmental and labor standards and which 
discourage capital investment.
    Again, I urge the committee to consider the idea that any minerals 
that are unavailable when we need them should be considered critical. 
There are far too many minerals which are unnecessarily unavailable or 
constrained because we have neglected our nation's vast mineral 
resources, our highly trained mining workforce, and our unrivaled 
capacity for innovation.
    Thank you, again, for the opportunity to testify, and I look 
forward to answering any questions.

                                 ______
                                 

    Mr. Stauber. Thank you, Mr. Somers, and it is great to see 
you again. Visiting Kennecott Mine was very, very impressive 
and very informational for us. Thank you.
    I am now going to recognize Members for 5 minutes of 
questions, and I am going to recognize myself first.
    Dr. Nassar, I would like to ask you about the forecasting 
abilities of USGS. I understand that today you analyze risks 
for a given mineral using current supply and demand data only, 
but do not use forecasting to analyze how risks may change in 
the next few years. How does your current structure address 
mineral commodities that are predicted by multiple reports and 
models to have extremely high demand in the future?
    Dr. Nassar. Chairman, thank you for that question. You are 
correct. Our analysis looks at contemporary data regarding 
current production and demand. But as we have seen recently, 
our analysis has predictive power, as in the case of gallium.
    And, indeed, our analysis that we started with the National 
Science Technology Subcommittee on Critical Minerals in a 
report that we did back in 2016 highlighted that we could have, 
using the same indicators, identified that rare earths would 
have been a problem as early as 2001 and cobalt as early as 
2010. So, these analyses, while using contemporary data, do 
have predictive power.
    We are looking at developing our forecasting capabilities, 
but currently complete data sets in terms of reliable forecasts 
that are internally consistent regarding future supply and 
demand across all commodities and all industries that we cover, 
currently don't exist.
    Mr. Stauber. Well, let's take copper as an example.
    Dr. Nassar. Sure.
    Mr. Stauber. I am sure you are aware of the multiple 
requests to add copper to the critical minerals list, given its 
increasing demand. The Director of the USGS, David Applegate, 
sent a letter to Senator Sinema, declining her request to re-
evaluate copper as a critical mineral this past April.
    However, just in July, the Department of Energy published 
its list of materials, and copper was included in that list. 
Can you explain why copper is considered at-risk enough to be 
considered critical material by the DOE but not sufficiently at 
risk to be a critical mineral at your agency?
    Dr. Nassar. Thank you, Chairman, for that question. I am 
happy to answer it.
    Copper is an important mineral commodity not only for the 
United States, but for the world, and has been since antiquity. 
While copper is clearly essential, its supply chain risks are 
mitigated by a large and diverse global supply chain that spans 
over 50 countries, reliable trade partners, dependable domestic 
production, and significant recycling capacity that supplies 
over a third of U.S. copper supply.
    USGS has and will continue to analyze copper supply and 
demand. It is a commodity that we study and will continue to 
invest research and assessments in. And I am happy to lean on 
some of the testimony that Professor Eggert mentioned in terms 
of the differences between the DOE analysis, which is global 
and specific----
    Mr. Stauber. And that is going to be a great segue, so 
thank you.
    Dr. Eggert, what do you consider to be the most significant 
difference between the USGS critical minerals list and the DOE 
critical minerals list, and what do you think the impact of 
these differences may be?
    Dr. Eggert. The key differences are those that I identified 
in my statement: narrower in focus, energy technology-specific, 
and forward-looking over different time frames.
    Obviously, it makes a difference in terms of what 
qualifies, although it is noteworthy that both lists, the DOE 
and the USGS lists, have significant overlap.
    Mr. Stauber. OK. Mr. Somers, do you think the USGS critical 
mineral list and the methodology for creating such a list is 
nimble enough to react to changing market conditions and 
geopolitical events?
    Mr. Somers. Thank you for the question. No, I don't. And I 
highlighted some of the issues with the critical minerals that 
were removed from the list in this last go-round, and the world 
events that perhaps made the removal of those minerals unwise. 
And I think that a list that is updated every 3 years, again, 
no matter what the methodology is, is simply not nimble enough 
to respond to very quickly changing world and economic events.
    Mr. Stauber. What is the value or implication of a mineral 
being on the critical minerals list for the mining companies 
that are operating in Utah?
    Mr. Somers. I think that, to be honest, we haven't seen 
investment decisions being driven thus far by inclusion or non-
inclusion under the critical minerals list.
    I think that one of the things that we need to highlight 
here, though, is that, again, most of these minerals, 
especially the ones where we have major foreign reliance, they 
are not primary targets of mining. They tend to be collocated 
with other minerals. And in many cases, these are not minerals 
that are on the list.
    As you were visiting Kennecott, the Bingham Canyon Mine a 
few months ago, that is a copper porphyry deposit. So, yes, 
copper is the primary target, but it also provides gold, 
silver, molybdenum, and also critical minerals like rhenium and 
platinum, palladium, and tellurium.
    So, I think that in many cases you have to make sure that 
there is a base for a target mineral which can support a very 
large and complex and capital-intensive mining operation. And 
also in many cases that is going to provide some of these 
minerals that are a little bit harder to extract and maybe not 
economical to extract on their own.
    Mr. Stauber. And then one quick question for Mr. Blakemore.
    Mr. Blakemore, what is the biggest factor in mineral supply 
chain vulnerability that is not addressed by the USGS critical 
minerals list today?
    Mr. Blakemore. I would suggest it is the assessment of what 
does that criticality look like by the time we reach 2050? As 
it relates to the technologies we are dependent on in the 
energy space and beyond. These are all high innovation sectors 
where the technology is changing, the underlying minerals are 
changing for many of these technologies, but also the 
innovations around substitutability and supply chain 
circularity for certain minerals and materials are also 
changing.
    So, those features are critical to develop a holistic plan 
of action in terms of how we both modernize, adapt, and act on 
any sort of critical minerals list that is being produced, not 
just by the USGS, but by other parts of the U.S. Government, 
writ large.
    Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much, and my time has expired. 
I am now going to recognize Representative Ocasio-Cortez for 5 
minutes of questioning.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you so much, Chairman. And thank 
you again to our witnesses. It is important for us, I think, as 
policymakers, to understand how the USGS critical minerals list 
works and, frankly, to communicate this to the public. I think 
part of our hearings is also an effort in public education on a 
lot of these different issues. So, I want us to zoom out a 
little bit and ask Dr. Nassar.
    In explaining to a layperson, what does it mean for a 
mineral or a critical mineral to be added to the USGS critical 
minerals list? What are the implications of that, and what does 
that mean to the average person?
    Dr. Nassar. Thank you, Congresswoman. The simplest way I 
can put it is that these are commodities for which there is a 
heightened degree of supply risk, meaning that they are 
commodities that are not only important, but for which supply 
may be disrupted in the near future.
    The benefits of the list is the ease of communication. But 
as my colleagues on the panel have mentioned, it is definitely 
a nuanced issue. There are a lot of concerns with just having a 
simple binary. We agree with that, which is why we provide a 
ranking methodology that prioritizes things.
    In one sense, it is a way to prioritize both government 
action and to highlight issues and concerns.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And there are also policy implications 
for a mineral being added to the critical minerals list, 
correct? There are tax credits, as have been mentioned, and 
other sorts of policy incentives for investment, for example, 
through the Infrastructure and Jobs Act.
    Dr. Nassar. Correct. As I mentioned in my opening 
testimony, other Federal agencies have used the critical 
minerals list as a way to prioritize. Within USGS, we use it 
also to prioritize our research, which commodities we should 
focus on.
    That doesn't mean that we don't look at commodities and do 
research on commodities that are not on the critical minerals 
list.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Yes, and I think from a policy 
perspective this creates a little bit of a tension, where we 
want to make sure that this list is accurate, that it contains 
all of the minerals that truly are a priority, but also, I 
think for us, we deal with a profound incentive because it 
creates a large pressure for people who want to add minerals to 
this list and have access to some of those perks and benefits. 
So, we have to make sure that we are having the appropriate 
amount of minerals on this list while also dealing with, 
frankly, very real political incentives to pile on things to 
this list that perhaps may not be necessary.
    But in addition to that, I also want us to explore further 
the implications of that. As was mentioned earlier, there are 
very real needs, of course, for minerals in our economy, 
everything from EVs to a wide range of different uses. But I do 
want us to explore a little bit on how we can reduce the need 
for the intensity of these minerals overall.
    Dr. Mulvaney, what are some of the ways that we can 
actually reduce some of these supply chain risks for critical 
minerals that don't necessarily involve mining?
    And what are some of the economic and social benefits of 
developing a circular economy here?
    Dr. Mulvaney. Recycling and recovery programs in Europe are 
creating new stockpiles of end-of-life materials that can then 
be brought back into feedstocks for new materials. So, that is 
one area that is kind of closing the loop on these materials 
and not letting them get away.
    We could also substitute for materials. We have seen even 
recently cobalt and nickel falling, a few years ago people were 
saying 20-fold increase in cobalt needed by X date, and we have 
seen those numbers come down quite significantly because of 
advances in materials substitution. So, there is less cobalt in 
the batteries that have cobalt. And then we have seen a lot of 
companies just go away from cobalt and nickel altogether to the 
lithium iron phosphate batteries, which created a supply chain 
crunch, by the way, in the manufacturing sector, and caused 
those battery prices to go up. That was independent of the 
minerals extraction and all of that.
    And furthermore, just resource efficiency in general. We 
make solar panels with less silicon, with less silver, with 
less glass, less energy, so we can be more efficient with the 
materials that we use.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Fabulous. And I was wondering, as well, 
if you could dig into the current state of battery recycling 
and other forms of recycling that could potentially reduce our 
reliance on minerals. How does that comparatively look in the 
United States, compared to some of our European counterparts? 
And what are some of the largest opportunities that you see for 
investment there?
    Dr. Mulvaney. Europe has had a comprehensive electrical 
equipment and electronics legislation, as well as battery 
recycling policy across the board for 15, 20 years now. And now 
the European Battery Directive has just been released that 
requires, for example, certain amounts of recycled content to 
be in the battery. That is, I think, very promising for 
jumpstarting those industries.
    One thing I have noticed having served on various recycling 
and waste management boards and things like that, is recycling 
is pretty volatile also. We recyclers, sometimes paper is worth 
stuff, sometimes aluminum is worth stuff, sometimes it is not 
worth anything. And that bounces around, too. So, rules like 
that, where you have content requirements, how much recycled 
content is in a battery, for example, can help drive recycling.
    Batteries, because of the value of some of those materials, 
we are starting to see investment in those. We see state laws, 
for example, that require the recycling of batteries. So, that 
has jumpstarted many recycling industries, for example, that 
are getting located in Nevada, partly because of California's 
requirements for battery recovery.
    So, we are getting there. We need more Federal policy. We 
have had a lot of Federal inaction. The only waste electronical 
equipment we collect is, we actually don't collect. The only 
waste electrical equipment that we require be handled in 
certain ways is just hazardous stuff. So, we are landfilling 
way too much copper, too much lithium.
    And the benefits of having recycling programs, we have had 
quite a few fires, for example, at material recovery facilities 
because of a little battery in a card, like a Hallmark card, 
might have a battery in it and that goes through a shredder and 
it causes a fire, it causes $5 million worth of damage at a 
MRF. And that costs taxpayer money and causes public health 
challenges for people exposed to those fires.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
    Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much. The Chair now recognizes 
Mr. Lamborn for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Lamborn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to have 
the Climax and Henderson molybdenum mines in my state of 
Colorado. I used to represent one of these two mines in my 
former district lines. They are the only pure molybdenum mines 
outside of China, and together produce 33 percent of our entire 
domestic production. And it is critical for energy and 
infrastructure projects.
    The Henderson mine alone is able to recycle 75 percent of 
its water, or roughly 2 billion gallons in 2022. And much of 
this water is even sent to the city of Denver and reclaimed as 
drinking water.
    So, Dr. Eggert, while our Colorado mines specifically 
target molybdenum, it is more often the case that critical 
minerals are produced as a byproduct of a host mineral. Can you 
explain the relationship between critical minerals and host 
minerals, and how important is it to have a robust mining 
industry for all minerals if we want to harvest critical 
minerals?
    Dr. Eggert. As several people have said, many of the 
minerals listed as critical are produced as minor byproducts of 
other things, some of which are not major or listed as critical 
minerals. It is both a risk, but it is also an opportunity 
because in places like the Kennecott Bingham Canyon Mine in 
Utah, for example, there are unrecovered minor amounts of 
critical minerals that are waiting to be recovered. There are 
emerging efforts in this regard, and I think they are worthy of 
greater attention.
    Mr. Lamborn. OK, thank you. China recently announced that 
it will curb the export of gallium for which they produce the 
bulk of the world's supply, and germanium upon which the United 
States is 54 percent reliant on Chinese exports. These two 
minerals are critical for semiconductors, solar cells, 
integrated circuits, fiber optics, and more. The United States 
is more than capable of producing these items domestically, and 
it is unacceptable not to do so, considering the amount of 
money and attention we have placed upon microchip production in 
the last few years.
    In 1943, U.S. bauxite production, for example, which is the 
host mineral for gallium, peaked at 6.3 million tons. By 2013, 
that had dropped to 128,000 tons, which is less than 1 percent 
of global supply.
    Now, China, by the way, is not as environmentally 
responsible as we are. In my opinion, if we are less dependent 
on China, this creates a race to the top, bringing production 
to our shores where we do such a better job. By offshoring 
production to China, we are poisoning the world as well as 
endangering our national security.
    So, Dr. Nassar, if we allow the development of critical 
minerals in general, would the United States be less dependent 
on China?
    Dr. Nassar. Congressman, thank you for that question. I 
agree that the United States is not a major bauxite producer. 
In fact, we import quite a bit of our bauxite to produce 
alumina. So, when we did a quick analysis in terms of the 
gallium content of the imported bauxite, there was quite a bit 
in there that potentially could be produced in the United 
States. And in the latest list, our analysis specifically 
examines country metrics that evaluate how reliable those 
supplies may be.
    Mr. Lamborn. On another topic, demand for minerals and 
metals is expected to drastically increase to meet 
manufacturing, infrastructure, energy, and national defense 
needs. The DOD's Logistics Energy Agency provides economic 
analysis and forecasts for strategic and critical minerals. 
That is one of the three lists that we talked about in your 
testimony.
    How does the Defense Logistics Agency's analysis compare to 
that of DOE or USGS?
    And are the components of that methodology that USGS could 
pick up?
    And I will start with you, Dr. Eggert.
    Dr. Eggert. The Defense Logistics Agency analysis has a 
much shorter time frame. It evaluates emergent national 
emergencies of months to several years. It focuses on both 
military preparedness and essential civilian infrastructure in 
times of national emergency. It is very detailed. I don't have 
a lot of insight into it, but it is an example of a narrower 
focus and a specific type of emergency that is being evaluated.
    Mr. Lamborn. Dr. Nassar, do you have anything to add to 
that real quickly?
    Dr. Nassar. No, I think that is accurate.
    I would add just quickly that the USGS provides data for 
both the Defense Logistics Agency and the Department of Energy 
to analyze their issues and provide their reports.
    Mr. Lamborn. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Dr. Gosar [presiding]. The gentlelady from Nevada, Ms. Lee, 
is recognized for her 5 minutes.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I really appreciate us 
having this hearing. I come from Nevada. As we transition to a 
clean energy economy, as well as the focus on hardrock mining, 
we are no strangers to these issues and stand to economically, 
of course, benefit tremendously from this transition. So, I 
appreciate us taking the time to really delve into this area in 
terms of critical minerals.
    I thank you all for being here, and I hope that your 
testimony will help inform us as we navigate this important 
transition.
    Companies like MP Materials are playing an absolutely 
essential role in securing our clean energy future and shoring 
up our strategic positioning in the critical minerals sectors. 
And this is particularly true and concerning in light of the 
reality that countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo 
and China are currently responsible for up to 70 percent of the 
global production of key rare earth elements. As vital as this 
is, and I agree with Chair Stauber that we have to onshore 
production of this, but it is only half of the story.
    Professor Mulvaney, I wanted to ask you, is there any 
reality in which the United States would simply be able to just 
mine our way out of the need for critical minerals?
    I think it is fair to say. Would you agree that a whole-of-
supply-chain approach is the most effective, efficient, and 
most realistic way to help us achieve this goal?
    Dr. Mulvaney. Yes, a whole supply chain approach would 
certainly shore up more minerals because we are literally 
letting stuff fall through our fingers a lot. So, yes.
    Ms. Lee. And back in my state of Nevada, Nevada-born and 
Nevada-based Redwood Materials is building a battery recycling 
facility near Reno that is creating 5,000 jobs and will be able 
to process enough recycled materials to supply a million EVs a 
year. To me, that sounds like a win-win. Would you agree that 
this not only stands to benefit our environment, but also our 
economy, this type of approach?
    Dr. Mulvaney. Yes, especially since a lot of those 
batteries come from California. And I have looked at data, and 
that stuff goes all over the country. So, having it closer to 
California is, I think, and plus in Nevada, I know Nevada has 
batteries, too.
    I had read that the cathode material that they are 
processing has a 90 percent reduction in greenhouse gas 
emissions, as well.
    So, as we recover more materials, often it is the case that 
they actually are less greenhouse gas intensive and less energy 
intensive. So, it benefits in multiple ways, as well as creates 
jobs, too.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you.
    Dr. Nassar, I wanted to turn to Earth MRI, decreasing the 
nation's reliance on foreign sources of critical minerals by 
shining a spotlight on relevant resources in states like my 
home state of Nevada and assisting in locating and mapping 
abandoned hardrock mine sites. As you know, this is a 
bipartisan health and safety concern in the Western United 
States, and particularly in a state like mine where there are 
at least 900 known abandoned hardrock mines within 100 square 
miles of the Spring Mountains.
    Can you just talk about how this will assist us in dealing 
with abandoned mines?
    Dr. Nassar. I will do my best. Earth MRI is not my area of 
expertise, but I do know from my colleagues that mineral 
exploration is hampered due to lack of adequate geological, 
geophysical, and topographic data. These data can be used for 
not only identifying areas of potential for critical minerals, 
but also identifying and characterizing legacy hardrock sites.
    Ms. Lee. Is there any other expert who wants to comment on 
this?
    No? OK. Well, thank you. I yield back.
    Dr. Gosar. I thank the gentlelady. The gentleman from Utah, 
Mr. Curtis, is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Curtis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Nassar, I am going to continue on this theme that you 
have heard from a number of us this morning. And I want to talk 
about helium, specifically. As you know, the Biden 
administration removed helium from the critical minerals list. 
Helium is vital to our economy, including in defense, 
semiconductors, health care, and more.
    And there is also a well-documented shortage of helium. In 
fact, Gary Stanley, the Director of the Office of Materials 
Industries at the Commerce Department, in 2021 stated, ``You 
can see helium is at the center when you look at the medical 
side, climate change, health care, the whole area of the U.S. 
economic growth and recovery from COVID-19. We see that helium 
is one of the most critical minerals that can be seen at the 
center of that conversation.''
    Shortly after that, in February 2022, the Biden 
administration removed helium from the critical minerals list. 
Given the Commerce Department's comments, can you please 
explain why helium was removed?
    Dr. Nassar. Thank you, Congressman, for that question. One 
of the key factors that we look at is import dependence, net 
import dependence. And the United States is the world's largest 
producer of helium, and has been for a long time, and a net 
exporter of helium. That is the main reason it was taken off 
the critical minerals list.
    Mr. Curtis. There is a well-documented shortage of helium. 
Can you explain why helium was taken off the list?
    Dr. Nassar. Yes, sir. I believe those are commercial 
issues. The fact of the matter remains that the United States 
is a net exporter of helium, producing significantly larger 
quantities of helium than it consumes domestically.
    Mr. Curtis. So, I think you are sensing a brain freeze from 
a lot of us up here that your definition of a critical mineral 
has a lot to do with supply chain. And I would disagree with 
you on the availability. All of those things can be disrupted 
and changed in moments. So, how is it that things can be 
critical and not be critical?
    Dr. Nassar. I think the issue is definitional. I think 
critical is a word that I often try not to use because it gets 
conflated for that reason. It gets conflated with a word of 
importance. I think there is no doubt that helium and basically 
every mineral commodity is important to somebody, right?
    What we are looking at is trying to understand what is the 
supply risk to the entire U.S. economy. And that is how we do 
the analysis. And for commodities for which we are a net 
exporter, we are dependent on domestic sources for those 
commodities.
    Mr. Curtis. OK. But yes, we are a net exporter, but we have 
a shortage. We don't have enough.
    Dr. Nassar. My understanding is that, based on the USGS 
estimates of reserves, there are 8.5 billion cubic meters of 
helium reserves. That is not all there is, that is just the 
reserves that are known. So, there is significant supply for 
decades, if not centuries, of helium.
    Mr. Curtis. All right. We are going to agree to disagree on 
that.
    Mr. Somers, you and I understand Utah well, and the mining 
industry. I would like to kind of have you opine for a minute 
on this concept that we talk about a lot, that somehow it is OK 
to seek these minerals in other countries, where we don't see 
and hear some of the human rights, some of the standards, some 
of the emission standards that are in play.
    Is it fair to say that is viewed hypocritically sometimes 
in the state? And can you kind of explain how that feels to our 
U.S. miners in the United States and in Utah?
    Mr. Somers. Absolutely. And with your indulgence, Mr. 
Curtis, I would actually like to talk about the helium for a 
second.
    Mr. Curtis. Please, yes. Actually, I should have started 
with that, but please jump in.
    Mr. Somers. Again, with your indulgence, most of the helium 
targets in Utah are in your district, as you know.
    Mr. Curtis. Right.
    Mr. Somers. We actually had been seeing quite a bit of 
exploration activity around potential helium development. And 
most of that is frozen up. And my understanding is that a large 
reason for that is because of the re-establishment or the 
expansion of the Bears Ears National Monument, which is very 
close to many of those helium targets. And then also because of 
litigation. Many of the helium targets that have been looked at 
in your district have been the subject of litigation almost 
pre-emptively.
    So, to your other point, I do think that it is very 
hypocritical when we can mine these commodities much better in 
a more environmentally friendly way with regard to labor 
protections, with regard to technological innovation here in 
the United States better than they can do it in foreign places. 
And it is always baffling to me that many people will drive 
across town for a fair trade coffee bean, but their car is full 
of cobalt that has come from child miners in the Congo, and it 
is just not acceptable.
    Mr. Curtis. Another way to say that, and unfortunately, we 
are almost out of time, is this body literally controls every 
aspect of the way that is mined in Utah and in the United 
States, and we have zero control on how that is mined overseas.
    Mr. Somers. Absolutely.
    Mr. Curtis. Thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, I am regrettably out of time. I yield back.
    Dr. Gosar. And to the gentleman, don't forget Helium-4, and 
these new ideas about fission.
    Mr. Curtis. Thank you.
    Dr. Gosar. The gentlewoman from Michigan, Mrs. Dingell, is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Dingell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Today's hearing is focused on critical minerals, which we 
all know is critical and essential for our transition to the 
clean energy economy and electric vehicle manufacturing, which 
I know my colleagues on the other side love. But my home state 
of Michigan is home to a major hub for electric vehicle 
manufacturing, which is why I am entirely focused on ensuring 
the United States has the capacity to reach our full potential 
when it comes to the buildout of electric vehicles for both 
jobs and the climate.
    The Inflation Reduction Act changed the requirements for 
electric vehicle tax credits for consumers, requiring either 
assembly in North America or at least 40 percent of the value 
of critical minerals used for the vehicle to be extracted, 
processed, and/or recycled domestically or in a country that 
the United States has a fair trade agreement with.
    So, I have a question for you, Dr. Mulvaney. We know that 
current laws for domestic mining have not been meaningfully 
updated in over 150 years, and that has tipped the scales 
toward mining companies and away from the communities who want 
to have a fair say in the decision-making if we are going to 
build a strong, enduring mining industry in the United States, 
especially one that is going to fit the needs to meet the 
vehicles of the future.
    So, Dr. Mulvaney, can you expand on why it is essential 
that we reform the Mining Law of 1872 as we build a sustainable 
domestic supply chain for electric vehicles?
    Dr. Mulvaney. Thank you for the question. I noted in 
reading some of the testimony that the mining law is older than 
the USGS, which I think is worth pointing out.
    Native Americans in particular, I think, have borne the 
brunt of the negative impacts of mining across the United 
States, and that is partly due to the proximity of mining 
developments. And I think it is something like 600,000 Native 
Americans live within 6 miles of an abandoned mine, and that 
usually has implications for groundwater and other things.
    If we were to try to think about a new reform around 
mining, cleaning up some of these legacy wastes, I think, would 
be one area to focus on. Raising revenues to do that, I think 
we don't raise enough money for those kinds of things, and the 
taxpayer ends up paying for a lot of the mine waste cleanup at 
the end of the day.
    And then, as the Ranking Member pointed out in the opening 
remarks, a lot of these clean tech minerals are also very close 
to Native American communities. So, ensuring that they get the 
benefits and don't have the burdens from this transition, I 
think, are also really critically important there.
    And then I guess----
    Mrs. Dingell. I am going to ask you to cut off there, but I 
would like to have you maybe expand on this because I think we 
need to have a sustainable supply. That is something we all 
want to work on.
    But Dr. Nassar, we also know that mining is not always the 
risk factor for minerals on the critical minerals list. 
Sometimes we do have sustainable supplies from allied 
countries, but things like processing are the issue. Dr. 
Nassar, can you expand on how often mining is the bottleneck of 
our critical minerals versus other stops along the supply 
chain?
    Dr. Nassar. Thank you for that question.
    Mineral commodities supply chains, of course, begin with 
mining. Actually, one could argue that they begin with 
exploration and having good geological data. However, what we 
have seen in our data and analysis is that, more often than 
not, the middle of the supply chain is where production becomes 
extremely concentrated. For example, China does not dominate 
lithium or cobalt mining, but it does refining. And we assess 
supply chain risk at multiple supply chain stages and identify 
the bottlenecks for that purpose.
    Mrs. Dingell. Thank you.
    Dr. Mulvaney, in the short period left, can you give us, in 
your perspective, what are some more of the sustainable ways to 
address these issues?
    And what are the economic and social benefits of these 
approaches, including job creation?
    And maybe you can do more for the record later.
    Dr. Mulvaney. Yes, I will just highlight a life cycle 
approach, I think, is key because there are lots of 
opportunities to recover from waste. And I think community 
benefits and early engagement with communities will help make 
projects be more socially acceptable and better and more 
sustainable in the long run.
    So, more collaborative approaches to mine development 
instead of the approach that we use today, which is what we 
call decide, announce, defend.
    Mrs. Dingell. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Dr. Gosar. I thank the gentlewoman. The gentleman from 
Wisconsin, Mr. Tiffany, is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Tiffany. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    In reading your testimony, Dr. Mulvaney, I take it that you 
view the permitting process as not burdensome at all here in 
the United States of America for mineral and natural resources 
projects that use natural resources.
    Dr. Mulvaney. If you are specifically talking about the 
National Environmental Policy Act review process, then yes. 
That is the part of the permitting process that I am most 
familiar with.
    Mr. Tiffany. Yes. And you don't view that as burdensome?
    Dr. Mulvaney. I do not.
    Mr. Tiffany. Yes. It says in here the reality is the time 
to permit a hardrock mine is 2 years, according to the GAO. 
What do you tell Congressman Stauber about the mine that has 
taken 17 years in his district?
    Dr. Mulvaney. I am not familiar with that mine, and I would 
love to learn more about that because that sounds like it is 
out of the bounds that I typically hear from----
    Mr. Tiffany. Yes, you said in regards to the American 
Recovery and Reinvestment Act, that is a great example of how 
our projects can be built on time. Are you familiar with the 
Cardinal Hickory line that is supposed to be bringing so-called 
renewable energy from Iowa into Wisconsin, and how it is 
delayed?
    Dr. Mulvaney. I am not familiar with that one, no.
    Mr. Tiffany. Yes, you should take a look at that, because I 
don't think your testimony is accurate in regards to, that is 
one project that is supposedly going to bring renewable energy 
in.
    Isn't it correct recycling is a net energy loser? Haven't 
there been detailed studies that have been done that have shown 
that, really, recycling is a net energy loser between all the 
trucks that we run on roads and stuff like that, that we 
actually end up using more hydrocarbons as a result of 
recycling?
    Dr. Mulvaney. I can see certain circumstances where there 
might be net energy losses in certain systems. But in general, 
I do not think that that is true. Recycling is a net energy 
winner in most cases.
    Mr. Tiffany. I would urge you to review some of the 
documentation out there. In particular, I would point you to a 
fellow Californian who is in academia, Steven Hayward, and see 
some of the work that he has done.
    I see you are in the College of Social Sciences. Are all 
the hard sciences at San Jose State University housed in the 
Social Sciences Department?
    Dr. Mulvaney. No, our department has gone back and forth 
between natural sciences and social sciences because we are an 
interdisciplinary department.
    Mr. Tiffany. Dr. Nassar, a very good chart here in regards 
to supply risk. What is the one consistent thing above the line 
there that we all see in regards to all these minerals, 
especially trace minerals? What is the one consistent thing 
that we see there on the right side of the chart in terms of 
supply risk?
    Dr. Nassar. I am not exactly sure what you are referring 
to, but I would imagine that you are referring to the largest 
producer being China.
    Mr. Tiffany. Yes, the largest producer and refiner is 
China. Does that bring you any pause?
    Dr. Nassar. That is definitely of concern, and the reason 
why we do the analysis that we do in terms of understanding 
which countries may be not reliable trade partners going 
forward.
    Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Chairman, as we debate the Department of 
Defense budget here this week, it is very clear that this is as 
big a national security concern as you can possibly have. For 
those of you that have not studied the chart, take a look at it 
really closely. Leading producing countries, both production 
and refinery.
    Dr. Eggert, has the United States of America done a better 
job of mitigating risk in regards to mining over the last 100 
years?
    Dr. Eggert. I would say it is a mixed bag. I think we are 
more aware of the issues and the problems now, but there is 
always room for improvement.
    Mr. Tiffany. Yes, but do you believe that we have gotten 
better about mitigating that risk?
    Dr. Eggert. Well, I think a lot of risk mitigation occurs 
in the private entities that are directly focused on supply 
chain risks, the companies that use the materials for the 
products that they manufacture and use----
    Mr. Tiffany. Well, specifically in regards to mining, 
because there are no environmental protections put in place 
when I think about the mining district that is north of me in 
the community of Hurley and then Ironwood, Michigan. And now 
you could never build a mine like that.
    Dr. Eggert. It is correct, obviously, that there is a lot 
more to mining law than the mining law itself. Certainly, 
environmental rules have grown up around the mining law, and 
there is room for improvement in the permitting processes and 
related activities.
    Mr. Tiffany. One quick question to Mr. Somers. Did I hear 
you say that the USGS has downgraded potash? I came in right 
when you were giving your testimony. Could you give us some 
detail on what is going on there?
    Mr. Somers. Yes, correct. In the 2022 list, potash was 
removed as a critical mineral. And then, as I mentioned in my 
testimony, this was 2 days after Ukraine was invaded by Russia, 
and Russia and Belarus supply about 41 percent of the global 
potash commodity that we have. So, that has a resulting 
increase in fertilizer prices and availability around the 
world.
    Mr. Tiffany. Yes, isn't potash a critical element for 
farmers to be able to grow crops?
    Mr. Somers. Correct.
    Mr. Tiffany. I yield back.
    Dr. Gosar. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from Rhode 
Island, Mr. Magaziner, is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Magaziner. Thank you, Chairman.
    In order for the United States to remain competitive in 
this century, we must have access to a reliable supply of 
critical minerals that are vital to our national security, our 
energy independence, and our economy. These minerals are used 
in consumer electronics, in our phones, in our cars, and also 
found in Rhode Island in some of our most important economic 
sectors.
    General Dynamics Electric Boat at Quonset Point in my 
district builds Virginia-class submarines which need large 
quantities of rare earth minerals. Offshore wind turbines like 
we have in Block Island and like we are rolling out as part of 
the Revolution offshore wind project also require mineral 
inputs, just to use some examples.
    The Energy Act of 2020 requires the Department of the 
Interior to review and update the list of critical minerals, 
update the methodology used to identify potential critical 
minerals, and accept feedback from the public every 3 years. 
This legislation, along with the Infrastructure Investment and 
Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act helps strengthen the U.S. 
supply chain for critical minerals.
    The U.S. Geological Survey is at the center of this work, 
and is entrusted with developing a framework for understanding 
which of these resources is most vulnerable to disruption, and 
forecasting short-term and long-term trends based on the data.
    Dr. Nassar, since the passage of the Energy Act of 2020, 
can you explain how USGS's methodology has evolved and changed?
    Dr. Nassar. Yes, I would be happy to, Congressman.
    The initial methodology examined two factors 
quantitatively. We looked at net import reliance and production 
concentration, regardless of where the production was taking 
place.
    In the updated methodology, after the passage of the Energy 
Act of 2020, we modified that indicator by taking into account 
country factors. So, production concentrated in Canada and 
Australia don't get the same rating as production concentrated 
in Russia or China.
    Going forward, we are moving toward having a more economic 
impacts model, where we are able to understand and quantify the 
impact that a certain supply disruption scenario may have not 
only consuming industries, but downstream industries and the 
economy overall.
    Mr. Magaziner. Thank you. And it was alluded to in one of 
the prior Member's remarks that there is a lot of political 
pressure around which minerals are on this list or not, and a 
lot of stakeholders that approach your organization to lobby 
for inclusion versus not.
    So, how are you able to insulate the process from political 
pressure so that this is truly based on empirical data, based 
on sort of a rational analysis of the facts, and not political 
pressure or lobbying?
    Dr. Nassar. Thank you again for that question, Congressman.
    The USGS is a Federal science agency. And as part of our 
fundamental science practices, USGS analyses and reports go 
through multiple layers of review and approval, including peer 
review. The critical minerals list methodology, in addition to 
the internal review process, went through an external review 
process in a peer-reviewed journal.
    In addition to that, we performed, as required by the 
Energy Act, an interagency working group that reviewed the 
analysis and the methodology, and had a chance to review the 
results before its release.
    Mr. Magaziner. Thank you. I have heard some of my 
colleagues from the other side intimate that because there are 
critical minerals found in clean energy development, that that 
means that we should pump the brakes on rolling out clean 
energy to reverse climate change and protect our environment, 
that we should stop building windmills, stop building solar 
panels. Interestingly, I don't hear them saying the same thing 
about cell phones, cars, and other products that use critical 
minerals.
    But I was wondering, Mr. Mulvaney, if you could just, at a 
high level, say is scarcity of critical minerals a reason that 
we should pump the brakes and not move forward on transitioning 
to clean energy and fighting climate change?
    Dr. Mulvaney. No, it is a good reason to take a life cycle 
approach to thinking in a circular economy approach to 
recovering these materials.
    Mr. Magaziner. Yes, and on that, and I know you spoke to 
this earlier, but I think this is an important point, in 
addition to sourcing these critical minerals, we need to be 
focused on recycling them and using them efficiently because 
they are scarce.
    So, with the time we have left, could you just reiterate 
what are some of the things that we, as Congress, should be 
doing to promote the recycling of critical minerals?
    Dr. Mulvaney. What makes recycling typically work is the 
reverse logistics. You need comprehensive takeback and 
collection systems to recover all of the electrical equipment, 
because every bit of electrical equipment has some copper in it 
somewhere, or aluminum. So, we really need to be focused on 
making sure that those materials don't end up in the landfill, 
and end up in new products.
    Mr. Magaziner. Thank you. I yield back.
    Dr. Gosar. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman that is the 
Chairman for the Full Committee, Mr. Westerman from Arkansas, 
is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Westerman. Thank you, Mr. Gosar, and thank you again to 
the witnesses.
    Dr. Nassar, in the 2018 critical minerals list, USGS 
included uranium, despite it having both fuel and non-fuel 
uses, saying that input from other agencies emphasized 
uranium's important non-fuel uses.
    Then Director Fortier defended the decision to include 
uranium when he testified before this Committee in 2019, 
listing the important non-fuel uses of uranium, including 
radiation shields, counterweights, and armor-piercing kinetic 
energy penetrators, as well as medical applications such as 
medical isotope production.
    However, uranium was noticeably absent from the updated 
list under this Administration. The explanation for this cited 
uranium fuel's uses as the disqualifying factor.
    I have sent Secretary Haaland a letter on this issue in 
February 2022, before the new critical minerals list was 
finalized, asking DOI to consider its decision to list uranium 
as military tensions in Eastern Europe came to a head. 
Unfortunately, that request was denied.
    I would like to submit that letter to the record.
    Dr. Gosar. So ordered, without objection.

    [The information follows:]

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                     Committee on Natural Resources

                          Washington, DC 20515

                                               February 3, 2022    

Hon. Debra Haaland, Secretary
U.S. Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, N.W.
Washington, DC. 20240

    Dear Secretary Haaland:

    The military tensions in and around Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan 
could have serious impacts on the United States' critical mineral 
supply chains.

    At the beginning of January, anti-government protests in Kazakhstan 
turned violent, resulting in hundreds of deaths \1\ and leading 
Kazakhstani authorities to call in the Russian military.\2\ Backlash 
against the protestors has been fierce, with around 10,000 people 
detained and some allegedly facing death threats from government-backed 
forces.\3\ The Biden administration's response has been referred to as 
``toothless,'' illustrating that the President's ``idealistic words 
alone are insufficient'' to lead on the world stage.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Abdujalil Abdurasulov, ``Kazakhstan unrest: `If you protest 
again, we'll kill you','' BBC News, January 21, 2022, https://
www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-60058972.
    \2\ ``Kazakhstan: Why are there riots and why are Russian troops 
there?'' BBC News, January 10, 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/
explainers-59894266.
    \3\ Abdujalil Abdurasulov, ``Kazakhstan unrest: `If you protest 
again, we'll kill you','' BBC News, January 21, 2022, https://
www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-60058972.
    \4\ Ingrid Burke Friedman, ``Kazakhstan Exposes the Central Flaw of 
Biden's Foreign-Policy Doctrine,'' Foreign Policy, January 13, 2022, 
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/13/kazakhstan-csto-tOKev-biden-
foreign-policy-democracy-autocracy/

    Almost simultaneously, Russia increased its military pressure on 
Ukraine, amassing more than 100,000 troops along the Ukrainian border, 
prompting the U.S. Department of Defense to place 8,500 troops on high 
alert and ready to deploy in response to a crisis in the region.\5\ 
While the Biden administration continues to fall short of its 
responsibility to lead a coordinated response to this growing 
international crisis,\6\ conditions in the region have deteriorated 
such that the White House confirmed that Russia could invade Ukraine 
``at any point.'' \7\ These escalations, and the Biden administration's 
failure to lead a global response, present an unknown number of risks 
to Europe and the rest of the world.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ Robyn Dixon, David L. Stern, Isabelle Khurshudyan and John 
Hudson, ``Russia moves troops and U.S. sends weapons as fear of war 
mounts in Ukraine,'' The Washington Post, January 25, 2022, https://
www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/25/ukraine-russia-nato-biden.
    \6\ Michael Crowley and Steven Erlanger, ``Biden Strengthens Words 
on Ukraine After Flustering European Partners,'' The New York Times, 
January 20, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/world/europe/
ukraine-biden-eu.html.
    \7\ Shannon Pettypiece, ``White House warns Russian invasion of 
Ukraine may be imminent,'' NBC News, January 18, 2022, https://
www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/white-house-warns-russia-invasion-
ukraine-may-be-imminent-n1287649.

    One of many concerns is the effect these continued international 
crises will likely have on global supply chains, including for minerals 
sourced from these countries and the surrounding area. As you work to 
finalize the Department of the Interior's (DOI's) Final Critical 
Minerals List of 2022, we strongly encourage you to consider the 
prolonged unrest in the region and its potential impacts on mineral 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
supply chains in your determination of which resources to include.

    As you know, the Energy Act of 2020 (later included in Public Law 
No: 116-260) defines a ``critical mineral'' as a resource ``the supply 
chain of which is vulnerable to disruption (including restrictions 
associated with foreign political risk, abrupt demand growth, military 
conflict, violent unrest, anti-competitive or protectionist behaviors, 
and other risks through-out the supply chain),'' in addition to other 
qualifications.\8\ This makes the risk of supply chain disruptions a 
required consideration when evaluating minerals to include on DOI's 
List of Critical Minerals.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \8\ Energy Act of 2020, Section 7002(c)(4)(A).

    The 2021 Draft List of Critical Minerals was released on November 
9, 2021, months before the period of elevated unrest involving Russia, 
Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. Unfortunately, the growing instability in the 
region and the Biden administration's confused response to these crises 
have increased uncertainty for a number of mineral supply chains. 
Resources listed as ``critical'' on the draft list are known to have 
insecure supply chains, by definition, but this recent unrest has also 
greatly affected resources that were not listed, such as helium and 
uranium.\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\ 86 FR 62199.

    For example, Russia is a major producer of helium, and, as markets 
are already stressed by the upcoming closure of the Federal Helium 
Reserve in the U.S.,\10\ Gazprom's helium plants were expected to help 
ease global supply concerns in 2022.\11\ However, recent fires and an 
explosion at Gazprom's Amur facility demonstrates how irresponsible it 
is to rely on Russia to meet the world's need for an element essential 
to medical imaging, high tech computing, semiconductor manufacturing, 
telecommunications and metal fabrication worldwide.\12\ Similarly 
concerning, Kazakhstan is the world's largest producer of uranium, and 
any supply disruptions due to the humanitarian and diplomatic crisis 
unfolding there could have vast effects on global markets.\13\ As it 
stands, about 97 percent of U.S. demand for uranium is met by foreign 
imports, despite a large domestic supply and repeated calls by Members 
of Congress for the Biden Administration to develop our own natural 
resources at home.14,15,16
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \10\ Bureau of Land Management, ``BLM ANNOUNCES DISPOSAL PROCESS 
FOR FEDERAL HELIUM SYSTEM,'' Press Release, April 16, 2020, https://
www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-announces-disposal-process-federal-
helium-system#::text=In%20accordance%20with%20that% 
20law,follow%20its%20statutory%20disposal%20process.
    \11\ Phil Kornbluth, ``Kornbluth: Latest Amur fire tightens helium 
supply for 2022,'' Gas World, January 17, 2022, https://
www.gasworld.com/kornbluth-latest-amur-fire-tightens-helium-supply-for-
2022/2022514.article.
    \12\ Vladimir Soldatkin, ``Russia's Amur gas plant says a unit 
caught fire,'' Reuters, January 5, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/
business/energy/russias-amur-gas-plant-says-unit-caught-fire-2022-01-
05/.
    \13\ ``Uranium sector monitors evolving Kazakh situation,'' World 
Nuclear News, January 7, 2022, https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/
Articles/Uranium-sector-monitors-evolving-Kazakh-situation.
    \14\ U.S. Energy Information Administration, Uranium Marketing 
Annual Report, https://www.eia.gov/uranium/marketing/table3.php.
    \15\ Letter to Secretary Granholm from Rep. Henry Cuellar and Rep. 
Vincente Gonzalez. April 15, 2021.
    \16\ Volcovici, Valerie. U.S. House votes to protect 3 million 
acres of land from development. Reuters. February 26, 2021.

    The lukewarm response from this administration regarding Russia's 
menacing behavior has been too slow and insufficient to mount a strong 
deterrent. Secretary Blinken may have threatened ``a swift, a severe 
and a united response'' should Russia invade Ukraine, but without an 
administration-wide willingness to address this challenge on every 
front, these strong words will remain hollow.\17\ By not using every 
tool at its disposal to bolster domestic mineral production, this 
administration is passively enabling our continued reliance on Russia 
and other adversaries for helium, uranium, and other mineral resources.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \17\ Jessica Bursztynsky, ``Secretary of State Blinken warns of 
severe response if a single Russian force enters Ukraine in an 
aggressive way,'' CNBC, January 23, 2022, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/
23/secretary-of-state-blinken-warns-of-severe-response-if-a-single-
russian-force-enters-ukraine-in-an-aggressive-way.html.

    The relationship between national security and stable mineral 
supply chains is clearer now than ever as the world watches Eastern 
Europe continue to destabilize and the administration's response 
remains tepid. Careful selection of the mineral commodities included on 
DOI's Final List of Critical Minerals is an important aspect of 
ensuring a reliable supply of these necessary resources. As you 
continue your required consultations with the Secretaries of Defense, 
Commerce, Agriculture, and Energy and the U.S. Trade Representative, we 
urge you to bear in mind the troubling developments in Europe and the 
impacts of this administration's anemic foreign policy in your 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
finalization of the 2022 List of Critical Minerals.

    We appreciate your attention to this vital matter.

            Sincerely,

        Bruce Westerman, Ranking 
        Member                        Pete Stauber, Ranking Member
        House Committee on Natural 
        Resources                     Subcommittee on Energy and 
                                      Mineral Resources

        Don Young, Ranking Member     Russ Fulcher, Ranking Member
        Subcommittee for Indigenous 
        Peoples of the United 
        States                        Subcommittee on National Parks, 
                                      Forests, and Public Lands

        Cliff Bentz, Ranking Member   Louie Gohmert
        Subcommittee on Water, 
        Oceans, and Wildlife          Member of Congress

        Doug Lamborn                  Robert J. Wittman
        Member of Congress            Member of Congress

        Garrett Graves                Jody Hice
        Member of Congress            Member of Congress

        Aumua Amata Coleman 
        Radewagen                     Daniel Webster
        Member of Congress            Member of Congress

        Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon      Tom Tiffany
        Member of Congress            Member of Congress

        Blake Moore                   Yvette Herrell
        Member of Congress            Member of Congress

        Jay Obernolte
        Member of Congress

                                 ______
                                 

    Mr. Westerman. So, what led USGS and its consulting 
agencies to change its mind about the importance of uranium's 
non-fuel uses, and choose to not evaluate it as a critical 
mineral for the recent list?
    Dr. Nassar. Thank you for that question. I think what has 
changed is that the Energy Act was passed, and the Energy Act 
defines critical minerals as non-fuel, and specifically 
excludes fuel minerals. Thus, USGS did not evaluate uranium.
    Mr. Westerman. That seems to have changed since 2019, 
because it has always had fuel and non-fuel uses. So, were 
there other factors involved?
    Dr. Nassar. No, sir. The uses maybe have not changed, but 
the definition of what uranium is labeled as, is it a fuel 
mineral or not, not its uses.
    Mr. Westerman. That just doesn't seem to make a lot of 
sense to me, why it would be taken off the list after such a 
strong argument for it being on the list. That is why it is 
important for us to have these hearings and to come up with 
better policy moving forward.
    Mr. Somers, just yesterday the Department of the Interior 
released the report from the Interagency Working Group on 
Mining Reforms. I will say I was obviously very disappointed, 
but not surprised to hear of several extremely harmful 
recommendations to change our domestic mining system, despite 
lip service about increasing mining for the Administration's 
renewable goals.
    How harmful would these changes be to investment in a 
mining state with large amounts of Federal land such as yours?
    Mr. Somers. It would be incredibly damaging, especially the 
idea of changing into a leasing system. And the idea of 
royalties, which, according to the proposal, would be among the 
highest in the world, would be absolutely devastating to the 
hardrock mining industry.
    Mr. Westerman. Yes, and we have seen what appears to be an 
attack on mining all around this country. At the same time, we 
see China dominating mining and mineral resources, and we also 
see policies that are making us more dependent on those 
minerals and elements that China produces.
    As we talk about being more energy independent, as we talk 
about having more national security, it seems that reports like 
this one that came out yesterday fly right in the face of that. 
It is one thing to talk the talk, but we are not walking the 
walk in this Administration.
    Mr. Somers. Yes, and I think you have seen that on a number 
of fronts. I mean, the latest report is one piece of evidence 
there. Mineral withdrawals that we have seen all around the 
country, these are things that are very problematic to enable 
us to develop the mineral resources that we have that can 
lessen our dependence on places like China.
    Mr. Westerman. Right. It just seems like it should be 
common sense.
    Dr. Eggert, could you explain to your knowledge the real-
world benefits, if any, of a commodity being designated as a 
critical mineral?
    And how does this compare to being designated as a critical 
material by DOE?
    Dr. Eggert. In my view, designation as a critical mineral 
or material shines a spotlight on the material or mineral 
overall. In terms of policy implications, I think one needs to 
then ask the question more narrowly, what is the narrower 
context of that particular supply chain, the technologies and 
products it is used in, and what the various policy mechanisms 
are.
    In terms of mineral versus material, I think it reflects, 
well, many people use the term synonymously. For those who 
focus on one or the other, I think it relates to the portion of 
the supply chain that is most prominent in a person's 
perspective. ``Critical mineral'' tends to be used by people 
who have an upstream focus more than downstream, relatively 
speaking, and vice versa.
    So, to me, it is not surprising that the USGS activity is 
``critical mineral,'' whereas the Department of Energy activity 
is labeled ``critical material.'' But to me, they are all part 
of the same thing, and they really mean the same thing to me.
    Mr. Westerman. Thank you.
    I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Dr. Gosar. I thank the Chairman. I now recognize the 
gentleman from California, Mr. Mullin, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Mullin. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to all of the 
witnesses for your time today.
    My district in California, the San Francisco Bay Area, is 
home to many companies working on emerging technologies to 
advance the clean energy transition. The mineral supply chain 
will become increasingly important as they continue to work 
toward that transition. So, my question is for Dr. Mulvaney.
    In your testimony, you discuss how advances in technology 
can help us create innovative sources of critical minerals. And 
apologies if you have touched on this already, maybe multiple 
times, but could you elaborate on some of the latest 
innovations and advancements in things like developing a 
circular economy, improving recycling and materials 
substitutions?
    And then specifically, what can Congress do to help 
encourage these innovative approaches?
    Dr. Mulvaney. Well, I will start with the second part to 
that, which piggybacks on my previous comment about setting up 
a takeback and collection system, because that really sends a 
signal to the recyclers and the innovators who are working with 
these materials that there is going to be a market for them to 
recover that material and sell it back to a new product. For 
example, having content requirements, having a certain 
percentage of recycled content as a law or policy can help 
drive innovation in those new, emerging sectors.
    We are seeing, because of the European Union's Waste and 
Electronics and Electrical Equipment Directive, a takeback and 
collection system is leading to 95 percent of solar panels 
being recovered in Europe. They are getting silver out of them, 
they are innovating to get the silicon, which is very, very 
high energy intensity and the most carbon intensive part of the 
solar panel. They are recovering that. And in the United 
States, it is less than 10 percent. It is on the order of 5 
percent because we don't have that takeback and collection 
system.
    We are also innovating around battery materials. We are 
starting to see sodium batteries entering into cars in China. A 
very small car, a burgeoning industry. We don't know if sodium 
batteries will be the future, but that is part of, I think, 
what we have to be aware of is that sometimes these materials 
that we demand will change in the future.
    Mr. Mullin. Thank you, sir.
    I yield back.
    Dr. Gosar. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from Idaho, 
Mr. Russ Fulcher, is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Fulcher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And to the panel, thank you for being here and your 
participation. And you are probably aware of this, but in the 
wisdom of Congress we have multiple committees going on at the 
same time. So, if you see us coming and going, please, please 
forgive the scheduling on that. But thank you for being here.
    A question for Mr. Nassar. This has to do with uranium. And 
I know that in your written testimony you touched on this, but 
I would like to just clarify and get your thoughts. Uranium is 
used, of course, for nuclear power plants. And that is a 
specific interest to me in my state. Idaho National Lab is 
instrumental in research for nuclear power. And our 
availability for that, our resources for that, are primarily 
outside of the United States.
    So, I want to just have you talk for a minute about what 
are your concerns when it comes to domestic production, what 
are the issues there, and is there a reason why, from a policy 
standpoint, we don't have more of that domestic sourcing?
    Dr. Nassar. Thank you, Congressman, for that question.
    As a science agency, I obviously wouldn't be able to 
comment on policy issues. But what we are concerned with and 
what our analysis draws upon are supply risks due to three 
factors that we look at: we look at the likelihood of a 
disruption; our exposure, meaning the United States' exposure 
to foreign supply disruptions; and our ability to weather the 
storm through our economic vulnerability to those disruptions. 
So, those are the factors that we look at.
    And in terms of disruption potential, we are looking at 
whether or not the suppliers to the United States are reliable 
suppliers, whether there will be potential for disruption due 
to the simple fact that the production is concentrated either 
in one trading partner or in a geographic region. So, those are 
the things that concern us most.
    Mr. Fulcher. Right now, how much of our current supply 
comes from domestic sources, can you tell me that?
    Dr. Nassar. It really depends by commodity. For some 
commodities like molybdenum, we are net exporters. For other 
commodities like gallium, we are importing 100 percent----
    Mr. Fulcher. I am talking specifically about uranium in 
this case.
    Dr. Nassar. Uranium. Our center doesn't necessarily cover 
uranium production and consumption. But my understanding is 
that we are highly net import reliant. Most of our imports are 
coming in currently from Australia and a smaller degree from 
Canada.
    Mr. Fulcher. That brings up another question. Why is 
uranium not of interest to you? When you say that is not 
covered by your jurisdiction, why not?
    Dr. Nassar. Sorry, I believe that is due to a statute that 
requires the Energy Information Administration to cover uranium 
and not the National Minerals Information Center at the U.S. 
Geological Survey.
    Mr. Fulcher. OK. But your understanding is that we are 
highly reliant outside of the United States.
    Dr. Nassar. That is my understanding, yes.
    Mr. Fulcher. OK. Mr. Eggert, I would like to talk to you 
for just a second, please. Idaho provides a significant amount 
of phosphate that is used for fertilizer and other products, 
and that is important for domestic food production and other 
uses. There are two phosphate mines in my state, in Idaho, and 
both of those are put at risk currently due to some lawsuits 
and other issues.
    The Department of the Interior did not include phosphate on 
its list of critical minerals in 2022. It has been previously, 
but it wasn't as of 2022. So, if we lost domestic production of 
phosphate, do you think that would trigger that being put on a 
critical mineral list?
    Dr. Eggert. I would expect so. The phosphate clearly is 
essential for fertilizer and, in turn, agricultural production. 
The United States is currently a major producer of phosphate 
rock and phosphorus for fertilizers. And if we lost domestic 
production capabilities, that would certainly elevate its 
ranking in any list or evaluation of material criticality.
    Mr. Fulcher. So, we have about 35 percent of our dependence 
on that from a combination of China and Russia.
    And then just the local stock is in danger of being shut 
down with current litigation standards. Have you tracked that? 
Do you see a danger of supply shock, given our susceptibility 
to those circumstances?
    Dr. Eggert. I don't have detailed knowledge of that 
particular circumstance. But it sounds worthy of evaluation.
    Mr. Fulcher. Mr. Chairman, I would like to follow up with 
Mr. Eggert on that at a later point. I have used my time, so I 
yield back. Thank you.
    Dr. Gosar. Sounds good. The gentleman from Arizona, the 
Ranking Member for the Full Committee, is now recognized for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Grijalva. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Before I forget, Mr. Somers, if I may, on the issue of 
royalties, and you commented on it, the Interagency Working 
Group recommended, I think, proposed a 4 to 8 percent royalty 
on net revenue from a mining operation. Do you still believe 
that that is an excessive amount?
    Mr. Somers. Again, that would put us among the highest 
royalties in the world if that were to be implemented.
    Mr. Grijalva. Interesting, because the state of Utah on 
their state land charges 4 to 10 percent on gross revenue, not 
the net revenue part of it, which I would suggest makes Utah 
the highest royalty charging government entity in the world 
other than the Federal Government. So, how do you reconcile 
that?
    Is that fair for taxpayers from public lands, Federal lands 
cannot draw royalties from mining operations, regardless, and 
yet a state, Utah, Wyoming does the same thing, Arizona does 
the same thing, can charge royalties on state land. Do you 
think that that is fair?
    Mr. Somers. Again, I am not sure exactly which royalty rate 
you are referring to, Mr. Grijalva. But in some cases----
    Mr. Grijalva. Since there is none on Federal land, any 
royalty rate you want. Anyway, finish your response. I 
apologize.
    Mr. Somers. Again, I am not sure exactly which royalty rate 
you are referring to. It does differ by commodity in Utah. And 
those are set by the State and Institutional Trust Lands 
Administration, which administers a trust on behalf of Utah's 
school children.
    And I think that the issue here is not necessarily that the 
mining industry is opposed to any type of royalty rate. It is 
just a matter of how that royalty rate is applied and the 
overall rate, as well.
    Mr. Grijalva. The fact we have none does open that 
conversation on many levels, from cleanup of abandoned mines to 
reclamation, to assurance for communities, and for tribes in 
the area in terms of the impact and effects of a particular 
mining operation after they leave, after 25 or 30 years. So, I 
think it is a legitimate point, which is part of the problem 
with the 150-year-old mining law.
    The critical minerals list informs decisions across the 
Federal Government. In my district, the Permitting Council 
recently announced the first-ever mining project approved for 
FAST-41, a process where these covered projects receive 
expedited permitting and review. The mine was chosen because 
the minerals are on the critical minerals list.
    But my constituents have concerns. The critical mineral 
list may tell us all about the mineral's importance to the 
economy, but it doesn't capture the impacts of mining on our 
local communities, local economies, the environment, or 
cultural heritage.
    And compound that with the constituents being concerned 
about the already extremely scarce water supplies that this 
mine would draw upon, and the huge water users would dry up. In 
fact, some parts of the state residential construction is being 
paused, stopped because there isn't enough groundwater to 
support the new developments.
    My point being while there are critical minerals in this 
location, how do you balance and weigh water supplies, 
endangered species, cultural heritage, tribal consultation, and 
executing our trust responsibility to tribes?
    Dr. Nassar, are any of these factors considered when you 
are looking at the critical minerals?
    Dr. Nassar. Thank you, Congressman. Those are not factors 
that we look at.
    However, in our earth mapping resource initiatives, USGS 
follows Department of the Interior guidelines regarding tribal 
engagement, and only collects data over tribal lands with 
express written consent.
    Mr. Grijalva. My point being, I mean, we are talking about 
the sovereignty part of it. But the consultation is any project 
that impacts, and I think that the answer is no.
    And Dr. Mulvaney, going into the future of mine permitting, 
these factors need to be taken into account, from my 
perspective. Your response to that?
    And there are other factors. I just mentioned those three.
    Dr. Mulvaney. Could you repeat that one more time?
    Mr. Grijalva. Yes. How do you think the future mine 
permitting should take these factors into account, going 
forward?
    Dr. Mulvaney. First, that life cycle approach that I 
started with, it needs to be more holistic, there needs to be 
alternatives considered. And that could be even through the 
National Environmental Policy Act, sometimes there are 
alternatives considered there. And there also needs to be more 
cumulative impacts looked at because we are often permitting 
projects one by one, and we don't see the big picture. And that 
is what I meant when I said a holistic approach by 
understanding the cumulative impacts.
    A mine might be proposed, it might say it is not going to 
impact groundwater, but we don't know what else is coming down 
the line, and we think it is important.
    Mr. Grijalva. Mr. Chairman, thank you for allowing the 
witness to answer.
    Dr. Gosar. I thank the gentleman. I am going to recognize 
myself now for the next one.
    Dr. Mulvaney, you made a comment to Mr. Tiffany in regards 
to power, in regards to recycling. I think you really need to 
check your information. It takes much more power to recycle 
something than it does new. That is whether it be paper wood, 
whether it be minerals, all the way across the board.
    And then second, can you name me a mine that you actually 
endorse and support?
    Dr. Mulvaney. I will answer the second question first. I 
live next to a sand mine in Ben Lomond, California, and I 
support that----
    Dr. Gosar. How about a hardrock mine?
    Dr. Mulvaney. I actually don't know of any hardrock mines 
where I have lived near, so I don't know.
    Dr. Gosar. It seems to me like you should be looking at 
that hardrock mine and getting familiar with it, if you are 
going to be an expert along these critical minerals because it 
is so very, very important.
    Dr. Eggert, I have to tell you, thanks for Colorado School 
of Mines. My dad and my sister went there, so thank you very 
much for that excellent education we got.
    I want to come back to uranium. I find it offensive that it 
was taken off the critical mineral list because now we are 
seeing, I was in Germany a couple of years back with Rob 
Bishop, and our military is supposed to have 24/7 baseload 
power. And they were going to use Nord Stream 2. So, my comment 
was, ``Well, we are going to use this 24-hour baseload power 
coming from Russia. How does that work?'' And here we are doing 
the same thing again, where almost everybody that talks about 
green energy says you can't do it without nuclear right now. 
Take a quantum leap in battery storage to get this taken care 
of.
    So, we are going down this rat hole again about energy, and 
being dictated by adversaries. Would you consider Russia a 
friend, Dr. Eggert?
    Dr. Eggert. Under the current circumstances? No, I would 
not consider Russia an ally.
    Dr. Gosar. And how did that switch flip? Was it very quick, 
that geopolitical switch? Didn't it flip very quickly?
    Dr. Eggert. Oh, absolutely. I think for the last several 
decades we, generally speaking, have viewed engagement with 
Russia as a means of, over the longer term, fostering greater 
security through more interactions. And what has happened came 
as a surprise.
    Dr. Gosar. I just want to go back to Mr. Fulcher. He talked 
about helium. I thought I saw this, that it was Helium-4 that 
was used in a fusion experiment. Was that true, Dr. Eggert?
    Dr. Eggert. I believe so. I am not an expert on helium.
    Dr. Gosar. I guess, coming along those same lines as Mr. 
Fulcher to Dr. Nassar, this ought to be on the critical list 
because my understanding is Helium-4 just isn't everywhere.
    Now, Dr. Eggert, when we are doing science discoveries and 
experiments, a critical element could be just anything that we 
need to have to place in there. But if you don't have it, you 
can't use it. Is that true? If you don't have that element, you 
can't use it.
    Dr. Eggert. If you don't have it, you cannot use it, 
correct.
    Dr. Gosar. Wow, it seems like all this technology is going 
down these roads with helium, nuclear, critical, and hardrock. 
It is just amazing how much things we have not taken into 
consideration here, very, very sad.
    Mr. Somers, here is your answer to the gentleman from 
Arizona. In the multiple use doctrine, Congress gave the state 
the hardrock royalty as part of that aspect. Like in Arizona, 
the state is the last of jurisdiction because we were rejected 
the first time. The second time we were coming, they came back 
with Taft. Taft was the only President to go to the Supreme 
Court. He understood contracts. So, we were forced to take the 
multiple use or take the Federal doctrine of the Federal lands. 
But in lieu of that, we were given the multiple use doctrine 
that the Feds said they would get the maximum out of it to 
appease both sides. So, hardrock mining went to the state.
    I find it very offensive that I look at my district, we 
just had the Ranking Member and the Interior Secretary come 
into my state and withdraw over a million acres, not for 
maintaining the landscape. It was to stop uranium production. 
And if you look at this, it is an unhealthy situation when you 
do not mine it. A collapsed breccia pipe is a low point in the 
geology.
    I used to hate rocks, Dr. Eggert. Now I love rocks. They 
set you free.
    So, water pools there and the air. And you are going to get 
contamination all the way across. It seems to me like what you 
would want to do is take out that uranium, clean it up, have 
sand and gravel put in there. It helps you through the caliche 
clays so you get sub-permeation of water. That was a mouthful. 
Sorry.
    The gentlewoman from Colorado, Mrs. Boebert, is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Boebert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all 
for being here today and testifying before our Committee.
    Mr. Blakemore, clearly China is dominating the entire world 
when it comes to mineral supply chains. But why is that? Why 
are we so desperately far behind the curve when it comes to 
China and these rare earth minerals?
    Mr. Blakemore. It is a combination of multiple factors. 
First and foremost, China embarked on an aggressive strategy of 
investing in upstream resources abroad. And those investments 
drew a lot of those resources domestically to China, where it 
was able to construct a pretty strong market share on the 
processing part of key supply chains, facilitated also by high 
subsidization and, in some cases, rather lax environmental 
regulation.
    That has gotten us to the point now where China's market 
incumbency both puts it ahead of the United States in terms of 
certain supply chain resiliency efforts, but also makes 
reducing that market incumbency a little bit sticky, given the 
economics associated with those respective supply chains.
    Mrs. Boebert. Do you think that the Trump administration, 
his Executive Orders in 2017 that were proposed steps to form a 
national strategy to strengthen our domestic supply chains, do 
you think that that would have helped in this, so we wouldn't 
be so far behind the curve?
    Mr. Blakemore. I think the efforts more broadly over the 
course of several administrations actually have advanced a more 
holistic approach to thinking about our supply chain 
resiliency.
    The Trump administration, to its credit, did a lot of work 
to think specifically about upstream resiliency. However, 
upstream resiliency alone is not a solution to supply chain 
resiliency. And I think as our thinking and strategic planning 
around supply chain resiliency matures, moving down the supply 
chain as well, and thinking about the ontake and offtake of 
various components of the supply chain to build that strategy 
is also necessary. So, I look at the Trump administration 
decision as one piece, a critical piece, but one piece of what 
I would call a healthy supply chain resiliency strategy.
    Mrs. Boebert. Thank you. It sounds like we would agree that 
the way the United States determines what is considered a 
critical mineral and how we manage these supply chains and what 
production advantages, if any, listed critical minerals we 
receive over unlisted mineral commodities is of national 
importance.
    Dr. Eggert, you have been involved in critical mineral and 
material assessments for decades, and it seems that these 
assessments have helped highlight some of the challenges that 
we are facing. But are we, as a nation, making headway in 
improving our situation with respect to critical minerals?
    Dr. Eggert. I think we are making improvements, but there 
is always room for more improvement. I think in terms of three 
specific areas where we should focus attention: first, research 
and development throughout the entire supply chain; second, 
workforce development, it takes workers to mine the minerals 
and do the various downstream processing activities, and we 
have lost much of that capability; and third, there is 
significant room for improvement in permitting and associated 
pre-production activities, not to minimize or reduce the 
importance of environmental protection or interaction with 
local communities, but in a way that gets us to yes or no and 
how, in terms of project development, sooner.
    Mrs. Boebert. Thank you. Mr. Somers, to me it seems that 
this Administration says one thing about mining in America, but 
does something completely different. Has the critical materials 
list yielded any results in terms of creating jobs or economic 
development in your state?
    We just heard that one improvement to the supply chain and 
this energy security would be to improve the workforce.
    Mr. Somers. Yes, I do think that there is utility in 
highlighting the supply chain vulnerabilities that we have. But 
in terms of bringing specific investment or jobs to the state 
because a mineral is on the list or not on the list, we haven't 
seen that in Utah. And I think that the bigger issues are some 
of the other things that we have talked about.
    I mean, it is what is the Federal Government's policy, 
especially in a public land state like Utah, what are the 
Federal Government's policies with regard to how you can open 
up, and permit, and develop a mine?
    And then also, is the Federal Government going to come in 
and make the economics of a mining project more difficult 
because of royalty rates or other things that they might be 
contemplating?
    So, I think that those are the more important issues as 
opposed to whether a mineral is on a list or not.
    Mrs. Boebert. Thank you.
    And Mr. Chairman, may I ask one yes-or-no question to Mr. 
Somers?
    Mr. Stauber [presiding]. Yes, go ahead.
    Mrs. Boebert. Thank you.
    Has the Biden administration's decision to leave out 
critical minerals like uranium and helium on the list had any 
adverse impacts on job creation or economic development?
    And you can expand later, but maybe just for now yes or no.
    Mr. Somers. I think that it has, yes.
    Mrs. Boebert. OK, great. Thank you so much for all of you 
and your time here today.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much. Next to question is 
Representative Collins.
    You are up for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Collins. I think that was pretty obvious there, Mr. 
Chairman. No, I am just joking.
    I kind of want to point my questions in one direction, and 
listening for most of the questions and testimony, except for 
the time, obviously, you have been seeing us run in and out 
like Fulcher was talking about, but I have noticed that people 
have been asking about certain minerals and being on the list, 
off the list, on the list of critical minerals.
    And then having gone all over the country with field 
hearings that we have been involved with to talk to people 
about how it is impacting their lives, their family's lives, 
and generational lives of people that mine, and I kind of want 
to, you may have answered it, I don't know. And maybe I just 
didn't get it. I have tried to take some notes. But Dr. Nassar, 
I just want to kind of go over a few things real quick to just 
get an idea in my simple little brain of process and 
methodology maybe.
    How does the USGS determine a country's ability to supply 
mineral resources, and how did you decide on that methodology 
that you are using?
    Dr. Nassar. Thank you, Congressman, for that question. I 
think you are specifically asking regarding the country 
metrics.
    Mr. Collins. Yes.
    Dr. Nassar. We look at two factors: a country's ability to 
continue to supply to the United States, and a country's 
willingness to continue to supply to the United States.
    For the ability metric, we use the Fraser Institute's 
Policy Perception Index, which is a survey to mining executives 
around the world to rank countries and jurisdictions regarding 
how favorable are policies, how is the political situation, 
political stability of the country, access to labor, access to 
infrastructure, access to electricity, for example. So, that is 
the basis for the ability metric.
    For the willingness metric, we look at three factors. How 
close a country is ideologically to the United States, do they 
have democratic practices or not? We look also at trade ties. 
How closely are the two countries, the country in question and 
the United States in terms of trade? And we also look at 
military cooperation. Is there a specific defense agreement for 
supplying the United States? So, those are the factors that we 
look at in terms of country metrics.
    Mr. Collins. OK, and maybe that will help with this next 
question that I have for you then, because I understand you do 
consult with other agencies, including the Department of 
Defense and the Department of State when you draft your 
critical minerals list.
    How much weight do you give those consulting departments 
when you make your final decision?
    Dr. Nassar. Sorry. If I can get a clarification, are you 
asking how much weight do we give the----
    Mr. Collins. Those departments, when you are making your 
final decision, when they have their input.
    Dr. Nassar. Right, so through the interagency process, 
through the National Science Technology Council's Critical 
Subcommittee, we formed a working group. They weighed in on the 
methodology throughout the process. They weighed in on the 
results at the end of it.
    We also did an internal peer review within USGS and an 
external peer review with experts at a scientific journal.
    Mr. Collins. So, how do you even put a value on the 
importance of their opinion when they have totally different 
priorities?
    Dr. Nassar. Well, I think we take in all the comments. This 
is an iterative process where we hear each other, we understand 
the issues of importance to them, and we weigh the factors 
together.
    Mr. Collins. OK. The last----
    Mr. Stauber. Mr. Collins, can I follow up real quick? I 
will give you the time back.
    Mr. Collins. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Stauber. Mr. Nassar, so you weigh other departments, 
their needs, and wants, and desires. So, does politics then 
enter it?
    Dr. Nassar. I apologize. Let me clarify. What I was saying 
is that we take input from people within the departments in 
terms of the methodology. Do they feel like this specific 
methodological input makes sense or not? They are part of the 
Interagency Working Group to help us define the methodology.
    Mr. Stauber. I yield back to the gentleman from Georgia, 
and I will give you your time back, as well. Thank you.
    Mr. Collins. No, that is OK. I only have one other question 
I wanted to run by him.
    Have you ever considered making subcategories of minerals 
on the list by sector or end use, such as defense or 
aeronautics? Similar to the way the critical minerals list at 
the DOE focuses on alternative energy.
    Dr. Nassar. Thank you for that question. I think it is an 
interesting proposal.
    The way we see it is that it is important to look at the 
economy as a whole, because if you look at one individual 
industry sector or technology, then you might be missing 
compounding or second order effects that might impact each 
other. So, it is important for us to look at the economy as a 
whole.
    And in our future development of the methodology, we are 
planning to use an economic model that is able to measure and 
quantify those impacts, not only on those directly consuming 
industries, but downstream industries again, and the economy as 
a whole.
    Mr. Collins. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is 
all I have.
    Mr. Stauber. Thank you, Mr. Collins. I want to thank the 
witnesses for their valuable testimony and the Members for 
their questions.
    The members of the Subcommittee may have some additional 
questions for the witnesses, and we will ask you to respond to 
these in writing. Under Committee Rule 3, members of the 
Committee must submit questions to the Committee Clerk by 5 
p.m. on Monday, September 18. The hearing record will be held 
open for 10 business days for these responses.
    If there is no further business, without objection, the 
Committee stands adjourned.

    [Whereupon, at 12:29 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

                                 [all]