[Senate Hearing 118-309]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 118-309
OPPORTUNITIES TO COUNTER THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA'S CONTROL OF
CRITICAL MINERAL SUPPLY CHAINS THROUGH INCREASED MINING AND PROCESSING
IN THE UNITED STATES AS WELL AS INTERNATIONAL ENGAGEMENT AND TRADE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 28, 2023
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
55-812 WASHINGTON : 2025
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia, Chairman
RON WYDEN, Oregon JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont MIKE LEE, Utah
MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico STEVE DAINES, Montana
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana
MARK KELLY, Arizona CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi
JOHN W. HICKENLOOPER, Colorado JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
Renae Black, Staff Director
Sam E. Fowler, Chief Counsel
Peter Stahley, Professional Staff Member
Zahava Urecki, Professional Staff Member
Richard M. Russell, Republican Staff Director
Justin J. Memmott, Republican Chief Counsel
Valerie Manak, Republican Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
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OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Manchin III, Hon. Joe, Chairman and a U.S. Senator from West
Virginia....................................................... 1
Barrasso, Hon. John, Ranking Member and a U.S. Senator from
Wyoming........................................................ 9
WITNESSES
Beaudreau, Hon. Tommy P., Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of
the Interior................................................... 12
Yergin, Dr. Daniel, Vice Chairman, S&P Global.................... 19
Compton, Mark, Executive Director, American Exploration and
Mining Association............................................. 32
ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED
American Critical Minerals Association:
Letter for the Record........................................ 93
Barrasso, Hon. John:
Opening Statement............................................ 9
Chart listing top countries in lithium production, reserves,
and resources.............................................. 11
Beaudreau, Hon. Tommy P.:
Opening Statement............................................ 12
Written Testimony............................................ 15
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 109
Compton, Mark:
Opening Statement............................................ 32
Written Testimony............................................ 34
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 127
Daines, Hon. Steve:
USGS graph depicting U.S. mineral import reliance............ 89
King, Jr., Hon. Angus S.:
Mother Jones Article entitled ``Yes in Our Backyards'' by
Bill McKibben, published May-June 2023..................... 68
Manchin III, Hon. Joe:
Opening Statement............................................ 1
Chart entitled ``Global Share of Mining/Processing: 2023..... 3
Chart depicting sourcing requirements for extraction and
processing of critical minerals under the Inflation
Reduction Act.............................................. 5
National Mining Association:
Statement for the Record..................................... 96
Sourcemap:
Letter for the Record........................................ 148
Yergin, Dr. Daniel:
Opening Statement............................................ 19
Written Testimony............................................ 21
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 126
OPPORTUNITIES TO COUNTER THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA'S CONTROL OF
CRITICAL MINERAL SUPPLY CHAINS THROUGH INCREASED MINING AND PROCESSING
IN THE UNITED STATES AS WELL AS INTERNATIONAL ENGAGEMENT AND TRADE
----------
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2023
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m. in
Room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joe Manchin
III, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE MANCHIN III,
U.S. SENATOR FROM WEST VIRGINIA
The Chairman. We are here today to continue the Committee's
work securing our critical mineral supply chains and countering
the People's Republic of China's control over so many of the
materials which have become essential to our modern lives. Just
after the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and on
the heels of Putin's invasion of Ukraine, this Committee held a
series of hearings on critical minerals in early 2022. We
recognize the growing risk of our country's reliance for
minerals on nations who do not share our values. Just like
Putin weaponized Russia's oil and gas resources to try to scare
off Europe from supporting Ukraine, Xi Jinping and the Chinese
Communist Party are more than willing to use critical minerals
as leverage to put Americans and the free world at risk. In
fact, China is already doing so.
Just last month, Xi Jinping's government announced export
restrictions on gallium and germanium, two critical minerals
that are needed for semiconductor fabrication. This is just a
small preview of what could come in the future. And some of the
decisions that the Administration has been making seem to be
increasing our risk instead of reducing it. That is why it is
so important that Congress has made progress to strengthen
supply chains and onshore vital manufacturing, including
through the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law, CHIPS and Science, and the National Defense
Authorization Acts. However, our work is still not done.
I want to thank my dear friend Dan Yergin, who I am
grateful to have testifying before us today. He will help us
better understand how the global landscape for critical
minerals has changed in the wake of those legislative efforts.
Dr. Yergin and his team have done extensive study of the supply
and demand outlook for copper, lithium, cobalt, and nickel,
including a focus on opportunities to produce these resources
domestically as well as with our free trade partners. It will
come as no surprise that I want to discuss our best options to
pivot away from China, particularly when it comes to electric
vehicle supply chain. Let me be clear--I fully support
realistic and responsible approaches to reducing emissions in
the transportation sector, and EVs are an important part of
that equation, but so long as China and other countries that
don't share our values control the supply of critical minerals
required for EVs, I will strongly oppose moving too quickly
toward an EV-dominated future.
Thanks to innovation and investment in our domestic oil
industry over the last two decades, there is no longer a risk
that foreign adversaries could force us to ration gasoline like
we saw in the 1970s. We must deploy the same innovative spirit
and entrepreneurship to ensure that no American has to wait in
line for the rationing of Chinese batteries. The chart behind
me shows just how dire the threat is.
[The chart referred to follows:]
The Chairman. When it comes to the EV battery supply chain,
depending on the mineral, China and Chinese-controlled entities
and countries, like Indonesia, process anywhere from 60 to 100
percent of all the minerals needed for batteries in electric
motors. And their dominance is not just in minerals, it is also
in battery manufacturing. China is responsible for 74 percent
of the world's cathode production, 92 percent of anode
production, and 76 percent of lithium-ion battery cell
production. They simply have cornered the market.
With numbers like these, it is frustrating that the
Administration continues to try to water down the sourcing
requirements for EV batteries clearly stated--and I say clearly
stated because we wrote it out in the IRA. This is what the
Administration is administering to try to get more out quicker
and be more dependent on China than we already are.
[The Chairman refers to a second chart, which follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5812.106
The Chairman. They are reducing--in 2023, the bill stated
you had to have 40 percent--40 percent--from the U.S. or free
trade countries. They cut that down to 20, in half. Again, in
2024, it goes to 50. They kept that at 20. 2025--60. They kept
that at 30. 2026--cut it in half, from 70 to 35. You can see
the trend. This is what you hear me complain about all the
time.
They are trying to administer a piece of legislation they
never passed. And I am just waiting for them to get out of the
interim. They are on the interim as far as they have not filed
to follow the rules. They are operating under the interim right
now because we can't sue them. As soon as they go into their
final ruling, there will be somebody damaged. They can sue. We
will do an amicus brief and stop this craziness. This is what I
am dealing with. So when people say why are you upset about
your bill--the bill is well balanced. We are producing more
energy than ever before. We are producing more energy in this
country than ever before. And we can do the same with minerals
that we have that we have not even touched yet.
So with numbers like these, it is frustrating that the
Administration continues to try to water down the sourcing
requirements for EV batteries clearly stated in the IRA.
Through guidance, the Administration is attempting to cut the
critical mineral sourcing percentage requirements in half, as
we just showed you, pretending battery component manufacturing
is the same as critical minerals processing and proposing fake
``free trade agreements'' that circumvent the law. And the
Administration still has not published the ``Foreign Entity of
Concern'' guidance required in the IRA to prevent bad actors
from receiving taxpayer dollars. The chart, as we said, a stark
difference behind me was between the strong critical mineral
sourcing requirements explicitly spelled out in Section 13401
of the IRA and Treasury's attempt to lower the bar through
guidance. As you can see, Treasury is effectively cutting the
requirements in half, making it harder to secure the supply
chain here at home and with our partners.
The Administration appears to care more about getting EVs
on the road than our energy security and competition with
China. With so many of our mineral resources on federal lands,
I appreciate Deputy Secretary Beaudreau joining us to discuss
the Interior Department's role as part of the solution. While
Congress has given the Administration tools to secure our
supply chain in recent legislation, I am incredibly frustrated
that the bipartisan demand for urgency seems to be going
unheard. Benchmark Mineral Intelligence estimates that at least
336 new mines are needed for graphite, lithium, nickel, and
cobalt to meet EV demands prior to 2035. However, an
insufficient number of new mines are currently in development
to meet that demand, while those projects that are under
development face long time frames and considerable risk. When
we refuse to allow mining and processing here in a timely
fashion, we encourage it to occur in countries with lower
environmental and labor standards than we would permit at home.
No one in the Administration or Congress denies this reality.
Personally, I have been speaking to members in the Congo
who are basically being exploited and they are desperately in
need of changing how they do business there and China having a
stranglehold on them. And they are willing to fight, but it is
going to be very hard. But we have not seen any major projects
approved by the U.S. Forest Service or the Department of the
Interior at any point during this Administration. What we have
seen is environmental impact statements for mineral projects
rescinded to undergo years of additional review and
consultation with no end in sight. Other projects, including
one that has received Defense Production Act funding so that
the Department of Defense can manufacture desperately needed
ammunition, have seen their schedules slip over and over again.
And we have heard troubling reports that Department of Energy
grant funding is being withheld for mineral processing that
would enable new mining while recycling projects already have
their cash in hand.
Not only has the Administration delayed the minerals
projects that we need, they appear to be taking the position
that we don't have a permitting problem at all for critical
minerals. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law directed the
Department of the Interior to make critical mineral permitting
improvements and then report back to Congress within one year
on progress and additional recommendations. But instead of
getting the report the law requires, the report we received
earlier this month, ten months late, does not describe any
concrete actions that have been taken to speed up permitting or
establish timelines as required by the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law. While I do support the intent of some of
the Administration's non-permitting recommendations--like
reasonable reforms to the Mining Law of 1872 to ensure a fair
return for taxpayers and addressing abandoned hardrock mines--
none of that does anything to secure the supply chains for
minerals or for the EV batteries that this Administration so
desperately wants.
It is seeming more and more like this Administration's
strategy is focused on talking about new mining, but doing very
little to actually permit and use resources we have beneath our
feet. I am committed to keep working on a bipartisan basis in
our Committee to correct this course. We must also acknowledge
that while we can provide much of the minerals that we need
domestically, we can't produce or process every mineral in the
quantities that we need here in the United States or even just
in North America. So we need to ensure that we are working with
trusted, reliable partners when it comes to overseas mineral
sourcing. That means looking to friends like Canada and
Australia, free trade partners, and our NATO allies to help us
secure our mineral supply chains. But it does not mean ignoring
our democratic values, labor standards, or environmental
priorities to buy from anyone willing to sell us minerals or
batteries.
In closing, if we don't address our dependence problem and
look for innovative ways to onshore the critical mineral supply
chain, it will compromise our energy security and handicap us
in a global marketplace. Let me be very clear--the reason the
bill was written the way it was--I didn't want to give 75 cents
credit to EVs, to the car makers. And I think they have a good
product. The market will go. That's where the market will take
you. But in order to do that, we made a compromise. If we can
develop our own supply chain, not dependent on China and areas
of the world that we share no values with whatsoever that can
hold them hostage, the same way that Putin has held energy as a
hostage and a weapon, then I would be happy to work with you. I
tried in good faith to do that. And we have a bill that we all
passed. This law passed. It's a good piece of legislation that
they do not wish to adhere to because it's not the time frame
that they wanted. That is the problem I have.
So I am going to continue to fight, and we cannot let this
happen. And with that in mind, I can't help but take the
opportunity with the Deputy Secretary to bring up the Inflation
Reduction Act's oil and gas leasing provisions. I have been
concerned about the efforts of the Administration to throttle
back oil and gas leasing and production. So I made sure that
that the IRA tied Interior's ability to issue wind and solar
leases to the Department holding significant oil and gas lease
sales both on and offshore, simply stating that you cannot go
out and do what you want unless you do everything that we need.
We are going to basically be able to extract the oil and gas
that we need in the properties and basically, our BLM land and
offshore, basically, with the Gulf and do that as we are
basically developing the resources that we need for minerals.
As we all know, not only are we nearing the end of the Fiscal
Year on September 30, we are coming up on two major oil and gas
deadlines: the release of the long-delayed five-year offshore
leasing program and the Inflation Reduction Act's final
mandate, Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 261. Unfortunately, as a
result of the Administration's own actions, they have managed
to delay Lease Sale 261 until no later than November 8,
according to a recent Fifth Circuit order.
Let me review just how ridiculous this is. First, the
Administration allowed environmental groups to hijack the
leasing process by agreeing to a voluntary settlement related
to the Rice's whale that bypassed Interior's normal procedure
and set them up to lose in court. The settlement imposed new
restrictions on oil and gas in the Gulf and would have removed
six million acres from the lease sale. Then, when the federal
judge determined Interior's changes to the lease sale were
likely unlawful and ordered the sale to proceed as originally
proposed, Interior said they did not have enough time to
course-correct and meet the September 30 deadline set by
Congress. Why not? Because according to Interior, they need
more time to follow normal procedures, the same procedures that
the Administration was willing to bypass to appease
environmental activists in the settlement agreement. You can't
make this crap up. You just can't. It's real.
This is just the latest example in which this
Administration has not gotten the message. Trying to rewrite an
energy security law passed by Congress through Administration
action is not a winning strategy. And they are finding out the
hard way. And they are delaying everyone's production. I want
everyone to know that I will support anyone who suffers damages
as a result of this Administration failing to implement the IRA
in alignment with the intent and the letter of this very
balanced law because the reality is, we will get closer to
achieving our shared goals--not Republican goals, not Democrat
goals, but American goals--for oil and gas, for critical
minerals, and for many other energy sources if we embrace the
balanced approach in the IRA. As ten of my Republican
colleagues stated in their amicus brief related to Lease Sale
261, and I have said this: that bill that was put together--the
IRA was done with all the consideration working with my
partners on the Republican side and Democrat side for over five
years. The IRA was a result of that considerable deliberation
concerning the economic, energy, environmental, and strategic
interests of the United States, and the IRA balances diverse,
complex, and overlapping considerations, including growth and
conservation, domestic needs and global positioning, and
security and diplomacy. That was what my friends said. I could
not agree more with my Republican friends on this and I will
continue to do everything in my power to ensure the law is
implemented in that manner.
We are already on track to realize the benefits of these
energy laws that we have recently passed. We are producing, as
I have said before, more energy of all kinds in 2023--37
trillion cubic feet of gas will be produced this year. Never
before. And 4.6 billion barrels of oil from the United States.
Never that much before. And doubling the amount of solar and
battery projects, doubling the amount in one year. Never done
before. If we work on a bipartisan basis to implement the all-
of-the-above energy policy established by the IRA and the
Infrastructure Law, then we can build even more on this
success. So I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today
to understand how we can find a realistic path forward without
sacrificing our energy and national security.
And with that, I am going to turn to the Ranking Member, my
friend, Senator Barrasso.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO,
U.S. SENATOR FROM WYOMING
Senator Barrasso. Well, thanks so much, Mr. Chairman, for
your very strong statement on the importance of the hearing
today and why we are holding the hearing because, as a nation,
I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, we are highly dependent on
imports of critical minerals and materials. Many of the
countries that supply these resources are adversaries and they
clearly, as you said, don't share our values. A Biden
Administration official went so far as to call our mineral
dependence a ``clear and present danger.'' And he met with
members of this Committee just last week as we sat around to
discuss the concerns that we share. That is one of the few
statements from this Administration that I agree with because
the projected mineral demand is increasing in an amount that is
well known to all of us, and it does not seem to be understood
by the Administration.
The world demand for copper is expected to increase by 300
percent by 2040. The Economist, last week, had an article about
this. It said, where you going to go for the copper? This
Administration has shut down a copper mine in northern
Minnesota, so where are they going to go? Well, The Economist
pointed out in their article, well, there is this place between
the border of Iran and Pakistan where we can go to get the
copper when we need it. The demand is up by 300 percent.
Nickel demand is expected to increase by 1,900 percent.
Graphite demand expected to increase by 2,500 percent. Lithium
demand to increase by 4,200 percent. Much of this demand has
been generated from President Biden's policies compelling,
mandating the use of electric vehicles, solar panels, and wind
turbines. The United States depends on imports for the vast
majority of the minerals used in these products. China is a top
producer of lithium and rare-earth elements. The Democratic
Republic of the Congo is a major producer of cobalt and copper,
and Indonesia produces nearly half of the world's nickel. These
nations do not share our values. China ruthlessly exploits a
religious and ethnic minority as a source of forced labor in
its mining industry. The Congo has tens of thousands of
children mining cobalt. Indonesia is clear-cutting vast areas
of its tropical rain forest to access its nickel reserves. No
moral or ethical sacrifice, including slavery and child labor,
seems to be too great for Joe Biden's so-called green
transition.
America's dependence on foreign minerals is not only
shameful and reckless, it is unnecessary. We have more of the
resources that we need right here at home, including copper,
including lithium, including nickel, graphite, cobalt; yet this
Biden Administration's bone-headed policies make it clearly
impossible to access them. Recently, Mr. Chairman, scientists
reported that the United States may be home to the largest
known lithium deposit in the world. In fact, our nation's
lithium reserves are estimated to be more than three times
larger than China's, yet China's lithium production is 27 times
larger than ours. You can see it on the chart.
[The chart referred to follows:]
Senator Barrasso. Look at these comparisons of where we get
things from and where they exist. The two bar graphs show
lithium production and lithium reserves listed by country. We
are number two in terms of availability. China is number three
in terms of production. Even compared to countries with robust
environmental standards, we are laggards. Australia has less
than half of our reserves, but it produces 88 times more
lithium than we do. This is ridiculous and unacceptable.
The Biden Administration seems gleefully intent on keeping
us dependent on foreign minerals. It senselessly revoked leases
for a project in Minnesota that would have produced nickel and
cobalt for electric vehicle batteries. It carelessly revoked
approval of a road in Alaska that was needed to develop copper.
It recklessly delayed a land exchange necessary for a copper
mine in Arizona. And it foolishly proposed withdrawing ten
million acres from mineral development across six states in the
west, including Wyoming. If it were not enough, this
Administration recently issued recommendations that would make
it even harder to mine on federal lands. There is an
interagency working group that is headed by Mr. Beaudreau, and
he is one of our witnesses today, and the working group wants
to fundamentally change the mining claims system. It wants to
add new fees and is proposing more authority for the
Administration to withdraw lands from mineral production. Since
many of our nation's mineral resources are on federal lands,
the group's recommendations will mean less, not more, mineral
production here in the United States and more dependence on our
enemies.
It is a disgrace. I have said it before. Biden's agenda is
not a transition from fossil fuels to sunshine and wind. It is
a transition from American energy to foreign minerals. It is a
transition from American strength and independence to American
weakness and dependence. We must change this reckless course
that we are on. We have abundant minerals and abundant energy
resources here at home. We only need an Administration with the
courage and the common sense to use them.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Barrasso.
First of all, I want to thank all three of our witnesses
for being with us today. I appreciate the efforts you made to
be here and we look forward to hearing from you.
We have with us today the Honorable Tommy Beaudreau, Deputy
Secretary at the Department of the Interior and Chair of the
Interagency Working Group on Mining Laws, Regulations, and
Permitting.
We have Dr. Daniel Yergin, Vice President of S&P Global.
And we have Mr. Mark Compton, Executive Director of the
American Exploration and Mining Association.
So now we will hear their remarks and we will start with
the Honorable Tommy Beaudreau.
STATEMENT OF HON. TOMMY P. BEAUDREAU, DEPUTY SECRETARY, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Mr. Beaudreau. Thank you very much, Chairman Manchin,
Ranking Member Barrasso, and members of the Committee. Thanks
for the opportunity to provide testimony today on the
Administration's commitment to updating our mining policies and
promoting sustainable and responsible domestic production of
critical minerals. In addition to serving as the Deputy
Secretary at the Interior Department, which oversees hardrock
mining on public lands, I am the co-chair of the Interagency
Working Group on Mining Laws, Regulation, and Permitting. In
many ways, today's hearing mirrors a conversation that Dr.
Yergin and I had in Houston earlier this year at the IHS CERA
conference, which was appropriately titled, ``Big Shovels:
Supplying the Minerals for the Energy Future.'' It is a
pleasure to be with you again today, Dr. Yergin. It is also a
pleasure to join Mr. Compton from the American Exploration and
Mining Association. Leadership from the mining industry is
going to be essential to this effort.
Earlier this month, the working group released its final
report, which includes more than 60 specific recommendations to
improve and accelerate the way we site, permit, oversee, and
reclaim mines on public lands in the United States. This report
is the product of President Biden's direction under Executive
Order 14017 regarding securing America's supply chains and the
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The reasons for the President's
and Congress's focus on mining reform are clear. Reliable and
responsible sources for critical minerals, including lithium,
cobalt, nickel, and graphite are essential to the clean energy
and technology revolutions that are shaping our future for the
better. This working group's effort kicked off in May of last
year with an unprecedented roundtable at the White House that,
for the first time, brought together communities, including the
mining industry, local governments, tribes, labor, federal and
state partners, academics, and environmental advocates to have
a serious conversation about how to meet our needs for these
critical minerals while respecting local communities and
keeping our lands and waters clean and safe.
After hearing all of these viewpoints and receiving nearly
27,000 written comments from the public, the working group
identified key changes that will help mine permitting become
more efficient and improve our ability to produce our own
domestic resources while better engaging and protecting
communities impacted by potential mines, especially tribes and
rural communities. The biggest takeaway from the report is that
our 150-year-old law, signed into law by President Grant for
accessing minerals on public lands, needs to be reformed to
meet the urgency and standards of the 21st century. I am not
saying we need to rewrite the American mineral laws every
century, but maybe every other century we should take a hard
look at whether these laws are providing the tools we need to
meet today's national security and economic imperatives for
critical minerals. The 1872 Mining Law clearly does not do
that.
If we are to seize the opportunities for domestic sourcing
of critical minerals, we need to employ the same tools that
have been so successful in standing up thousands of megawatts
of renewable energy on public lands and offshore. This includes
leasing programs that target resources while reducing conflicts
with local communities, wildlife habitat, and essential water
resources. Moreover, unlike companies that develop energy
minerals like oil, gas, and coal from public lands, companies
that mine for hardrock minerals pay no royalties to the
American taxpayer. This is one of the reasons we do not have
the funding necessary to address the estimated 500,000
abandoned hardrock mine sites that create safety hazards and
pollute the land and water throughout the country. Recall the
Gold King Mine incident that turned the Animas River in
Colorado orange in 2015. Moreover, important to addressing the
prolonged permitting process in this country is the recognition
that there is no way to incentivize companies to use their
existing mining claims. It is common for speculators to stake
claims and sit on them for decades with no intention of ever
producing the minerals.
The second biggest takeaway from the report is that the way
the government and mining companies engage tribes and
communities is often too little and too late. Mining companies
may spend years and millions of dollars planning for a mine
before the public is given details about the proposal and an
opportunity to weigh in. This is a recipe for local opposition,
lawsuits, and protracted permitting delays. Despite the need
for legislative reform, which we will work with Congress on, we
are taking on significant reforms through the Bureau of Land
Management as we speak. I look forward to discussing those
reforms and answering the Committee's questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Beaudreau follows:]
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Beaudreau.
And now we have Dr. Yergin.
STATEMENT OF DR. DANIEL YERGIN,
VICE CHAIRMAN, S&P GLOBAL
Dr. Yergin. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, members of the
Committee, it is an honor to be here to have a chance to talk
with you about these urgent questions of minerals, which you
have been discussing since 2021. As Deputy Secretary Beaudreau
said, we are moving from that term that headline writers like,
``Big Oil,'' to ``Big Shovels,'' which means a lot more mining.
And I was thinking, since you had your original hearings on
minerals, there have been a number of alarming messages from
international organizations and from governments, including the
U.S. Government, about the need and the urgency of minerals.
The IMF, for instance, has warned that the pursuit of net-zero
emissions will ``spur unprecedented demand for some of the most
crucial metals,'' leading to ``soaring costs'' and shortages
that could derail or delay the energy transition.
But how much will be needed? It sometimes seems like an
abstract question, but one way to think about it is that the
State of California has in effect passed a regulation saying
that every new car sold in the State of California after 2035
will have to have two and a half times more copper than every
car that is now sold. Now, the regulations didn't say that, but
they said that they are going to be EVs, and EVs use two and a
half times more copper for every single car. You can say the
same thing with offshore wind and so forth. So at S&P Global,
we have tried to examine what are the mineral requirements and
have done it in our two studies that the Chairman referred to:
``The Future of Copper'' and then a study on the Inflation
Reduction Act and its impact on minerals.
We came up with this idea of energy transition demand to
differentiate this as new consumption--consumption coming from
EVs, on and offshore wind, solar panels, charging stations,
battery storage. And this is different from the traditional
demand, which is, for instance, the electric wiring in your
houses. So our key findings are what have already been
described by both the Chairman and the Ranking Member--we see
copper demand, in order to meet the various goals out there,
having to double by 2035 and other mineral demands growing by
23 times for the United States. And securing these minerals to
meet demand will be challenging for all the reasons--capacity,
trade patterns, sourcing requirements, geopolitical tensions,
and the long and complicated lead times for permitting and
judicial reviews for developing new mines. So this will require
an expanded international and domestic supply base and a
realignment of trading patterns to go forward. Those were our
numbers before the IRA. Since the IRA, we went back and looked
at the numbers again and said that the demand for the four
minerals that we are talking about will each increase on top of
that big increase by another 12 to 15 percent to meet the
demands that are laid out by the IRA.
It is also important to recognize that other countries will
be competing for these resources, so, at the same time, the EU,
Japan, China, and other countries. And so this will further
test the ability of the U.S. to get these resources. The
Chairman talked about the concentration. I think there are two
important parts of concentration. One is the processing that
has already been cited and the dominance of China in those
numbers--70 percent for nickel and cobalt, for instance. And
then, it is production. Think about it this way as a
comparison: Three countries produce 40 percent of crude oil--
the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. Two countries
produce 40 percent of copper. One of them is Peru, which has
had seven presidents in the last few years and the other is
Chile, which is just in the process of nationalizing its
lithium resources, which are considered, at this point, the
largest in the world. And then, there is the matter of the
``obsolescing bargain,'' which is that governments, as prices
go up, will renegotiate, drive up prices, and that will inhibit
investment.
I just want to say something now about permitting. We
looked at 127 mines that began production between 2002 and
2023, and if based upon that, if you started a new mine today,
you would not see production until 2040. In 1956, the U.S.
Bureau of Mines, which I believe is part of the Department of
the Interior, said it would take three to four years to bring a
new mine on in the United States. Today, it would take about
five times as long to do that. And we do have significant
untapped resources--enough copper to meet 20 years of demand
that is untapped at this point. So much depends on what happens
above ground in terms of permitting, in terms of regulation. So
I think it's very clear from everything that is going on that
the policy efforts to stoke this energy transition demand for
minerals will be very effective, as the research shows.
However, as you are doing with this Committee, greater
attention needs to be paid to securing enough supply to
undergird these demand ambitions, both domestically and
internationally.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Yergin follows:]
The Chairman. Thank you, Doctor.
And now we will have Mr. Compton.
STATEMENT OF MARK COMPTON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMERICAN
EXPLORATION AND MINING ASSOCIATION
Mr. Compton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Manchin, Ranking Member Barrasso, members of the
Committee, I want to start by thanking the Committee for
highlighting mineral security issues as well as your work to
create an environment in which the U.S. mining industry can
succeed and safely and responsibly provide the raw materials
our nation requires for our national defense, economic well-
being, and energy security. Unfortunately, a lack of access to
our mineral-rich federal lands and a lengthy, inefficient
federal permitting system have resulted in our unsustainable
dependence on foreign countries for nearly 50 minerals and has
empowered our adversaries to weaponize minerals against us.
These supply chain concerns have led to bipartisan
acknowledgement of the need for more domestic mineral
production. Although we may need to obtain some minerals from
our allies, we must responsibly utilize our own resources
whenever possible. As Dr. Yergin pointed out, the surging
global demand for minerals means other countries will be
competing for the same limited supplies, challenging our
ability to obtain minerals from abroad.
Americans and the environment lose when we offshore our
mineral requirements. It makes no sense to create mining jobs
elsewhere, import minerals from countries with inferior
environmental protection and worker health and safety
standards, and to generate the CO2 by shipping
minerals from faraway places. Because hardrock mineral deposits
are rare geologic phenomena, it is imperative that mineralized
lands remain accessible to mineral exploration and development.
Mines can only be developed in those few places where
economically viable deposits were formed and geologists have
discovered them. We can't choose where they are located and we
can't move them. More than half of federal lands are already
off limits or severely restricted to mining. Further
restricting access to mineral resources threatens our mineral
security and chills investment. If we cannot invest in mineral
exploration, we cannot discover that needle in a haystack
deposit. According to the National Academy of Sciences, only
one in 1,000 prospects actually becomes a producing mine.
Now, there are complex logistics of mining that cannot be
changed. But what can be changed is putting the right policies
in place to prevent unneeded bureaucratic hurdles to domestic
production. And those policies include providing adequate land
access and minimizing permitting obstacles. For the past 18
months, we worked closely and in good faith with the Biden
Administration's Interagency Working Group on Mining
Regulations, Laws, and Permitting (IWG). We viewed the IWG
process and development of its report as an opportunity to
identify ways to eliminate some of the current barriers to
discovery and developing minerals on public lands.
Unfortunately, the recommendations in the IWG report related to
the mining law will make exploration and mine development
harder because they propose eliminating security of land tenure
and burden future mines with a confiscatory royalty. Given the
skyrocketing demand for minerals, now is an especially bad time
to upend this law and implement such proposals.
In a broader context, the IWG report, BLM's proposed
conservation rule, along with other administrative actions,
will ultimately place more lands off limits to mining and
ultimately increase our dependency on China and other countries
for minerals. We applaud the important NEPA streamline
amendments that were in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, but
CEQ's proposed NEPA rules will only lengthen the NEPA process
and spawn yet more litigation. The bipartisan interest in
further permitting reform, though, is very encouraging. And we
look forward to future dialogue in this Committee on Chairman
Manchin's and Ranking Member Barrasso's permitting bills and in
the Environment and Public Works Committee as well. I would
also like to thank the Chairman and Ranking Member for their
leadership in boosting the mining workforce of the future by
introducing the Mining Schools Act and this Committee's markup
of that important legislation last week.
So we look forward to working constructively with you to
seize upon this generational opportunity to ensure that ``made
in America'' includes ``mined in America,'' and sourcing
minerals from U.S. mines that use state-of-the-art
environmental protection measures, put a premium on worker
health and safety, and are committed to the communities in
which they operate. I look forward to answering any of your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Compton follows:]
The Chairman. First of all, let me thank all three of you.
I appreciate it very much. We will start with the questioning
now.
Dr. Yergin, I respect you because you have been all over
the world. I run into you in different places too, but
basically looking and seeing what the facts are and what we are
dealing with. The pressure now with us coming on so strong with
the demand for EVs, the way the Administration is pushing our
electric vehicles out the door quicker and not adhering to the
law because they want to get more vehicles on the road, more
dependency. How much of a strain is that putting on the world
market and basically, us being able to meet the demand coming
from different places? My thing--what I said is that I remember
the 1974 oil embargo. I remember waiting in line to get my gas
so I could go to work. I remember all that. And I just, I don't
want to be waiting----
Senator King. You weren't old enough to drive then.
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. You were my instructor.
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. Anyway, with that, like I just said, I don't
want to wait in line if I need a new battery or something, for
China to basically to say whether I can drive my vehicle or
not. That is all I was concerned about. I think EVs are
wonderful. People like them. They are great and all that and
you buy what you want, but we are incentivizing people, almost
bribing them to buy them and then putting them in a very
perilous situation.
Tell me what it's doing to the world market, as you see it,
with changes going on around the world. I have talked to people
in the Congo. They are totally upset, but it's a different
controlled environment. Tell me what you are seeing.
Dr. Yergin. Well, what is happening is basically trying
to--you know, normally energy transitions take about 100 years,
and this is trying to do one in 25 years. And that has never
been done before and it is putting pressure on the system. And
that is why, one of the things I wanted to emphasize, that it's
not just demand from the United States, but it's demand from
elsewhere in the world that is happening at the same time. So
it is going to put enormous pressure on the system and I just
don't see how the mining is going to catch up--the supply is
going to catch up--and so that will mean prices going up.
It will mean shortages. And then, as has been pointed out
by you and Ranking Member Barrasso, there is a real imbalance
on, particularly, the processing of it. And you know, it's
unbalanced to do that. And it is quite concerning about just
how concentrated, at this point, the supplies are, just from a
few countries. So I don't envision a sort of 1973 in the sense
of a collusion of countries, but you can imagine very tight
markets and shortages and a few countries being in very tight
control of supply.
The Chairman. Mr. Beaudreau, I know that you have been
through different Administrations seeing, basically, the
balances of need. And you and I have had conversations. You
know that I think we are out of balance in what we are
producing and what we could produce and what we need. With
that, the Administration does not seem to have the urgency to
try to get permits and try to make sure that we are able to
provide our own resources here with the minerals and deposits
we have. What can we do to change that? What do you think
really needs to be done for us to make a substantial change in
how we extract in America?
Mr. Beaudreau. Yes, thanks very much, Chairman Manchin.
First of all, I share all the views expressed about the
need to accelerate reliable and domestic sourcing of critical
minerals. This is the fundamental work of the working group,
consistent with the executive order and with the direction from
Congress under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The trick is,
and the hard work is, how do we actually accomplish that? There
are some fundamental principles, even setting apart legislative
reform of the 1872 Mining Law, and that means proactive
community engagement in order to do deconfliction. This is why
it takes way too long to permit a mine in this country, because
of community conflict, because of litigation, because of a
history of environmental impacts, including to tribes, that is
still very much on people's minds. Second, as part of that,
communities need to see the benefit of mining activity so that
communities don't feel imposed upon, but rather feel invested
in these developments. So those are the types of administrative
reforms that I am having conversations with the mining
community about and also conversations within the Bureau of
Land Management on how we can implement administratively.
The Chairman. I am going to ask all three of you just one
quick question as I am wrapping up my time--what is the
greatest obstacle you think that we face and the most urgent
need that we have? Would you say it's permitting or do you have
something else that you think that is basically impeding us
from moving forward? Our permitting reform is the most critical
thing we are facing. If not, we are not going to be able to
meet, not only the demands of the market, but we are not going
to be able to meet the ability for us to even implement any of
the laws that we have right now to the fullest.
Mr. Beaudreau, I will start with you, if you would. How are
your feelings on that? Is it permitting?
Mr. Beaudreau. I agree. One of the biggest challenges is
permitting--allowing for responsible mining to go forward. I
think there are many examples where there are responsible
mines, including mines that have been permitted in this
Administration, such as lithium mines in Nevada. And so, it can
be done. I am fully confident. The timelines do need to be
reduced.
Dr. Yergin. I think that permitting and the judicial review
that goes on is absolutely the biggest obstacle. I mean, you
realize that sometimes the permitting process will be half of
the person's professional career. It can take that long. And
also, what that does to the ability to have capital available
to undertake these projects.
Mr. Compton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
You know, it's hard to disagree about the importance of
permitting.
The Chairman. Nothing more important than permitting?
Mr. Compton. Well, but what I would point out is, without
access to mineral deposits first, and the security of tenure to
be able to know that if you discover a deposit, that you are
going to be able to develop that, then permitting never even
comes into play.
The Chairman. Let me just say for the Committee's sake of
information, I want to compliment both of our staffs--our
Republican friends and their staff on this side, Senator
Barrasso's, and our staff on the Democratic side. They have
been working diligently on permitting reform. And hopefully, we
hope to bring something to the Committee that you all can work
on because most of it is in our jurisdiction. We have been
meeting with Senator Carper. To a certain extent, he has some
in his jurisdiction of EPW. We could surprise the world if we
can get something done before the end of the year. And we are
going to have some substantial, I think, recommendations
hopefully towards that period. So we are working diligently on
this. We have the same conclusion you all have.
Senator Barrasso.
Senator Barrasso. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I
appreciate all the cooperation that we have had as we work
together on the permitting issues, and the work continues.
Mr. Compton, as I mentioned in my opening statement, this
interagency working group, they recently released a report that
contains 65 recommendations. The recommendations include
imposing new royalties and fees on mining and elimination of a
mining claim system that encourages resource exploration. All
these recommendations, if they adopted all of them, would they,
on balance, increase or decrease mineral production on federal
lands in America?
Mr. Compton. Well, thank you for the question, Ranking
Member Barrasso. As I said in my opening statement, you know, I
think ultimately the IWG report, especially taken in context
with other administrative actions, will increase our reliance
on China and other countries for our mineral needs. The report
really was a mixed bag, I would say, but the mining law
recommendations in there, this is not the time to completely
upend our system. The report even acknowledged that converting
to a leasing system would cause significant delays in our clean
energy objectives.
Senator Barrasso. So then, Secretary Beaudreau, simple
questions. They are not meant to be trick questions, you know--
please, on balance, is it better to mine cobalt here at home or
with child labor in the Congo?
Mr. Beaudreau. Of course it's better to have reliable,
domestic sources for critical minerals.
Senator Barrasso. Is it better to mine lithium here at home
or slave labor in China?
Mr. Beaudreau. Of course it's better to have reliable
supply chains for all of these critical minerals.
Senator Barrasso. Is it better to mine nickel here at home
or razing the rain forest in Indonesia?
Mr. Beaudreau. As I have said, and as is the purpose of the
interagency's work, it is to advance the cause of developing
reliable sourcing and supply chains for a host of critical
minerals necessary for clean energy and technology development.
Senator Barrasso. So then, why is the Administration and
the Secretary blocking access to minerals and making it more
difficult, as we just heard, to mine them here at home?
Mr. Beaudreau. So I think, as members of this Committee
know, I am a serious person on these issues, and having a lot
of experience across energy projects as well as mining
projects, fundamentally, we need a system and we need to
implement reforms that enable that type of development. The
main barrier to unlocking America's resources here is conflict
and litigation and uncertainty about the permitting process. We
need to take that on. That is what the report is intended to
do.
Senator Barrasso. So the Administration also has issued
mineral withdrawals--26 mineral withdrawals or proposed mineral
withdrawals in just the last two and a half years since taking
office. In January, the Department withdrew 225,000 acres from
a site containing 95 percent of our nation's nickel reserves,
88 percent of our nation's cobalt reserves, and 34 percent of
our nation's copper reserves. We are talking about withdrawals
that the Administration has done, and the Secretary sat here
and seemingly took great credit for it. The Biden White House
has said that over-reliance on foreign sources and adversarial
nations for critical minerals and materials poses national and
economic security threats, yet your Department of the Interior
continues to make it harder to develop the resources, and we
have them right here at home.
How do these mineral withdrawals that your Secretary came
here and talked about, how does that help us reduce our
nation's dependency on foreign minerals?
Mr. Beaudreau. So let's talk about where those withdrawals
happened. So as an Alaskan, the right place to mine for some of
these materials is not in the richest, most abundant salmon
fishery in the entire world. As a supporter of a host of
economic activity, the right place to mine for some of these
materials is not in the Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota,
which is the biggest economic driver in that part of the state.
And so, these things do have to be viewed in context.
Unfortunately, under the existing laws, the only blunt
instrument available to the Department, and this is why we need
more tools, is something like a mineral withdrawal. We need to
be able to have a much finer and targeted approach to the
development of critical minerals.
Senator Barrasso. So Mr. Compton, and then to Dr. Yergin,
we are developing only a small fraction of our nation's lithium
reserves, especially compared to Australia. Is there any reason
that we should be so far behind a nation with similar
environmental and labor standards as we are with Australia?
Mr. Compton. No, of course, there is absolutely no reason.
We should be, you know, even if we considered ourselves average
in permitting with some of these countries, I don't think it's
the United States' place to celebrate being average either. So
yes, we have a lot of work to do on our permitting to get out
ahead.
Senator Barrasso. So Dr. Yergin, you know, how can we, here
at home, drive up our mineral production to levels closer to
Australia, specifically with lithium?
Dr. Yergin. Well, I think if we look at Australia and
Canada, they have more efficient permitting processes and they
get on with it and see it as important, as opposed to--and they
are both countries with strong mining traditions, so they don't
have the kind of divisions that we do. We do see, actually, of
the four minerals that we have talked about, particularly three
of them, the U.S. has the best prospects. Lithium is our best
prospect to become a bigger, a much bigger producer. We are
best positioned in that, we think----
Senator Barrasso. So as my final question----
Dr. Yergin. I'm sorry.
Senator Barrasso. No, well, just the Chairman and I were
just talking about the fact--how about the court systems and
how it drags on, because I think Secretary Beaudreau just
talked also about the litigation involved in slowing all of
this down.
Dr. Yergin. Yes, well, that's why I said it's not only
permitting, but it's the judicial review that goes on and on
that is unique to our system that makes it so difficult to do
it. And even if you wanted to get going now, it's going to take
time to get going, but when you look at 20 years to get a
project going, you know, we are talking about 2040, 2043.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Hickenlooper, up early.
Senator Hickenlooper. I wouldn't go that far.
Let me start with you, Mr. Beaudreau--Tommy, if I could be
so bold. Interior's work, including the USGS critical mineral
list, helps inform a lot of the approach you are taking, that
our country is taking, to these critical supply chain issues.
How does the USGS information help other agencies as they work
to try to enhance our mineral processing capabilities,
strengthen ties with our foreign allies on securing the
minerals we need for this clean energy future and the
Bipartisan Law, including funding to map out our nation's
critical resources--how is that work progressing from your
point of view, and what benefits is that mapping going to
provide?
Mr. Beaudreau. Thank you, Senator.
I think it gets at an issue, an important issue that Mr.
Compton raised, about the locatability of these minerals. And
so, one way that the Interior Department and the Federal
Government and the USGS, in particular, can help is with the
development of geologic information that can inform both the
permitting process as well as prospecting, and provide
certainty to the industry about where there are high-value
resources and also potentially reduce conflict. And so, I view
that as incredibly important work. And we are lucky to have the
USGS as focused on it as they are and their work is progressing
very well.
Senator Hickenlooper. Great, thank you.
And I'm not going to ask a question on this, but obviously,
Colorado has the Colorado School of Mines. There are a number
of great mining schools out West. And the Chair and the Ranking
Member have led on the Mining Schools Act. And obviously, I
think, how we get the next generation of engineers--and
geologists--and make sure we are recruiting them, training
them, and retaining them is important. But I'm going to submit
that in writing so I can get a chance to ask Dr. Yergin a
question. Hopefully, I will get to all three of you.
Dr. Yergin--Daniel, if I could be so bold, you are an
expert in global oil production and yet, back in those dark
days in the 1990s, no one really foresaw or was able to predict
the amazing innovations that would take place that would take
us from a struggling producer to really the global leader. And
I guess my question is, what do you see--what things can we be
doing to push the innovation in our critical minerals? So
whether it's through substitution, through its efficiencies,
you know, how do we find some way of achieving some of those?
Obviously, very few people--you probably had some notions--but
very few people saw that shale revolution coming. Are there
other revolutions coming in terms of copper and, say, lithium?
Dr. Yergin. Well, the shale revolution did come as a
surprise and it was transformative. It took us from being the
largest importer of oil in the world to the largest producer of
oil. U.S. LNG, based on shale, is 40 percent now of Europe's
LNG supply and it has been a very important answer to Mr.
Putin.
At this point, and I'm not a technologist, but we don't
understand, we do not see that there is some incredible
breakthrough like the shale revolution that will, you know,
really transform the mineral situation. But the two things that
can--there is obviously an enormous amount of research going on
in battery technology, also in terms of making mines more
efficient and so forth. And then, you know, we will see as time
goes on, recycling will become more important, but you are
starting from a very small base in terms of doing that, and
just collecting and processing itself is a major industrial
activity.
Senator Hickenlooper. Yes. I think where there are other
opportunities like distributed energy resources, some of those,
you know, investments will accelerate faster than people think,
but I agree with you, I think that we haven't seen where those
innovations are, but they are probably there. And I guess, at
some point, part of the role of this Committee is to figure out
how do we incentivize and make sure that we are doing it.
Dr. Yergin. Absolutely. You know, the research part of it
is so important and it may well come as a surprise. It's just
that there is not anything obvious there and that the time
frame for mining is two or three times longer even than the
time frame for oil and gas.
Senator Hickenlooper. Right.
And Mr. Compton, I'm going to make this--I'm going to leave
out all the bulk. You obviously understand business risk and
what mining companies are facing, in that there is always
uncertainty when we are trying to attract investment capital
for some of these critical projects. Do you see a role for the
Federal Government to act as kind of a market smoother, you
know, through stockpiling certain essential minerals or through
commitments to buy and sell if certain conditions are triggered
so that we don't, at least, have the roller coaster affects
that sometimes the markets create?
Mr. Compton. Thank you, Senator.
I think the Federal Government has the ability to be a
market smoother just by reducing the uncertainty over how our
mining system operates. Perpetual threats, really, to upend our
system when, as Dr. Yergin points out, you know, you are a good
20 years from exploration to being able to get ore out of the
ground. If we are going to be able to meet those growing
mineral demands, we have to incentivize exploration and
production now. And from the investment community standpoint,
like when they saw the Interagency Working Group's report come
out earlier this month, I know one of our members who is a
consultant said he spent three days on the phone with his
clients talking them down off the ledge. You know, he was able
to talk them down, but how many others in the investment
community are we not able to get that message to?
Senator Hickenlooper. I appreciate that, and I have more
questions I will submit in writing.
I yield back to the Chair. Thank you. Thank you all for
being here today.
The Chairman. Thank you.
And I turn to our birthday boy today, Senator Bill Cassidy.
Senator Hoeven. Thirty-nine.
Senator Cassidy. Some anniversary of 39, so anyway.
Mr. Beaudreau, I'm from Louisiana. You know what question I
am going to ask you. How is our five-year leasing plan coming
for oil and gas development in the Gulf of Mexico?
Mr. Beaudreau. We missed your birthday by one day. We will
be publishing the five-year program tomorrow.
Senator Cassidy. That is fantastic. And my birthday will
be--no inhibitions and no restrictions by the Administration--
that will be the birthday present?
[Laughter.]
Mr. Beaudreau. The birthday present to Chairman Manchin is
that the program is definitely informed by the IRA and the
connection that the IRA makes between offshore oil and gas
leasing and renewable energy leasing.
Senator Cassidy. So then, staying on the ocean bed, Dr.
Yergin, you mentioned we need kind of this technological
breakthrough in order to source these critical minerals, but I
am told the ocean beds are full of it, and that we actually
have the technology to mine off the ocean bed. And intuitively,
to me, if you are just scraping rocks off the bottom, it is not
the same as an open-pit mine. Are we anywhere close to
deploying that technology as a means to address this issue?
Dr. Yergin. I think it's very early days. There are some
companies that are working on it and have been pursuing it for
a couple of years--lot of minerals there--but there will be a
lot of controversy as well about scraping the bottom of the
ocean, I think.
Senator Cassidy. There would be, but nonetheless, there is
controversy about anything, right?
So Mr. Beaudreau, is there any effort by the Administration
to pursue the mining of minerals off the ocean floor?
Mr. Beaudreau. So I don't want to open up a whole other can
of worms, which was, you know, a big knock-down, drag-out,
including during the Obama administration, but one area that
would be helpful is Law of the Sea implementation, which
provides a framework for accessing----
Senator Cassidy. And I understand that we are actually
losing territory because of our delay in implementation, or at
least adoption of the treaty, but that if we adopted it, that
could potentially open up the next version of the shale
revolution to address that need.
Mr. Beaudreau. I think that is one of the reasons to adopt
the Law of the Sea Treaty.
Senator Cassidy. Let me ask you, going back to lithium
mines, and you say it will take however long in order to
permit. In the county in Arkansas that borders Louisiana, they
are now mining lithium from the prehistoric ocean, which is
below the Smackover Formation. Now, of course, I am looking at
that saying that that prehistoric ocean extends about 25 miles
south into Louisiana. And so, I am interested in exploring
that, intuitively, and by the way, Exxon has just made a big
investment there, so this is more than a conversation piece,
it's money being staked. Intuitively, to me, if you are
extracting from deep down and you are processing above, that
that is going to be less problematic in terms of permitting
than if you have an open-pit mine. Knowing that I have given
you a theoretical, but does that intuition sound good to you,
and is there anything USGS could do to see if those
subterranean resources are viable?
Mr. Beaudreau. Yes, and I think this goes to an earlier
question at Dr. Yergin. There is massive opportunity for
technological development, especially with respect to lithium.
And so, one of the efforts from--so mining and sourcing are
all-important, but one of the main and most promising lines of
effort is technological development, both brining, and there is
a project we are working on in Southern California focused on
deriving lithium from other activities. And I think the type of
opportunities you are describing, while they require further
technological development, are activities that should be
supported----
Senator Cassidy. But it seems as if this is already taking
place. Again, they have been processing lithium out of this
Smackover Formation in Arkansas for some time now. I think they
may also be getting cobalt, but I am a little bit kind of
having to think about that twice. So I just encourage that
because I think in the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill, we
actually had dollars for USGS to go out and find more
resources. And of course, I would like them to find them in my
state for all the reasons, not least of which is, it would
supply the rest of the United States with a needed resource.
Mr. Beaudreau. Yes, I understand and agree.
Senator Cassidy. Lastly, in your analysis, on your life
cycle analysis of greenhouse gas emissions, et cetera,
associated with new developments in the United States, do you
take into account the life cycle of greenhouse gas emission
profile of a project overseas? So for example, if we are trying
to supplant cobalt coming from the Congo that is used with
child labor and goes to China, where they use coal as primary
feedstock for energy, yes, we may have a little bit of a
footprint here, but it's substantially less than the life cycle
of the other. Is that taken into consideration, because
sometimes it seems like we make the perfect enemy of the good?
Mr. Beaudreau. Yes, so, I agree completely that when you
are looking at any particular project, viewing it within a
global context is important. And I think one of the
opportunities and benefits for more reliable permitting of
critical minerals in the United States is exactly what you
described, it is reduce carbon footprint.
Senator Cassidy. Yes, but again, are we comparing ourselves
to that which we would be competing against or are we comparing
ourselves to some pure standard? Because it seems oftentimes
that we are comparing ourselves to a pure standard, not
recognizing that we, as somebody mentioned earlier, are
actually doing it with the lowest carbon footprint in the
world, oftentimes.
Mr. Beaudreau. Yes, so in the realm of permitting critical
minerals, while relevant, carbon emissions are often the less
significant impacts compared to, in particular, impacts on
water resources.
Senator Cassidy. Thank you. I yield. Thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Cortez Masto.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to
the Ranking Member for this important hearing, and thank you to
all the panelists. I appreciate all of your comments.
I say this time and again--Nevada, my home state, has 85
percent of federal public land and has the largest mining
program on public land in the country. It supports nearly
33,000 jobs in the state. It's the key contributor to our
economy. It's a social safety net for many rural and remote
communities in my state. So as we are having this conversation,
and as we take the necessary steps to address climate change, I
agree, we have to do so in a fashion that makes America more
productive, secure, and self-reliant. At a very basic level,
this means we have to produce minerals in the United States and
not solely rely on foreign sources. And I think we have all
been talking about that.
Here's my conundrum, and I am going to ask the Deputy
Secretary this first question--I understand the Administration
has this all-of-government approach to addressing our future
security needs when it comes to our clean energy, including, as
it pertains to mining. But here's my struggle--just last week,
the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council imposed new
limits, or actually proposed imposing new limits, on eligible
entities to be considered for the FAST-41 expedited permitting
process. The Council's proposed limits would remove mining as a
covered sector and limit eligibility to just critical mineral
projects. What does that mean? That means that copper mines
would be ineligible, despite being a critical material
according to the Secretary of Energy.
How can this happen just after the report that was put out
that said mining is critical to our future and our needs? Can
you address what is happening? It seems like the
Administration, even though they have this all-of-government
approach, many pillars of it are not talking to one another.
And I don't know if you have a response, Mr. Beaudreau, but I
would sure love to hear one.
Mr. Beaudreau. Yes, no, thanks very much, I do have a
response. I actually participated in a FPISC meeting yesterday,
where we talked about, specifically, this issue. And so, on the
one hand, the proposal to include mining as a covered activity
under FAST-41, I think, is very positive. And that's what it
is. It's a proposal to do that. It is a draft. And we are
having exactly that conversation about whether these sort of
parameters around qualification are the appropriate ones. And
so, we do hear you on that. And it's an active conversation and
one that I will carry forward into the steering council.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
And let me put one other thing out there, because I know
the new proposal specifically identifies the USGS critical
mineral list for utilization. But unless I am wrong, Department
of Energy and the Department of Defense have their own lists of
strategic and critical materials that are central to our energy
and national security that include more minerals that are on
that USGS critical mineral list. So how is that--hopefully
there is a coordination around these so that all of the
agencies are working together as well and not limiting access
to these essential minerals that we need.
Mr. Beaudreau. So I think part of the complexity there is
distinctions between, you know, energy-related minerals and
other types of minerals. So for example, on the USGS list they
don't include, you know, uranium, plutonium, et cetera. I agree
with you that having a multitude of lists about what is
critical and applying, you know, that adjective creates a lot
of confusion. And so, I do think, you know, bringing
perspective into sourcing, as opposed to whether you are on the
list or off the list, makes sense.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
And so, Mr. Compton, I only have a few seconds left, but I
have a couple of questions with respect to the interagency
working group mining reform report. You touched on one, the
distinction between the claim location system and the leasing
system. Can you talk about, also, the seven cents per ton tax
on moving unprocessed ore, because it may sound good, but what
does it actually mean in practical implementation?
Mr. Compton. Thank you for the question. In all due
respect, I am not sure that it even sounds good.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Compton. You know, we affectionately, or maybe not so
affectionately, refer to that as a dirt tax. There really is no
explanation for why there would be a tax just for moving dirt
or how many times that dirt movement is taxed. I mean, because
you move overburden several times throughout a mining process.
So seven cents per ton may sound like a miniscule amount, but
when you consider the massive amounts of earth that needs to be
moved to uncover some of these deposits, we have estimated that
it would cost several hundred million dollars per year to the
mining industry, much of which, obviously, would be in Nevada.
Senator Cortez Masto. And moving dirt is not unique, or,
excuse me, is part of the hardrock mining process, isn't that
correct?
Mr. Compton. You cannot unearth these deposits without it,
yes.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you. My time is up. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, and I agree wholeheartedly with
you, Senator.
I can't believe I'm saying this, because it's Senator
Hoeven's turn.
Senator Hoeven. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The Chairman. You are early.
Senator Hoeven. I came early because it was Cassidy's
birthday.
The Chairman. I'm sure he's pleased he stayed and listened
to you.
[Senator Cassidy not at the dais. Laughter ensues.]
Senator Hoeven. You are on a roll today, I'll tell you.
[Laughter.]
Senator Hoeven. Isn't he, Governor?
[Laughter.]
Senator Hoeven. So Secretary Beaudreau, thanks for being
here. We appreciate your willingness to come out to North
Dakota as you have and look forward to having you out there
again. I think it's very important for you to get out on the
ground, so I appreciate you doing that.
In the Fiscal Responsibility Act, we set timelines on EAs
and EISs--one year on the EA, two years on an EIS. How are you
coming with getting that implemented?
Mr. Beaudreau. Yes, thanks, and I do look forward to the
next time I get to visit North Dakota.
We have established and, in fact, you know, components of
this brought forward from the previous Administration a review
process by which, at my level in the Department, we track NEPA
documents, both for content and quality, but also timing. And
it is through that process that we are implementing the timing
requirements under this year's legislation.
Senator Hoeven. Yeah, that's is going to be really
important. I mean, we have got to bring certainty--just
listening to all three of you--we have got to bring certainty
to this process and that's an effort to do it. And I believe
simplicity is really important. You know, when we talk about
permitting reform, pretty soon it gets so confusing, and then
everybody has their own interpretations. And that's why we
pushed for that kind of simple regulatory requirement, you
know, the one-year and the two-year time frame. So I think
that's really important if we are going to get after these
critical minerals like I think we all want to. Would you agree
with that?
Mr. Beaudreau. I agree. The only addition I would make to
it is, at the end of the day, these are the documents we get
sued on. And so, I am very focused, always, on quality. And so,
schedule, you know, certainty on timeline is essential, but
nothing throws a project off like protracted litigation. And so
the quality has to be there as well.
Senator Hoeven. Right. Precisely where I am going. I think
it was you, Dr. Yergin, that mentioned judicial review and how
that is slowing us down. This goes to what Mr. Compton was
talking about where in Australia or Canada it is taking, what,
two or three years to get these permitted and here it's seven
to ten. In our state, you know, with--and somebody else
mentioned the, you know, the plays, like the shale plays, and
in the Bakken, you know, we went from less than 100,000 barrels
a day of oil production to 1.5 million a day at peak, but we
put the right legal tax and regulatory framework in place to do
it. And so, we have got to do that for critical minerals.
So to you, Dr. Yergin and then you, Mr. Compton, how do we
get--including judicial review--how do we get that legal tax
and regulatory structure in place? What is it going to take, or
we are not going to get after these critical minerals and are
we going to be dependent on places like China, right? I mean,
isn't that really what it comes down to?
Dr. Yergin. I think that's right. And I mean, at the end of
the day, nothing happens if you don't have capital that is
invested. And people are not going to invest capital if there
is that high degree of uncertainty. I mean----
Senator Hoeven. So even if Secretary Beaudreau gets those
things implemented and we knock that down to say, a two-year or
three-year time frame, like Canada or Australia, if you get
tied up in court for the next seven, it's still ten years,
isn't it?
Dr. Yergin. That's right. I mean, yes, so I don't know what
you do about the judicial review side of it, but it isn't just
the permitting, it's what goes on after that, and stage after
stage after stage. And some of you know very well how some of
these projects just go on as judicial review.
Senator Hoeven. The point is, we have to do both if we are
going to get this done.
Dr. Yergin. Yes.
Senator Hoeven. Mr. Compton.
Mr. Compton. Yes, thank you, Senator. If I could jump in on
that too. You know, you are absolutely right. Litigation
reform, I think, needs to be a central component of further
permitting talks, and I am confident that that is going to be
part of further meaningful permitting reform. But I can give
you several ideas to include in that as well. You know, the
2020 NEPA regulations, put in place by the prior
Administration, actually contain some very helpful litigation
reforms. Those have been rolled back. But some things that
could be done legislatively, you know, lowering the statute of
limitations----
Senator Hoeven. Well, isn't that it? We almost have to do
it legislatively because otherwise new regulations get put in
place that defeat the whole effort.
Mr. Compton. Yes, it certainly needs to be in statute. You
know, limiting the agency's time to act on remand would be
helpful.
Senator Hoeven. So it's instructive, if we actually want to
develop the mining here in this country, we'd better get after
it statutorily or we are going to be subject to more regulatory
burden that's going to stop it in its tracks.
Mr. Compton. Yes, sir.
Senator Hoeven. Thank you.
The Chairman. Senator King.
Senator King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to just put this hearing in a little bit of
perspective. We are not talking about rolling back mining
regulations or shortening statute of limitations in order to
have somebody make more money. We are trying to beat climate
change. And we are in a race, and it's a race in a matter of
months and years. I just heard on the radio this morning that
glaciers in Switzerland have declined ten percent in the last
two years. That is astounding if you think about that. These
are glaciers that have been there for thousands of years. So we
have to--this is an urgent environmental priority. And it
strikes me that one of the problems is that we are treating
this as sort of environmental growth or environmental
protection, as if green energy is over here and permitting
reform is over here and they are not related. They are
intimately related.
For example, one of the things we haven't talked about
today is grid access. We have environmental projects--wind and
solar projects--that can't get on the grid because of the
inadequacy of the grid. Well, that means there is going to have
to be transmission. I was at a meeting last week on
transmission. There are three major transmission projects in
the West, the shortest of which has been at it 21 years from
the time of the inception of the project to the time it's going
to go online. The longer, I think, is about 25 years. That is
another example of exactly what we are talking about.
So I guess what I would like, and perhaps we could take
this for the record, is some specificity about what makes it
take 14 years to do a mine. In other words, how much is NEPA?
How much is local permitting? How much is state? How much is
litigation? Do you see what I am asking, Mr. Compton? It would
help us, I think, if we knew exactly where the bottlenecks were
and then we can move to try to address them. By the way, the
comment about litigation reminded me of ``Jarndyce v.
Jarndyce,'' Dickens' famous case in Bleak House, where the
lawyers passed the litigation on from generation to generation.
You said half of a person's life could be spent permitting one
project.
How about the role of state and local permitting, because
we are all talking about federal permitting and NEPA, but
aren't state and local permitting issues also at stake here,
Mr. Compton?
Mr. Compton. They absolutely are, and we need better
coordination between federal and state and local permitting and
being able to, when one or the other has completed analysis,
for the others to be able to use that analysis. But you are
absolutely right, I mean, if we are truly going to tackle
climate change, we have to get serious about this now. And to
your point about the various phases of mining and the mining
life cycle, every bit of those phases need to be constricted.
You know, exploration can take up to ten years or more before
we even get to the start of permitting. Having the USGS doing
additional research and mapping and sharing that information
with mining companies can help shorten that period of time.
Senator King. That's a good example. I mean, I think what
we need is a little bit of urgency on this issue because we are
in a race with the warming climate and the catastrophic effects
that is going to have on us, and it just can't be the sort of
plodding--oh, it takes a long time to do a transmission
project.
Let me change the subject a bit from mining. What about
processing? There is a major production of lithium in
Australia, which is a pretty friendly country, but 85 percent
of the processing is in China. Do the permitting delays we are
talking about here also apply to processing? Because that is
where--it seems to me we need to be discussing that as well as
getting the material out of the ground. Processing--it's no
good unless it's processed.
Mr. Yergin, talk to me about processing.
Dr. Yergin. Yes, I mean, processing often is a very
intense, and in China, pretty environmentally heavy activity to
do that. And so, you know, we used to have, I think, 12 copper
smelters in the United States. I think we are down to two now.
I think it would be pretty hard to actually build a new copper
smelter and also go through the permitting of that. So it's not
just the mining that we need to think about, but the, you know,
the real choke point on the minerals beyond mining is where the
processing is. And that is, you know, it does not get as much
attention, but also needs to be looked at really carefully,
because physically what is involved in building this, and are
people willing to commit the capital to do it.
Senator King. I do think that is an important subject that
we should be talking about, Mr. Chairman, is processing as well
as extraction.
Finally, I want to submit for the record an article by Bill
McKibben in Mother Jones where the title of the article says a
lot about what the article says. It's called ``Yes in Our
Backyards.'' And it's Bill McKibben's account of his journey
from a strong environmental activist whose primary job was to
stop things to the realization that in order to achieve a green
energy future, we need to build things. That you can't--this is
me, not Bill McKibben--you can't love EVs and hate lithium. And
you can't love solar and wind projects and hate transmission.
This is absolutely a part of it. And what bothers me sometimes
is, that you will have a hundred units of environmental benefit
from a project and eight units of environmental detriment and
it doesn't get built, and you are missing--we are missing a
major environmental benefit.
[The article referred to follows:]
Senator King. So thank you all for your testimony today.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
Now we have Senator Murkowski.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Great hearing,
a great panel. Thank you for this.
You know, we have all recognized that when it comes to
minerals, we can't define or pick where the location is. The
location is where they are. And so, often, part of the
challenge as we are trying to access minerals is how do we
access them? How do we get them to the processing facilities?
And in Alaska, of course, we are particularly challenged
because of our vast distances. We have got a community in the
interior of Alaska--Fairbanks. You are probably not going to
find a more pro-mining community, but that community is divided
right down the middle right now because there is a very
significant mining prospect about 250 miles from Fairbanks and
they are moving forward. There will be great benefits to the
native village that is situated nearby. But they are going to
be trucking that rock 240 miles to another mine site for the
processing.
And it's the access that has really confounded folks. And
as I have shared with some in the Administration, I read
articles where, here in the Biden Administration, we are
proposing to send $150 million, working with an Australian
mining company, for a mine in Africa. And to help advance that
mine, we are putting forward $250 million to help advance a
rail line to Tidewater to help facilitate that. I can tell you
the people of interior Alaska would certainly appreciate some
assistance from our own government with how we might be able to
do a rail extension to get those resources more safely out. We
have other mining projects, and the Deputy Secretary and I have
had multiple conversations about Ambler--again, a very
lucrative and prospective mineral deposit in the interior of
the state, but in order to access it, it will require a mine of
several hundred miles, and that has faced its own challenges.
So Deputy Secretary, I would like to ask you for the record
just for a confirmation here on the Ambler project. When we had
Secretary Haaland before this Committee, May 16th of 2023, and
I asked her when we should expect to see the Record of Decision
finalized, she indicated--she said, yes, the ROD by 2023, that
continues to be the plan. Then, a few days later, on May 19, we
have a DOJ attorney submit to the U.S. District Court a court-
ordered update that now claims that a final SEIS is not
anticipated until 2024--not expected to be signed until the
second quarter of 2024. So again, Alaskans want to know, you
know, you are talking about how we are going to do a better job
of expedited permitting. That's what this working group was
kind of designed to do. And yet, in a matter of four days, we
see a six-month slippage. So for the record, if you can just
share where we are with the Record of Decision on Ambler?
Mr. Beaudreau. Yes, thanks very much. We will be publishing
the Draft Supplemental EIS in the coming weeks. We are still on
that timeline to complete that process and issue a Record of
Decision in the second quarter of next year.
Senator Murkowski. The second quarter of 2024. So what the
Secretary stated before the Committee that it would be the end
of 2023 is not accurate. It is now second quarter of 2024.
Mr. Beaudreau. The updated schedule we submitted in the
litigation, which is why we have to do the supplemental
analysis, is still the schedule that we are on.
Senator Murkowski. Let me ask about the Department's
Interagency Working Group. The Chairman has raised that and
apparently there is a little bit of back and forth in terms of
what has been produced by this report. The report acknowledges
its requirements under the infrastructure bill, but when you
parse through the pages of it--169 pages--it's tough to find
where the report actually addresses many of the issues that are
required by the law, whether it's the period of time that is
typically required to complete each step, the processing of
applications, operating plans, leases, license, permits. And
so, I think we were pretty clear in the infrastructure bill
that this is what we expected. We didn't just expect a report
saying this is in response to your query, but we actually asked
for some time frames for these activities. So can you give me
some more clarity on the time frames and kind of what the
Department is doing to address some of these data gaps?
Mr. Beaudreau. Yes, I am happy to have a follow-up
conversation on all of that, those questions. Fundamentally,
one of the challenges we have, which is the reason why one of
the core recommendations is a leasing program, understanding
that a lot would have to be thought through for a program like
that, is we don't have a lot of control over the process. We
don't have control over when we can expect to receive a mine
plan of operations. We don't have control over diligence
requirements, et cetera, that we do have in other contexts,
including oil and gas, including renewable energy. And so part
of what I would like to see is a permitting structure that can
hold us accountable, but also hold operators accountable for
responsible development.
And I will just note that anyone who thinks Canada is the
perfect model for this activity should talk to Senator
Murkowski.
Senator Murkowski. Yes, thank you for that. We do have a
couple little issues there.
Mr. Chairman----
Senator King [presiding]. I am the acting Chair.
Senator Murkowski. Okay, Mr. Acting Chairman, I will direct
to you. I would like to do some follow-on with regards to the
working group, but I was going to ask Dr. Yergin. My time is
expired, but the big question here is how we move the needle
now. We are all talking about the urgency. We can talk about
how it's going to be 35 percent more, it's two times more, it's
17 times more--the urgency is clearly there. We recognize that.
And yet, we are not moving the needle like we need to. And we
can say we have got to legislate on the permitting side, and we
have to do that, but we have to recognize that we have got
litigation that we have to deal with. But we also have this
issue of social license to operate. And that kind of drives the
litigation piece of it, and in fairness, it influences the
politics on the permitting side and all that goes on there.
And so I don't want it as a question for the record, but--
--
Senator King. Senator, could you defer the answer? Can you
defer the answer until we let our two remaining Senators----
Senator Murkowski. Yes. No, no, no--I'm not going to ask
the question. I'm just going to put it out there because I
would like somebody else to ask that because I'm going to be
waiting around because the conversation is just too good.
Senator King. Thank you.
Senator Kelly.
Senator Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Yergin, so we have a few companies in Arizona. One in
particular is a business called Urbix that does processing of
graphite. And I am concerned that some of the joint ventures
that are currently being formed in some of these free trade
jurisdictions with Chinese partners are skirting the intent of
the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction
Act. And it is potentially subsidizing our competitors instead
of helping businesses like the one I mentioned, Urbix, who is
in Maricopa County, who processes graphite.
So Dr. Yergin, have you seen these joint ventures? What do
you know about them, and what impact do you expect that they
have on U.S. domestic jobs and U.S. production?
Dr. Yergin. Well, I have not studied them in detail, but
the fact is that, you know, the reality was that until about
2019, 2020, people just were not paying attention much to this
issue at all and the way that industry developed globally is,
with China being a very important, you know, important,
predominant player. And so, I think the reality is that those
entities exist. I don't know whether the specific ones are
competing with the companies that you are talking about, but
this issue of critical minerals is so entangled with our
changing relationships with China and they are not what they
were four or five years ago. And it is not going to get easily
untangled at this point. But you can try and, you know,
continue to shift the balance, which is what the recent
legislation is aiming to do.
Senator Kelly. Yes, we have heard that, you know, as Urbix
and companies like them try to sign contracts, it's often
challenging because of, you know, the joint ventures that exist
in these free trade jurisdictions.
Dr. Yergin. Right.
Senator Kelly. So it does need to be addressed and we have
to get this back on track.
Mr. Compton, so Arizona is leading the way in resource
development that is going to help power this clean energy
economy for decades. And the first and only mine in the FAST-41
process is a mine called South32, the Hermosa project. It's in
Santa Cruz County. And this is the only domestic advanced mine
development project that can produce two critical minerals--
zinc and manganese. So Mr. Compton, I am sure many of your
members are watching this FAST-41 process closely, and what
outcomes do you feel will make the process more appealing to
your members?
Mr. Compton. Well, thank you for that question, Senator.
Yes, actually, South32 and their Hermosa project is a
member of ours as well. And so we have been watching that very
closely, as I am sure many of our members are. You know, we
were very pleased to have mining added as a covered sector a
couple of years ago. As you note, the Hermosa project is the
first one to be on the permitting dashboard. You know,
ultimately, the whole FAST-41 process was implemented to permit
large infrastructure projects in a more timely manner. And so
that is what we need to see out of this process, is expedited
permitting, and doing so, by the way, in a way that does not
take, you know, short shrift to our environmental regulations.
And so, one of the things for me is if we can do it for
these large infrastructure projects without short-changing our
environmental laws and regulations, why can't we do that for
all projects? So that's why it--you know, the process with
FAST-41, with more transparency, better agency coordination,
it's all things that we need in permitting for all projects.
That's why it was frustrating, and this came up a little
earlier in the hearing, that FPISC, last week, proposed to now
limit the mining projects that would be available under FAST-41
to only those designated as critical mineral projects. I
understand that the Hermosa project is, and that is great, but
we have an awful lot of projects out there that may not be
necessarily deemed critical according to the USGS, but I would
submit that the entire periodic table is critical.
Senator Kelly. Thank you, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman [presiding]. Thank you.
And now we have Senator Hawley.
Senator Hawley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Beaudreau, let me start with you. Are you aware that
there is currently a strike going on nationwide by auto workers
in this country?
Mr. Beaudreau. I am aware of the auto workers strike.
Senator Hawley. So I just returned from my home State of
Missouri, where in Wentzville, Missouri--that is right outside
St. Louis--about 4,000 workers are striking. I was on the
picket line with them on Monday, talking to them about their
concerns, what it is they hope for, for their future. I talked
to folks who were as young as 20 and had been there for a
couple of months and folks who had been there for 40 years and
were nearing retirement. And one thing I heard consistently is
they are worried about the future of their jobs, you know, the
younger workers--are there going to be autoworking jobs in this
country after this Administration finishes forcing the auto
industry into an electric vehicle production that is made
predominately overseas? I'm sure you know where most electric
vehicles are made in the world.
Mr. Beaudreau. It is an enormous priority for the
Administration and part of the reason why the President himself
joined auto workers in the strike to----
Senator Hawley. Where are most--where are 54 percent of
electric vehicles made globally?
Mr. Beaudreau. The entire point of----
Senator Hawley. Where are 54 percent of electric vehicles
made globally?
Mr. Beaudreau. The whole point is----
Senator Hawley. No, I am asking you a question. Where are
54 percent of electric vehicles made globally?
Mr. Beaudreau. I don't know.
Senator Hawley. You don't know?
Mr. Beaudreau. I don't know about that number. I know
that----
Senator Hawley. The answer is China. Where is the
critical----
Mr. Beaudreau. And the point----
Senator Hawley. Wait, hold on a minute, hold on a minute.
Where is 73 percent of cobalt refining? Where does it take
place globally?
Mr. Beaudreau. Overseas.
Senator Hawley. Where specifically?
Mr. Beaudreau. Probably China.
Senator Hawley. Yes, China. Where is most cobalt mining
performed? Who owns most of the cobalt mines in the world?
Mr. Beaudreau. Probably most of that sourcing is in Africa.
Senator Hawley. China has the majority. Seventy-seven
percent of electric vehicle cathodes are made in China. Ninety-
two percent of anodes are made in China. Sixty-six percent of
battery cells are assembled in China. The New York Times
recently did a report on this. The New York Times, not a
notably right-wing publication. They said, can the world make
an electric car battery without China? Their conclusion--the
only winner so far is China.
My question is, why would we want to make our auto industry
dependent on supply chains in China? Why is that a good idea?
Mr. Beaudreau. We don't.
Senator Hawley. Then why are you doing it?
Mr. Beaudreau. The entire point of this conversation, the
entire point of this hearing, is to domesticate and make more
reliable the sourcing of the materials----
Senator Hawley. Then why are you shutting down critical
mining in the United States?
Mr. Beaudreau. We are not.
Senator Hawley. You are. Why did you close the Twin Metals
Mine in this country earlier this year, 225,000 acres in
Minnesota, which mines critical minerals like copper, nickel,
cobalt?
Mr. Beaudreau. Again, the entire point of this conversation
is to do mining in a responsible way that also reconciles
with----
Senator Hawley. In a responsible way? First of all, answer
my question. Why did you close the Twin Metals Mine?
Mr. Beaudreau. Because of the threat to the Boundary
Waters, which is one of the largest economic drivers in
Minnesota.
Senator Hawley. So you think that we shouldn't have
critical supply chains in the United States, jobs, good-paying
jobs, with labor protections in the United States?
Mr. Beaudreau. Not at the expense of one of the richest
fisheries in the United States, in the world, such as in Alaska
and the Pebble Mine, not at that----
Senator Hawley. The Twin Metals Mine isn't in Alaska. It's
in Minnesota. It's 225,000 acres in Minnesota.
Mr. Beaudreau. Correct. And my point is, as we look to
accelerate the development of domestic critical mineral mining,
we have to do it in a way that does not conflict with and
deplete other important aspects of the economy. In northern
Minnesota, that includes the recreation economy and the
Boundary Waters, which is one of the main drivers of tourism--
--
Senator Hawley. So you are going to prioritize recreation
over good-paying jobs here in this country for mining? You are
going to withdraw this mine that has been online and now
shutter it?
Mr. Beaudreau. The number of jobs generated by the Boundary
Waters and tourism dramatically outpaces the potential of that
mine.
Senator Hawley. I thought it was critical that we had
supply chains in this country, and yet you are shutting down
critical mineral production in this country. Do you know
instead what that is making us reliant on? Do you know what
China's labor practices are, for instance, at their cobalt mine
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Have you seen the
reporting on this?
Mr. Beaudreau. You will get no argument from me that
domestic sourcing----
Senator Hawley. They use child labor, is the answer to my
question. Child labor in harrowing conditions.
Mr. Beaudreau. Child labor and also religious minorities.
Senator Hawley. China uses Uyghur labor, slave labor.
Mr. Beaudreau. Yes, yes, they do. Yes, they do.
Senator Hawley. And yet you are making us dependent on
imports from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, controlled
by China, from Chinese-controlled and owned mines all across
the world. You are shutting down our mines here in the United
States.
Mr. Beaudreau. Well, we disagree about all of that.
Senator Hawley. Would you support--well, facts are facts,
and sometimes they are tough, but what's going to be really
tough is when we don't have any auto jobs left in this country
because you shipped them all overseas, when we can't mine
anything in this country because you are shutting it all down.
And we all know why, it's in pursuit of your radical
environmentalist agenda. That's the real answer here.
The Chairman. Senator, your time is up.
Let me just say this, Senator, that first of all, the Twin
Metals project has never operated. It has never been
operational.
Senator Hawley. You know, Senator, with due respect, I have
sat here and listened to my colleagues who went two and three
minutes over. So I have been very patient. I think I am the
last person to question. Maybe it's Senator Lee.
The Chairman. No, you are not. Senator Lee is waiting for
you.
Senator Hawley. Okay. Well, I would be happy----
The Chairman. You can come back and we'll have a second
round.
Senator Hawley. That would be fine. I will sit here. I am
happy to do it. I am sure you will give me some time.
The Chairman. Sure. We are not here to berate. We are
basically here to try to get information on how to do it. We
have passed legislation, which I don't think you voted for,
that gave us more dependency as far as----
Senator Hawley. Senator, I am here to ask questions and to
get answers.
The Chairman. Well, you are here to--it's demagoguery. I
mean, you are basically attacking every witness we have. You
always have. I'm sorry, we just disagree, okay? I will come
back to you.
Senator Lee.
Senator Lee. Mr. Beaudreau, thank you for being here today.
I want to get to some issues about mining here in just a
moment, but before I do that, I need to ask you very quickly
about a couple of things. First of all, Interior's contingency
plan for the potential government shutdown this weekend. I am
frustrated, surprised, upset, if not angry that Interior still
hasn't published its plan for the national parks. You know,
communities rely on that plan for what will potentially happen
here in just a few days if the government shuts down--
communities surrounding our national park units--and it's
important.
So you must understand the huge economic impact that
shutting down national parks would have on individuals and
communities across the country, but especially in Utah, where
we have a lot of national park units. So just yes or no,
because I don't have a whole lot of time here. Does the
Interior Department plan to keep national park units open in
the event of a shutdown?
Mr. Beaudreau. So to answer the question, I spoke with
Governor Cox this morning. I spoke with Governor Gordon last
night from Wyoming. We are aware of the potential for a
shutdown. Obviously, the best thing that could happen is not to
shut down the government, not to shut down our parks, but we
will work with the State of Utah, as we always have, to ensure
that we minimize that type of economic disruption.
Senator Lee. Okay, I appreciate that.
Mr. Beaudreau. And there are mechanisms to do that.
Senator Lee. I appreciate that and I appreciate you
reaching out to Governor Cox around that. We do have plenty of
ways to do this, as I pointed out in a letter that I sent to
Secretary Haaland just a few days ago. You should be
designating as essential as many park and land management
employees as possible and using FLREA fee revenues to fund
essential operations. Unfortunately, it sounds like some
states, including Utah, may be forced yet again to use state
funds to keep our national parks open. We are grateful to have
lots of national parks in Utah. It's one of the things that
goes along with that. I introduced legislation this week to
make sure that these states that utilize state resources to
keep those open in the event of a shutdown, in the event that
you decide to shut down the park units, to make sure that those
states are repaid by the Federal Government in a timely manner
just as we repay in a timely manner federal workers for work
during a shutdown.
Yes or no--will Interior support that effort on that bill?
Mr. Beaudreau. Again, the best thing that could possibly
happen is that we avoid this by avoiding a shutdown. And I know
folks in the Senate are working very hard in that way. I don't
have any pending legislation in front of me on that. I think
there is a history of that type of legislation, however.
Senator Lee. Okay, I would ask you to take a look at that.
And my hope and my request is that you not oppose it.
Now, let's talk about the recent decision by Interior to
lock up 960,000 acres in Northern Arizona, a shameless abuse of
the Antiquities Act. This land contains the purest uranium
deposits in North America, a critical fuel for nuclear power,
which, in turn, is going to be vital for the objective of
achieving a so-called carbon-free future. Instead of accessing
our pure reserves here at home, the Biden Administration would
rather, apparently, have us be completely dependent on Russia,
which supplies almost half of our enriched uranium supply
today. Mr. Beaudreau, do you realize--do you really believe
that restricting and blocking up access to highly mineralized
federal lands in the U.S. will help counter Russian and Chinese
control of mineral supply chains?
Mr. Beaudreau. So the example you are pointing to, I think,
really highlights the challenge we have in this space. So the
example you are pointing to is the recent national monument
designated by President Biden to protect the watershed around
the Grand Canyon, one of the most iconic places in the world,
one of the most important national parks outside of Utah. And
it was a monument proposal sponsored by a coalition of tribes
which have borne the brunt of uranium development and other
types of mineral development. And so those are exactly the
types of issues that, in order to--consistent with what Senator
Hawley is advocating for--centralize and make more sound supply
chains in the United States, we have to deal with.
Senator Lee. We do have to deal with it, but you have a
whole lot more to deal with now that you have abused the
Antiquities Act yet again in this manner. It baffles me,
absolutely baffles me that the Biden Administration, on one
hand, thinks it can magically change the weather by pushing for
a rapid energy transition where the United States becomes a
green wonderland full of solar panels and big batteries and
everyone drives around in a $60,000 SUV. But then on the other
hand, at the very same time, you are doing everything you can
to lock up uranium in Arizona, nickel in Minnesota, copper in
Alaska, thinking that if you stop mining from happening here in
the U.S. and leave it to the child laborers in Congo, you will
have magically saved the climate and the planet. This madness
needs to stop.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
And we are going to go with our second round. Let me just
say this to Senator Hawley. I am sorry if you believe I have
been differential, but on that, I know the busy schedules you
have and other different committees. Everything that you were
saying, we feel the same, and it has been bipartisan on both
sides.
And I am going to go to Senator Murkowski first, for her
second round and then come right back----
Senator Hawley. At this time, Mr. Chairman, I have to say
this though. Let's not--don't characterize my questions as
demagoguery when I am trying to get answers.
The Chairman. Sir----
Senator Hawley. We have had people in front of here up at
this Committee----
The Chairman. We have been through this because everybody,
basically, has asked the same questions you were on that----
Senator Hawley. Senator, you don't get to control what
questions I ask or don't ask.
The Chairman. No, no, I understand----
Senator Hawley. And quite frankly, I think what you are
doing is abusive and I am going to call you out on it. Okay?
The Chairman. Oh, I'm going to call you out many times too.
Senator Hawley. Well, that's fine.
The Chairman. That's not a problem, but I am the Chairman
right now and you are out of order.
Senator Murkowski.
Senator Murkowski. Mr. Chairman, this is a Committee that,
historically--I have been on this Committee now for 20 years,
maybe 21, I don't know. But we are a Committee that I think has
been viewed both internally here in the Senate and externally
as a Committee that really likes to focus on policy. We really
like to focus on the hard things because there are hard things
when it comes to how we power, how we move our country, how we
can be competitive. And so, I think the good debate, the hard
questions are good, are fair, and I would just encourage all of
us that how we approach our questions--there is a level of
respect that comes with all of it. We're really trying to get
answers to the hard questions, it's how we treat one another,
how we treat our witnesses with respect, and how we really try
to get good value from this.
I want to go back to the question that I asked, and I do
apologize, Senator Hawley, because I had gone over my time.
Well, I think we kind of took advantage of the fact that the
Chairman was not in his chair at that time. That's my bad. But
I really do want to know the answer. And it may not be
answerable, but Dr. Yergin, you have more expertise in these
areas than anybody I know. You have seen us move from a country
of vulnerability--great vulnerability and exposure when it came
to our oil resources, to figuring out how we then become that
lead country, exercising that extraordinarily global position
where we can influence what goes on with the markets. We have a
role that we should be proud of in this country and we should
all--Republicans and Democrats, I don't care what
administration you are part of--should want to try to encourage
and continue. And unfortunately, with critical minerals, it's a
little bit of deja vu all over again. We can see ourselves
getting trapped in that same place where we have the resource
here, but for a multitude of different reasons, far too often,
it just comes down to the politics of it. We lock it off from
ourselves. We make ourselves vulnerable on others. And that's a
dangerous place to be, particularly at a time when we see China
eating our lunch in many of these areas when it comes to the
ability to process.
Really, when it comes to mining in places where--and I
agree with you, Deputy Secretary, there are places that we
should not be mining, and I think we know that. But we also
know that we do it better, safer, cleaner here in this country.
So let's figure out how we make it happen as we did with oil
and the success that fracking brought. So I raise the question.
You have heard it already. We stall ourselves out by permitting
issues that we haven't been able to get on top of, and despite
what we did in the last measure, where we said, okay, we are
going to put some timelines here on EAs. That's not enough.
It's not enough. And if we think that that's good enough, we
are fooling ourselves. The litigation piece of it is, you talk
to anybody that's trying to develop oil, gas, minerals, they
are baking litigation time into their project planning, into
their base budget. It is a reality that is just awful. But so
much of that then comes from--you have to get the social
license to operate.
So we are talking about it all the time. Are we just
talking to ourselves? Why can't we get people in this country,
young people, particularly, to get what Senator King was
pointing to, which was that the environmental considerations
here are equally important. What do we have to do? I guess I am
asking you to be the marketing man here.
Dr. Yergin. I think that is a pretty big question. I think
it's, you know, I think it's a question--I was thinking as you
were pointing this out--it's late to the party. I mean, until a
few years ago, mining was something that did not attract
capital. It was not very interesting in the United States. It
has really changed because of the discussion about energy
transition and EVs, but also because of the geopolitics. So
it's really an effort of catching up. And I think it is a
communications thing to understand that, you know, as the IMF,
as I quoted at the beginning, says you are not going to have
the energy transition if you don't have the minerals. And that
is just a fundamental factor. And I think----
Senator Murkowski. But we have the minerals.
Dr. Yergin. Yes.
Senator Murkowski. We just need to access them.
Dr. Yergin. Yes. And I think it was interesting, I think
Senator Hoeven mentioned the seven to ten, you know, delays.
That actually comes from a study that one of our predecessor
companies did in 2015. I think it's really time that we have to
really look at that again because I suspect that it's actually
a longer time frame now. But I think this Committee and what
you are doing is trying--is reversing it, but it's just
something that's not going to happen overnight and mining is a
long-time-horizon industry.
The Chairman. Thank you, Sir.
Senator Hawley.
Senator Hawley. Mr. Beaudreau, let's come back to the
question of the Congo that we were talking about. So if you are
opposed to the child labor practices of China in the Congo,
will you support the legislation introduced by some of our
colleagues in the House that would prohibit all imports of
cobalt mined using child or forced labor?
Mr. Beaudreau. I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with that
legislation.
The Chairman. Mr. Beaudreau, if you could put on your
microphone so we could--just put it over toward you because I
think--there you go, like that.
Mr. Beaudreau. I am not familiar with that legislation. I
do agree with you that those types of practices are practices
that we need to eliminate from our sourcing of critical
minerals.
Senator Hawley. So you would support a prohibition? You
would support a ban on imports, in principle, of any of these
critical minerals that have been mined using child labor?
Mr. Beaudreau. No, I support working hard----
Senator Hawley. Why not?
Mr. Beaudreau [continuing]. To transition away from sources
that use those types of practices.
Senator Hawley. Well, why not ban it? Why not say if it's
got child labor in the supply chain, we are not going to import
it in this country. We are not going to----
Mr. Beaudreau. I think that would have massive
implications----
Senator Hawley. Wait, I'm not done yet. We are not going to
prop up child labor in this country or fund it.
Mr. Beaudreau. I think an abrupt ban would, again, I
haven't studied this issue. One of the questions I would ask in
connection with a ban like that would be what the impacts,
including economic disruption of such a ban would be.
Senator Hawley. Well, the impact would make slave labor and
child labor extremely expensive. It would make American labor a
lot more attractive. That's what it would do. It would
incentivize jobs with labor protections in this country.
Shouldn't we want that?
Mr. Beaudreau. Again, I haven't reviewed that legislation.
I don't know what the impacts of it would be. I agree with you
that getting reliable sourcing that does not associate with
those types of practices should be the goal of the United
States.
Senator Hawley. But you can't agree that we should ban it?
Mr. Beaudreau. Again, I haven't studied the legislation.
It's hard for me to answer that question.
Senator Hawley. Well then, what, I guess--let me just ask
you a broader question then. What steps are you taking to
decouple American mineral production from slave labor then?
Mr. Beaudreau. Slave labor is completely illegal in the
United States; has been since the 19th century. And so the
domestic sourcing in the United States is preferable over
activities like you are describing in the Congo.
Senator Hawley. But, yeah, obviously, but our--we are
reliant, as you and I talked about in our first round of
questioning--we are heavily reliant on supply chains that is
shot through with slave labor and child labor--in China, in the
Congo, elsewhere. So my question is, what are you doing to
decouple us from those supply chains? You won't support a ban
on child labor, so what do you propose now?
Mr. Beaudreau. This was the purpose of the interagency
working group that I chaired. This is the entire thrust of the
report that we issued earlier this month, is how do we increase
the reliable sourcing of these materials? I think Dr. Yergin
makes an excellent point about refining as well, to decouple,
again, our reliance on sources that involve practices that are
abhorrent to us.
Senator Hawley. Well, all I can say is, I don't know why it
makes any sense to be shutting down critical mineral supply
chains in this country, shutting down mines in this country,
mandating further reliance on China and other overseas supply
chains that are dependent on slave labor and child labor while
workers in our country are facing the loss of their jobs. I
think it's just crazy, to be honest with you. I think it's just
crazy.
And Mr. Chairman, I have to say, in conclusion, you may not
like my questions, but I am going to keep asking them. I made a
commitment to the people of my state. I am going to come right
here. I am going to be a bulldog. I am going to ask the
questions. And you can interrupt me as much as you want, cut me
off, take my time away, but I promise you, I am not going to
stop.
The Chairman. I would never--let me just tell you one
thing. I agree with what you are saying, I just don't like the
way you say it. How is that?
Senator Hawley. That's your right, but you know----
The Chairman. We have a different----
Senator Hawley. I am going to keep on keeping on.
The Chairman. Here's the thing: we all agree, you know, if
you would have been able to be here, and I know because of
other committee assignments, but we were going through all of
these things. That was the only thing I got frustrated on.
So with that being said, there is not a person here who
doesn't understand. We are absolutely upset. This whole thing
about the Congo, I have been speaking to people down there.
It's horrible what's going on. They want to change. They are
going to have our help. And I agree with you, we should not
accept any child labor. I am on the bill, I think. But with all
that being said, we have to do more permitting here. We have
got to do it because basically we are allowing our whole EV
dependency now, moving that market quicker than what we can
ever supply. And my whole reason to basically fight this
Administration is because I don't want to become dependent--
basically our transportation mode--on an unreliable supply
chain. That's what will happen. I have waited for--I was old
enough in '74--we talked about that oil embargo. I had to wait
in line to buy gas to go to work. I don't want to wait in line
to buy a battery from China to go to work.
So I agree. We are on the same path, I think. We just have
a different way of approaching it, that's all. And I respect
that.
Okay, with that, we have Professor Daines, who is going to
explain to us exactly why we are messed up.
Senator Daines. I have been promoted to professor.
The Chairman. Well, I am going to because I see you have a
chart.
Senator Daines. Tell you what----
The Chairman. I feel like I am in a classroom now.
Senator Daines. Yes, so I get to geek out from my old days
of being a chemical engineer here today. So Chairman Manchin,
thank you.
Behind me is the U.S. Geological Survey's most recent graph
showing the United States' mineral import reliance. And this
comes right out of the report, the U.S. Department of the
Interior, U.S. Geological Survey here, which is a really good
report.
[The chart referred to follows:]
Senator Daines. I want everyone to take note of the
highlighted portions that show--and I recognize this is an eye
chart--but just to summarize it, look at everywhere it's
highlighted--that's Russia or China. So the yellow is China.
The orange is Russia. Of the 65 minerals on that list, we rely
on China or Russia for over half of them. That should be a
wake-up call for all of us.
I remember, as I think everybody here is old enough to
remember 1973, and we were going through, you know, with the
Jewish religious calendar, we just came through Yom Kippur. The
War of Yom Kippur, 1973, was a wake-up call to the world, as it
exposed the dependencies we had and kind of our single point of
failure on the Middle East for oil. And of course, the Strait
of Hormuz, it was blockaded. We saw oil prices skyrocket. And
in fact, those skyrocketing oil prices contributed to some of
the inflationary pressures we saw that, by 1981, a 30-year
fixed mortgage was 18.6 percent. What I am concerned about is
we are headed down a path where we could repeat the same
mistakes that were made back in the '70s as we look forward in
terms of a more renewable type of economy, more dependencies on
electricity as supply for cars and so forth, that China and
Russia become the ``OPEC'' of critical minerals.
Simply put, we need to be mining more in the U.S., because
what came out of the War of 1973, the War of Yom Kippur, was a
rallying cry--we need energy independence. And you know, we
have been working on that now in the United States to develop
more made-in-America oil, gas, and coal, to ensure we are
decoupled from dependencies in terms of kind of the ultimate
supply chain failure, and that is an energy supply chain
failure. This could be another situation that faces us if we
don't find ways to bring more of these critical mineral mining
operations to the United States or to friendly countries.
Deputy Secretary Beaudreau, the Department of the Interior
recently released their recommendations to reform mining. In
it, you suggested raising taxes, lengthening the permitting
process, withdrawing more land from development, and slapping a
new royalty on mining operations. All these recommendations are
not going to make it easier to mine domestically, it will make
it harder. They will drive us further in a dependence on China
and Russia rather than promoting and incentivizing U.S. mineral
independence.
Mr. Beaudreau, do you agree that your recent
recommendations are a step backward for mineral independence,
and why would the Department think that creating more costs and
more regulatory hurdles for mining projects is the best idea
when we are faced with the reality of Chinese and Russian
mineral dominance?
Mr. Beaudreau. So the goal of the report and the
recommendations in the report is to combat exactly the
situation that your chart depicts. In order to do that, there
are fundamental things that have to be addressed. One is the
legacy and history of conflict that the mining activities in
the United States have posed for communities across the United
States. Some of that is reflected in the over 500,000 abandoned
hardrock mines that dot the United States, especially in the
American West. So any discussion about royalties reflected in
the report is meant to help address that. It's the same thing
that we do with mine reclamation for the coal industry. It's
the same thing we do with decommissioning and reclamation with
the oil and gas industry. And so, again, that is to build a
sustainable system for mining in the United States that has
social license.
Senator Daines. Mr. Compton, one of the great things about
democracy----
Mr. Beaudreau. He disagrees with me on some of that.
Senator Daines. Right. Well, I was going to say one of the
great things about democracy is that we allow to have different
points of view, and by the way, you know, Mr. Beaudreau, I have
great respect for you and I am grateful for what you do in
Interior, and I was supportive of you in your nomination and I
am glad you are where you are at, but I think we can also
respectfully disagree.
And Mr. Compton, you may have a different view, but what do
you think?
Mr. Beaudreau. He and I have that same relationship, by the
way.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Compton. Yes, with all due respect to the Deputy
Secretary, I do disagree with him on the outcome or the
proposed outcomes in the working group's report. And you know,
unfortunately, I think it's just consistent with what we have
seen from the Administration. We talk a really good game about
securing our mineral supply chains, beginning with the
President's America's Supply Chains executive order within a
month of coming into office. All too often what we are seeing
with actions on the ground, they are decidedly anti-mining.
And you know, I get where the Deputy Secretary is coming
from in changing the dynamic on how mining is conducted here,
but we have done that. The industry has been committed for a
long time to early and proactive engagement with stakeholders,
communities, tribes. As a matter of fact, I think the Federal
Government, through their formal consultation process, can
learn a lot from the mining industry. But we are never going
to, as much as we are all for early engagement, we are never
going to deconflict every mineral project. There are those out
there that are just simply opposed to mining. It came up
earlier, you know, ``yes, in my backyard,'' but we have an
awful lot of ``no, in my backyard.''
And so the fact is that all the early engagement, we are
all for that. But we are not going to deconflict this. We are
still going to be facing litigation. And that's why I look
forward to additional permitting reforms from this Committee
that can address that.
Senator Daines. Yes.
Mr. Chairman, I know, but just on the litigation, I am
going to make a final comment and then----
The Chairman. I am just glad Senator Hawley is not here.
Senator Daines. You hit on another topic here that I don't
have time to continue the dialogue here, which I think has been
thoughtful, but we have been trying to get a copper mine
permitted in Montana for 30 years and they have been through
one EIS. I used to be an old Procter & Gamble manager and we
used to make shampoo and mouthwash and toothpaste. It was just
lather, rinse, repeat. It's lather, rinse, repeat right now on
the litigation because we are in the Ninth Circuit Court. And I
think without--I know the Chairman has been as passionate as I
am about permitting reform. It is badly needed.
The Chairman. We're getting there.
Senator Daines. But it is necessary, but I would argue not
sufficient without litigation reform and a change and just more
better balance in our courts, particularly starting with the
Ninth Circuit.
The Chairman. Senator, before you came, before you were
here----
Senator Daines. Yes.
The Chairman. I know you had other assignments and----
Senator Daines. Right.
The Chairman. But we talked about that. I brought the
Committee up to state that both our Republican staff and our
Democrat staff have been working very close and we are getting
agreement and then we know where our challenges are and we are
going to try to overcome those to have something I think that
both sides will be very pleased with, and some permitting
reform. We are very hopeful for that.
Senator Daines. Well, and I just want to commend----
The Chairman. But what you are saying right now, judicial
reform is something that is----
Senator Daines. It is, because it becomes--that Article III
jumps in here and suddenly undercuts everything we have done. I
mean, 30 years with state-of-the-art mining practices in
Montana.
The Chairman. You have the Ninth Circuit. I have the
Fourth.
Senator Daines. Yes, we call it the ``ninth circus'' out
there in Montana, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Okay. Let me just say this to all of you. I
think you know how interesting this is and how essential it is
for our country to move forward. I can always talk about the
passion that people have for where we are going and what,
basically, what we need for our country to be more self-reliant
and not dependent on foreign supply chains. I'm sorry for
sometimes the dialogue and everything. I can't speak to that. I
can try to control it the best I can.
But with that being said, we all have the same, I think,
commitment, intent, both Democrats and Republicans, to be more
self-reliant, not to be dependent, and basically make sure we
can do what we can do. We can't ask other countries to do what
we won't do for ourselves. That is the biggest challenge that
we have. And hopefully we can get permitting reform that,
Secretary Beaudreau, that will help your agency give a clear
pathway forward to what needs to be done and why we are behind
you to get it done. And hopefully we can make that change.
But with that being said, I have a letter from the American
Critical Minerals Association, as well as a statement from the
National Mining Association addressed to this Committee. I
would like to enter into the record these two pieces of
testimony without objection.
I don't see any and I don't hear any.
So both organizations commend the bipartisan efforts of the
Committee, recommend some common-sense solutions such as
permitting reform, and highlight the need to act with urgency
to address critical mineral supply chains.
[The letter and statement referred to follow:]
The Chairman. You all have been great and very helpful
today and we are very grateful for that and I appreciate it. I
know you made efforts to be here and I appreciate that more
than you know.
So the members are going to have until the close of
business tomorrow to submit additional questions for the
record.
And with that, the meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:18 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED
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