After greater than 200 hearings did not enact any of the 415 proposed payments, it will likely be as much as the subsequent Congress to place phrases into motion on important minerals.
The nation’s reliance on imported important minerals and uncommon earth components from China was mentioned in 245 committee conferences and talked about in 95 studies in the course of the 118th Congress’s 2022 and 2023 periods, in keeping with Congress.Gov.
When Congress adjourned on Dec. 20 with the midnight passage of a unbroken decision to fund the federal government by way of March, it did so with out adopting any of the 415 proposed payments associated to important minerals as standalone laws over the past two years.
Whereas measures bolstering provide chains and processing capability for nationwide protection had been integrated into omnibus spending packages, such because the annual Nationwide Protection Authorization Act, solely a handful of important mineral payments had been vetted in committee and a uncommon few offered for flooring votes earlier than dying unheard within the different chamber.
Vital minerals are simply one in every of many points the place the 118th Congress left reams of unresolved laws languishing in its wake, a lame-duck physique now in dissipating repose earlier than expiring when the 119th Congress convenes on Jan. 3.
There have been 19,304 measures launched in 2023 and 2024 within the Senate and Home, with 399 adopted by way of Dec. 20, in keeping with evaluations of GovTrack.us invoice tracker and Congress.gov’s Statutes At Giant, which paperwork “all legal guidelines and resolutions enacted throughout every session of Congress.”
The 19,304 launched payments had been essentially the most for the reason that ninety fifth Congress put greater than 22,000 on the docket in 1977-78, in keeping with GovTrack.
The 399 adopted measures, in the meantime, is the fewest to go each chambers since no less than 1973-74, which is way back to Govtrack.us and Congress.gov chart such statistics; 233 originated within the Home, 157 within the Senate, and 9 had been joint resolutions.
These 2023-24 adopted measures, which “enacted 83 public legal guidelines,” are lower than a 3rd of the 1,234 that had been handed in 2021-22 by the 117th Congress.
Vital minerals are uncommon earth components that had been a standard matter in hearings the previous couple of years as a result of, of the highest 50 important minerals outlined by the US Geological Survey’s (USGS’s) November 2022 checklist, the US can solely now domestically supply a handful.
These are minerals and components wanted for electronics and nationwide protection. As an example, almost three-quarters of the world’s lithium is produced in Australia and Chile; three-quarters of cobalt comes from the Congo; two-thirds of the world’s platinum from South Africa; and 90 % of niobium from Brazil.
Whereas uncooked important minerals and ores will be discovered world wide, together with the US, China-based corporations dominate processing them. China controls the worldwide processing of no less than 30 such minerals, in keeping with a November 2023 report.
The USA is one hundred pc import-reliant on, for example, yttrium, utilized in alloys, radar microwave filters, and ethylene polymerization; uncommon earths utilized in sensible telephones and cameras; bismuth and tungsten for metallurgy; arsenic for semiconductors; barite for hydrocarbon manufacturing; antimony utilized in batteries; germanium and gallium utilized in semiconductor chips and fiber optics; and graphite utilized in batteries and lubricants.
On Dec. 2, the Biden administration expanded export controls on semiconductors and manufacturing tools to China, imposing restrictions on 24 sorts of semiconductor manufacturing tools, three software program packages, and high-bandwidth reminiscence chips to entities associated to Chinese language semiconductor manufacturing and funding corporations.
In response, China introduced on Dec. 3 that it was tightening restrictions on exporting minerals wanted for superior semiconductors, basically banning export of gallium, germanium, and antimony to industries and corporations linked to the US. The subsequent day, it added graphite to the checklist.
A loader shifts soil containing uncommon earth minerals to be loaded at a port in Lianyungang, in China’s Jiangsu Province, on Sept. 5, 2010. STR/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
Stymied by Definition
Going through these commerce conflict actions, Congress did little in its waning days earlier than adjourning to handle financial and nationwide protection priorities it had deliberated the final two years.
It left a parcel of payments associated to general power improvement on the desk, together with measures that may streamlined the allowing course of regardless of a pan-industry, bipartisan rally cry.
Most notably idling for greater than a yr was HR 1, The Decrease Vitality Prices Act, basically a blueprint for a Home GOP “drill child drill” power coverage that the Democrat-led Senate by no means heard in committee.
The proposed Vitality Allowing Reform Act of 2024—co-sponsored by Sens. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and lauded by power and mining associations as a very good first machete hack into the regulatory thicket—died unheard within the Home.
A significant factor of hearings was devoted to getting the Division of Vitality (DOE) and USGS on the identical web page in defining what’s a important mineral and the way the federal authorities ought to comprehensively assess sources, provide chains, and end-uses in growing a method.
Amongst payments searching for to outline important minerals, HB 8446, The Vital Mineral Consistency Act of 2024, superior the furthest.
Sponsored by six Republicans led by Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.), it amends The Vitality Act of 2020 to require the Inside secretary to submit an annual report comprehensively assessing all international important mineral and uncommon earth component assets and to harmonize minerals definitions and listings utilized by the DOE and the USGS.
It spiraled into boxed canyon partisanship by together with copper as a important mineral, which Democrats objected to as a “present to the copper {industry} and the Chinese language Communist Occasion (CCP),” noting Decision Copper, owned by Rio Tinto, a worldwide mining company, is proposing a copper mine in New Mexico.
“And guess who owns the most important stake in Rio Tinto?” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) requested. “The Chinese language authorities.”
HB 8446 was among the many payments the Home Guidelines Committee moved to the ground on Nov. 12. The proposal handed the Home on Nov. 14 in a 245-155 vote and was by no means heard within the Senate the place the copper inclusion nixed its passage.
A bit of ore containing uncommon earths is displayed throughout a tour of a uncommon earth mineral mine in California on June 29, 2015. David Becker/Reuters
November Bred, December Useless
The Home Pure Assets Committee’s Vitality & Mineral Assets Subcommittee on Nov. 19 superior three important minerals-related payments that had been by no means heard on the ground, together with HR 7807, The Intergovernmental Vital Minerals Activity Power Act, sponsored by Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.).
The invoice would set up an intergovernmental important minerals job drive to “assess the reliance on the Individuals’s Republic of China for important minerals.”
It’s much like a number of different payments trying to put the foundations for a way the federal government will take care of important minerals that by no means bought to a flooring vote.
Others embody SB 3631, The Vital Minerals Safety Act of 2024, which might require studies on important mineral and uncommon earth component assets world wide and description the event of technique for the event of superior mining, refining, separation, and processing applied sciences.
Co-filed by six sponsors led by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), it was adopted by the Senate on Nov. 19 and by no means heard within the Home.
Additionally superior that very same day by the Home subcommittee was SB 3631’s companion invoice, HB 7662, and HR 10005, “The Expedited Appeals Evaluation Act” (EARA), sponsored by Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.), which might have decluttered the Division of Inside’s Board of Land Enchantment course of that solely noticed 34 of 290 instances resolved “on precise deserves” in 2023 with simply two choices favoring appellants.
The backlog-building continued into December, with additional deliberation of recent go-nowhere payments whereas these already heard pend expiry.
On Dec. 11, the Home Choose Committee on the Chinese language Communist Occasion’s Vital Minerals Coverage Working Group on Dec. 11 adopted three extra measures geared toward mitigating China’s dominance of the important minerals and uncommon earth provide chain.
The bipartisan panel, led by Reps. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) and Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), launched the Earth Sciences and Cooperation Enhancement Act of 2024, which might have appropriated $3 million in authorizing the inside secretary to signal memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with international governments to advertise collaboration on important mineral provide chains.
The working group endorsed a proposed modification to the Export Reform Management Act of 2018 co-sponsored by Wittman and Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), which establishes export controls on “black mass,” a mix of parts in recycled lithium-ion batteries, and “swarf,” a byproduct of the metallic machining {industry}.
It additionally superior a proposed Vital Minerals Workforce Enhancement Act, co-filed by Reps. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) and Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) which, amongst different provisions, amends the Immigration and Nationality Act to permit these with important minerals expertise to use for a nationwide curiosity waiver as a part of their EB-2 visa petition.
Not solely didn’t these December-filed proposals advance additional, however they weren’t enumerated.
If Congress needs to listen to these payments, and actually lots of of others, once more, they’ll should be repackaged, re-numerated, and re-filed.
The excellent news is, after lots of of hours of hearings and almost 100 studies, many of those measures—the overwhelming majority bipartisan—ought to transfer shortly after the brand new Congress is seated.
