U.S. Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV) on May 7 sponsored legislation that would require the administration to more efficiently develop domestic sources of minerals of strategic and critical importance to the economic, national security and manufacturing competitiveness of the United States.
“Critical and strategic minerals are essential to the technologies, products and infrastructure that make our daily lives work,” Rep. Amodei said. “Unfortunately, when it comes to mining critical and strategic minerals in America, duplicative regulations and bureaucratic inefficiencies have forced us to rely on foreign adversaries and competitors for critical minerals, a dependency that threatens the security of our nation and economy.”
Rep. Amodei introduced the National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act, H.R. 2531, with 28 Republican cosponsors, including U.S. Reps. Bill Johnson (R-OH), Paul Cook (R-CA), Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Tom Cole (R-OK), Tom Emmer (R-MN), Mike Kelly (R-PA) and Dan Newhouse (R-WA).
“I’m pleased to have several of my House colleagues join me in introducing this bill and look forward to working together to modernize the outdated, job-crushing policies that are hamstringing our economy and jeopardizing our national security,” Rep. Amodei said.
The congressman said his bill would decrease the nation’s dependency on foreign mineral sources by streamlining the permitting process, subsequently allowing the United States to leverage its own vast resources of minerals.
Rep. Amodei also said H.R. 2531 would help correct permitting delays that he said “stand in the way of high-paying jobs and revenue for local, often rural, communities.”
“In fact, since the 1990s, mineral exploration has stagnated and even declined in some cases because regulatory changes have caused the permit approvals process to take as long as ten years,” he added.
Previous versions of H.R. 2531, which Rep. Amodei called “common-sense legislation,” received approval from the U.S. House of Representatives during the last four sessions of Congress and “will not change any environmental regulations, protections, or opportunity for public input,” he said.
The measure has been referred for consideration to the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee.