Washington, D.C. - House Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Bruce Westerman (R-AR) released the following statement on the one-year anniversary of President Joe Biden’s Executive Order on America’s Supply Chains.
“President Joe Biden spoke this week about the importance of securing America’s critical minerals’ supply chains. Unfortunately, actions speak louder than words and his rush-to-green, anti-American resource development agenda undermines that goal and instead emboldens and rewards our enemies, like Russia and China. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s dominance of essential parts of renewable energy and electric vehicle supply chains, the relationship between our national security and a stable mineral supply chain is clearer now than ever before.
“If President Biden is serious about securing our critical mineral supply chains, he wouldn’t just be throwing money at the problem. His actions are an attempt to distract from the fact that his radical agenda includes blocking several mines in America and making it harder to manufacture and refine critical materials in the United States. For example, just last month, the Department of the Interior cancelled federal leases in Northern Minnesota needed to develop one of the most promising copper, nickel and cobalt deposits in North America. Further, the Department announced their plans to regulate the domestic mining industry through a newly established working group on hardrock mining reform. While President Biden indicated during his roundtable that he wants to build a fully domestic supply chain, this goal is simply unachievable so long as the Biden Administration’s Department of the Interior remains unwilling to review and permit new mines. He must work with the Natural Resources and Energy and Commerce Committees to lift the regulatory burden and advance permitting reforms. These are the real reforms Republicans have repeatedly called for to unlock America’s ability to develop, process, and refine our own natural resources here at home."
