Emails and other documents obtained from the White House and various federal agencies suggest that the Biden Administration is not serious about increasing domestic mining of critical minerals needed for energy production, raising national security concerns because of America’s increasing reliance on China for some of these minerals.
Functional Government Initiative (FGI), a group seeking to raise public awareness of the decisions and priorities of the federal government, obtained documents in March through a Freedom of Information Act request that reveal White House talking points about the DPA’s effects. They noted, “Nothing in this Presidential Determination will waive, supersede, expedite, or shortcut the permitting or environmental review process.” Additionally, it said that the “President acknowledges the dirty legacy of mining in the United States. Too often, Tribal Nations, fenceline communities, and our natural treasures and resources have been harmed in the rush for profit. He knows that we cannot repeat these grievous practices.”
Two years earlier, President Biden issued a presidential determination invoking the Defense Production Act (DPA) in order to improve America’s ability to “secure a reliable and sustainable supply of such strategic and critical materials” related to a clean energy economy. Mining is the primary way of improving the “domestic production capabilities of such strategic and critical materials” so that America does not have to rely on China for them.
However, the Biden Administration received a lot of push back on invoking the DPA by their Democrat and environmental allies.
For instance, Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, then-chair of U.S. House Natural Resources and Committee Rep. Alan Lowenthal, then-chair of the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources, sent a letter to President Biden “expressing serious concerns about the use of DPA to increase mining on public lands.”
Some of the documents obtained by FGI suggest their concerns were unnecessary.
Pete McGinnis, a spokesman for FGI, said this shows that “the Biden administration is well aware of how far behind the US is in domestic critical mineral extraction but seem to not truly be serious about mining at all.”
China is dominant in both the mining and refining of many rare earth elements. The Visual Capitalist reports that China “produces 60% of all rare earth elements used as components in high-technology devices, including smartphones and computers. The country also has a 13% share of the lithium production market. In addition, it refines around 35% of the world’s nickel, 58% of lithium, and 70% of cobalt.” Nickel and lithium, along with copper, are essential for technologies like batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage and for solar and wind power.
A recent announcement from the Pentagon to install solar panels on the rooftop of the Pentagon has raised awareness of this problem. According to Fox News, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin wrote a letter to the Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin questioning “the wisdom of the Pentagon’s plan to use $104 million in taxpayer funds to add solar panels to the rooftop of the Pentagon.”
In the letter, Youngkin wrote, “This decision has significant implications for U.S. national security and brings into question whether American taxpayer dollars will be used to purchase solar equipment from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), our greatest economic and geopolitical rival.”
FGI suggests that reducing America’s ability to access traditional energy sources such as oil while at the same time doing little to increase access to minerals needed in the production of renewable is “perplexing.” McGinnis said, “This is happening all the while they push for the public to switch to EVs which are reliant on these critical minerals.” FGI also wrote, “Opening up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and calls to hostile dictators have formed the crux of their approach while requests to reconsider opposition to pipeline infrastructure and oil and gas leases and financing have repeatedly been rejected.”
