Events
message about strengthening our domestic supply chains and creating American jobs. There have been important moves in that direction, including through the Inflation Reduction Act, significant financing offered through the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office and grants offered through the Department of Defense’s use of the Defense Production Act. At the same time, to be blunt, far too few mines are getting approved. In fact, just a handful have been approved under this administration that are sizeable enough to require a full-blown environmental impact statement – compare that with the hundreds that analysts say are needed to fill the upcoming demand. Last year we saw the White House’s Interagency Working Group on mining make recommendations that would harm investment in domestic mining and our competitiveness, including recommending outsized royalties and taxes. And we’ve seen key permitting decisions reversed and hundreds of thousands of acres of mineral-rich lands withdrawn from potential mining.
You previously mentioned the importance of reducing the US’s import reliance on key mineral commodities. Has this come to pass in the past few years? What steps do you believe are necessary to achieve this goal, and what role can government policies play in supporting domestic mining operations? As I mentioned, we’re not seeing nearly the progress that we will need to make a dent in our massive import reliance, and hostile policies are leading us in the wrong direction. The financing opportunities that are available through DOE and DOD, and tax incentives that are still in-work for electric vehicles and need to reach all the way back to the mine, are important market drivers. But if we can’t get a mine permitted here at home, those efforts will fall flat. With so many responsible projects awaiting a green light from the federal government, we need to find a better way to get things done, and get them done efficiently.
How do you view the current state of competition within the global mining industry, particularly in comparison to countries like China? What strategies do you think the US can adopt to enhance the competitiveness of its mining sector on the global stage?
China has a more than two decade start on the rest of the world in terms of its minerals strategy, and we’ve seen countless other countries come up with comprehensive and specific minerals strategies to grow their internal capacity. In the US, unfortunately, we’ve seen a tendency to defer to sourcing from allies or other countries abroad in lieu of domestic sourcing and we think that’s a mistake.
World Mining Frontiers /
www.nsenergybusiness.com 11
With the strongest environmental, labour and safety protections in the world, and abundant domestic reserves of a wide range of minerals, if we’re going to get serious about responsible mining, we need to be doing more of it here at home. From a policy perspective specific to our geopolitical rivals, recent moves such as President Biden’s tariffs on imported Chinese goods and the ban on Russian uranium are steps in the right direction.
Could you provide more insight into the challenges associated with mine permitting in the US, and what reforms or improvements are needed to streamline this process?
Congress should take targeted action to streamline the permitting process that includes things like setting timelines on legal action and challenges; this is a huge factor in delaying projects in the US and environmental groups have even said that they know in many cases a mine will eventually be approved, but they use litigation as a stall tactic to lengthen the timeline as much as possible. Other actions like setting limits on Executive Land withdrawals, setting and enforcing timelines on steps in the federal permitting
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