“Out with the old, in with the new” goes the old adage, and — particularly against the backdrop of a rabidly partisan climate in Washington, DC, the Biden Administration, which begins tomorrow, will likely be pressured to swiftly undo many policy changes the outgoing Trump Administration made per executive action.
Yet as this Constitutionally-mandated date arrives, ARPN suggests our friends and followers observe a different date, established by a social study utterly lacking in legal authority: Today – January 19 – marks the day that, on average, people abandon their New Year’s resolutions. We hereby challenge friends of ARPN to buck the trend, and resolve anew to make 2021 a strong year for resource development.
And there is reason to hope. Begin with the observation that — all partisan politics aside — several of the executive steps taken during the Trump presidency were in fact a continuation of initial actions taken during the Obama Administration, under which the Department of Energy began formulating a Critical Minerals Strategy and the Critical Materials Institute, a leading authority on critical minerals R&D, was founded.
One of the most consequential steps taken by the outgoing Trump administration was probably E.O. 13953, which declared a critical minerals national emergency and instructs the Department of the Interior to explore the application of the Defense Production Act. That EO is one of a number of relevant executive actions taken during the past few years (for examples see our Year in Review posts here).
Rather than broadly rescinding executive actions (minus those that were codified into law in late December/early January) or initiating new rule-making processes to undo them, we will be watching to see whether the Biden Administration undertakes a merit-based review of individual actions, to ensure that our nation continues down the path towards a more comprehensive mineral resource policy begun under the Obama Administration and kicked into high gear over the past few years.
And on this day when so many statistically slide back to old ways best left in the past, ARPN hereby resolves to renew our resolution to add our efforts to those that will make 2021 a banner year for domestic resource development.
