EXECUTIVE ORDER

In a new piece for The Hill, member of the ARPN expert panel and president and founder of Washington, DC-based government relations firm J.A.Green & Company Jeff A. Green stresses the national security risks associated with our over-reliance on foreign sources of supply for key mineral resources.

Citing FBI Director Christopher Wray, who recently told Congress that China is seeking to undermine the United States’ military, economic, cultural and information power across the globe, Green argues that

“[a] major contributor to China’s rising power, and one of its primary trade weapons, is its near-monopoly over several minerals and materials that the United States military relies on to maintain its technological edge.”

As Green points out, our mineral resource dependencies have grown significantly over the last few decades, and the risk of supply chain disruptions looms large:

“Given the nation’s increased foreign dependence, adversarial nations that provide these minerals, such as China and Russia, have gained geopolitical leverage at exactly the wrong time. Russia now poses a national security threat across multiple domains, and China has demonstrated an “impressive military buildup…across almost every domain,” according to the head of U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Harry Harris.

And yet, as of 2017 China was still a major supplier of 26 commodities to the United States that are essential for aerospace and defense applications. Given that the United States possesses mineral reserves worth $6.2 trillion, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), continuing to rely on imports is fiscally foolish and politically dangerous.”

Green commends the administration for taking steps that begin to address the issue, and cites various executive orders and Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke’s draft list of 35 minerals that are considered essential to U.S. National Security.

Meanwhile, he argues, the U.S. Congress has so far missed opportunities to enact legislation that would address one of the key obstacles to domestic mineral resource development – an outdated and convoluted permitting structure.  Rep. Mark Amodei’s (R, Nev.) “National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act,” and Sen. Dean Heller’s (R, Nev.) identical Senate bill would “remove a significant barrier to entry, and expedite the mining permit process to no more than 30 months,” but so far, Congress has failed to take steps to pass these bills.  Writes Green:

“The White House, through its executive orders, has shown that it understands the risks of the current, laborious mine permitting system in the United States, and recognizes the potential rewards for encouraging new sources of critical materials. Whether through Amodei’s bill or another mechanism, Congress should also act to mitigate these risks and encourage new efforts.” 

To read the full piece, click here.

Visual Capitalist has put together a great visualization of Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke’s draft list of 35 metals and minerals deemed critical to U.S. National Security.

The list was released earlier this month, pursuant to Executive Order 13817 issued on December 20, 2017, “A Federal Strategy To Ensure Secure and Reliable Supplies of Critical Minerals,” and has kicked off a public comment period.

We were encouraged by the fact that, while stopping short of including Copper, Nickel and Zinc, the draft list specifically acknowledges the co-dependency between Gateway Metals and their Co-Products, and we remain hopeful that stakeholders will join us in making the case for incorporating Copper, Nickel and Zinc, as they unlock more than a half-dozen minerals that do make the list, into the final version.

In the meantime, check out the visualization previewed below, and catch us on Twitter, where we are re-publishing our “#ThroughTheGateway” informational campaign on Gateway Metals and their Co-Products.

“Why is the United States reliant on China and Russia for strategic minerals when we have more of these valuable resources than both these nations combined?” Stephen Moore, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economic consultant with Freedom Works, and ARPN expert panel member Ned Mamula, a geoscientist and adjunct scholar at the [...]

It may not be brand new, but this video serves as a good reminder of  why the long overdue mineral resource policy reform debate now underway is so critical. Last Friday, pursuant to December’s Executive Order 13817, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke released his draft list of “35 Minerals Deemed Critical to U.S National [...]

Without much fanfare, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) released its annual Mineral Commodity Summaries report at the end of January. Followers of ARPN will know that we usually await the release of said study with somewhat bated breath. However, this year was slightly different, as the context in which to embed this year’s report [...]

Last month, the American Geosciences Institute ran a webinar entitled “Tracking the Global Supply of Critical Materials.”  Speakers for the event, which discussed “efforts to gather information and develop tools that can be used to ensure a secure national and global supply of mineral resources, and identify and quantifying vulnerabilities in this supply, among others,” [...]

The following is a guest post by ARPN expert panel member Chris Berry, Founder, House Mountain Partners. His expertise focuses on, but is not limited to, energy metals including Lithium, Cobalt, Graphite, Vanadium and Rare Earths. The Executive Order recently signed by President Trump to prioritize domestic natural resource development couldn’t have come at a [...]

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As we have outlined, last month’s executive order on critical minerals could have far-reaching implications for our national security and economic wellbeing.  If you needed a case in point – look no further than Lithium. One of the hottest commodities of the day, Lithium, as ARPN expert panel member and managing director of Benchmark Mineral [...]

Mark your calendars – the American Geosciences Institute (AGI) will host a timely webinar on critical mineral issues later this month. The webinar entitled “Tracking the Global Supply of Critical Materials” will be held on Friday, January 26, 2018, at 11:00am EST, and will “focus on U.S. and European Union (EU) efforts to gather information [...]