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The following is a re-post from 2012:

Today is American Thanksgiving – a celebration of the blessings afforded by our forefathers as they overcame adversity in a new land, laboring to obtain from the resources around them the necessities of life:  food, shelter, and warmth against winter’s cold.

Since that first winter, the bounty of Thanksgiving has become a symbol of the abundant resources the New World provided.  From the raw materials that built our modern cities to the energy that has powered innovation in all its variety, these resources have enriched the lives of millions of people in America and around the world – making possible a way of life those who gathered around that first Thanksgiving table could never have imagined.

Even today, of course, we know that too many are still doing without the basic necessities of life.  And yet the resources around us – those literally under our feet – remain plentiful.  All too often complacency and ideology lock us into inaction, blocking us from making use of the still-rich resources of this new world. Minerals, metals, fuel and timber that could create jobs, opportunities, and rewards for the American people are left untouched.

Our forefathers understood privation and want.  They understood that nature sometimes rewards tireless work with a poor harvest.  But they also understood nature’s bounty.  What they would find beyond comprehending in our day is the willful failure to use resources we have at hand to ease hardship and make a better life for ourselves and for others.

On this Thanksgiving, as we give thanks for our many blessings, may we also remember the lessons dating back to Plymouth Rock, that teach us to use our resources and resourcefulness to make an even newer and better world.

We blinked – and the holidays are upon us already. It’s a busy time of the year for everyone, but if you’re still looking for a worthwhile event to put on your calendar this December look no further:

Our friends at the American Exploration and Mining Association (AEMA) will be holding their 124th Annual Meeting from December 2nd through December 7th in Spokane, Washington.

The event, which represents “the second largest and longest running annual mining convention in the U.S.” will feature exhibitions, technical workshops and courses, as well as keynote addresses by Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke and industry representative Arshad Sayed, chief development officer for partnerships and joint ventures in copper and diamonds for Rio Tinto.

“Zinke will talk about what has been accomplished so far and his plans, (…) we will ask him to talk about the critical minerals order,” AEMA Executive Director Laura Skaer told the Elko Daily Free Press. Secretary Zinke had released a list of 35 minerals deemed critical to U.S. national security and the U.S. economy earlier this year. Per the presidential executive order “on a federal strategy to ensure secure and reliable supplies of critical minerals” issued on December 20th, 2017, the list is to be followed up with a report by the U.S. Commerce Department outlining ways to achieve this goal.

A session on legislative and regulatory affairs on the final day hosted by Laura Skaer will round out the program – so attendees should leave with a better idea of the current state of play and what to expect from policy makers and stakeholders in the coming weeks and months.

While early registration has ended, you can still register at the door. Get all the details at www.miningamerica.org.  However, if you can’t make it, we’ll hope to post a conference summary after the event.

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The BBC has dubbed Rhenium — another metal included in the Department of the Interior’s Final List of 35 Minerals Deemed Critical to U.S. National Security and the Economy — a “super element” with standout properties that can be likened to “alien technology.” Thus, it comes as no surprise that Shane Lasley, writing for North of 60 Mining (…) more

It’s the big elephant in the resource room – China. The recently-released 130-page long declassified version of the Defense Industrial Base Report mention the words “China” or “Chinese”  a “whopping 229 times” – for good reason.  As the Department of Defense argues in the report, “China’s domination of the rare earth element market illustrates the potentially dangerous interaction between Chinese economic (…) more

In a new piece for The Hill’s Congress Daily Blog, retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. John Adams argues the recently released Defense Industrial Base Report and its findings, which we previously discussed here and here, represent a call to action for Congress and other stakeholders, because it shows that “[j]ust when we should be retooling for (…) more

“Now that President Trump has won agreement to replace NAFTA with the USMCA — the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement — he has an opportunity to build on that accomplishment, and broaden the benefits of trade to strengthen national security,” writes ARPN Principal Daniel McGroarty in a new op-ed for The Hill. The next step, says McGroarty, (…) more

As Maroš Šefčovič, Vice-President of the European Commission for energy policy outlined earlier this month in a video clip, pursuing the vision of a closed-loop circular economy is one of the core tenets of EU resource policy. The concept of a circular economy — a system which thrives on sustainability and focuses mainly on refining (…) more

While the United States is finally taking steps to approach mineral resource policy in a comprehensive and strategic fashion, the European Union got a head start several years ago, and has since begun enacting mineral resource policy initiatives within the context of its raw materials strategy.  With its ambitious 2050 low-carbon vision, and the rise (…) more

The recently-released Defense Industrial Base study, which once more has underscored the need for a comprehensive overhaul of U.S. resource policy, directed its focus on U.S. competitiveness primarily vis-à-vis China. Already vast and resource-rich, the country has demonstrated an insatiable appetite for the world’s mineral resources and has pursued an aggressive strategy to gain access (…) more