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***posted by Daniel McGroarty***

As demand for renewable energy continues to grow despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Department of State hopes to expand the Energy Resource Governance Initiative (ERGI) – an initiative launched last year by the United States and joined by ten other countries, including Canada, Australia and Brazil – aimed at improving supply chain security for the metals and minerals underpinning green energy technology. 

Under the initiative announced in June, the U.S. ”will share mining expertise with member countries to help them discover and develop their minerals such as lithium, copper and cobalt, as well as advise on management and governance frameworks to help ensure their industries are attractive to international investors.”

Earlier this month, Frank Fannon, a top-ranking U.S. energy diplomat, told Reuters that “[w]e are very much looking to expand ERGI to include other governments as well as governmental institutions,” stating that he has been in talks with the European Commission, and that an expansion of the initiative could “include emerging-economy countries around the world, as well as Japan and other developed countries in Asia with strong energy demand.” 

The announcement ties into broader efforts to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign (and especially Chinese) critical raw materials in the post-COVID context now gaining momentum in Washington, D.C., several of which ARPN’s own Sandra Wirtz outlined in an op-ed for The Economic Standard last week: 

“The new urgency is exemplified by new legislation introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas): The Onshoring Rare Earths Act of 2020, or ORE Act, seeks to reduce U.S. reliance on China for critical minerals. Defined as the 17 rare earths, plus four key minerals underpinning battery technology (lithium, cobalt, graphite and manganese), the ‘Cruz Criticals’ are key to establishing a domestic supply chain. The bill proposes a series of measures aimed at encouraging domestic mineral production, and strengthens existing federal statutes prohibiting rare earth magnet sourcing from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. Recognizing that mineral production can take many forms, from traditional mining to recycling, reclamation from legacy mines, coal waste and even fracking water, it also sets up a federally-funded pilot program for traditional mining of critical minerals as well as what Cruz terms ‘secondary recovery projects.’  (…)

Meanwhile, the Department of Energy (DOE) is broadening its target list to include the above-referenced building blocks of battery tech. In a list close in composition to the Cruz Criticals, DOE is asking for project proposals to develop, in cooperation with its technology hubs, next generation technologies to extract, separate and process ‘key critical materials’: five rare earths — neodymium, praesodymium, dysprosium, terbium, and samarium — as well as cobalt, lithium, manganese, and natural graphite.

At the White House, two new Executive Orders take aim at strategic materials and critical mineral development.  One Order, directing an executive branch review to reduce the regulatory burdens under NEPA — the longstanding National Environmental Policy Act — in order to speed infrastructure, energy and mining projects, has triggered threats of legal action that, if successful, could stop the regulatory review even before it begins. While receiving far less media attention, the second Executive Order, delegating Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III emergency authorities to the U.S. Development Finance Corporation, including the authority to underwrite loans to support strategic material production, could prove more meaningful.  And unlike a standard-issue Executive Order, which can be undone by a successor president with the stroke of a pen, the DPA allows any president to delegate authorities by law — without requiring Congressional approval.”  

This list of initiatives provides a snapshot, and several additional pieces of legislation aimed at reducing U.S. mineral resource dependencies have been introduced.

As Wirtz closed last week’s op-ed: 

Read the full op-ed here.

After decades of watching “China become the world’s workshop as it snatches up industries, jobs and critical supply chains, [i]t’s time to restructure the global economy in our favor, and that means decisive action to shore up our most important industries,” writes Brig. Gen. John Adams (U.S. Army, retired), president of national security consulting firm Guardian Six LLC, in a recent piece for Industry Week.

COVID – which he says was “[t]the straw that broke the camel’s back,” left “[l]arge swaths of our economy (…) without an industrial base to ramp up in times of crisis, even when doing so is a matter of life and death. Scrambling to have auto manufacturers produce ventilators during a pandemic has certainly clarified the crisis.”

Writes Adams:

“Our mining industry is one of the most important pieces of the industrial supply chain that must be restored to American shores. China’s unrivaled position in mining and mineral supply chains provides an alarming view into how a dominant position in just one strategic industry can become a source of immense economic and geopolitical leverage.”

Using the United States’ reliance on Chinese supplies of Rare Earths as an example, Adams goes on to analyze the scope of our mineral resource security woes, most of which are home-grown.

Adams concludes: 

***Posted by Daniel McGroarty*** “The current coronavirus pandemic has exposed significant supply chain challenges associated with our over-reliance on foreign (and especially Chinese) raw materials,” — writes ARPN’s Sandra Wirtz in a new piece for The Economic Standard:   “PPE has become the poster child, but whether it’s smart phone technology, solar panels, electric vehicles, or [...]

Re-shoring is the word of the hour.  If the current coronavirus pandemic has shown us anything, it’s that we will need to rethink where we source and produce in the aftermath of COVID — an issue ARPN’s Daniel McGroarty zeroes in on in a new piece for The Economic Standard. Citing the excitement over the [...]

Earlier this month, U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), long one of the leaders on Capitol Hill pushing for a comprehensive overhaul of our nation’s mineral resource policy, addressed the challenges of our nation’s over-reliance on foreign – and especially China-sourced critical metals and minerals against the backdrop of the current Coronavirus pandemic in a post [...]

Over the past few weeks, the spread of the coronavirus has exposed the supply chain challenges associated with an over-reliance on foreign raw materials.   With the effects being felt across broad segments of manufacturing, supply chain security — for medical devices, for personal protective equipment (PPE), pharmaceuticals, and beyond — is (finally) becoming one [...]

The current coronavirus pandemic will have a lasting impact on many aspects of social life and public policy. With nations struggling to secure critical medicines and other supplies, many of which are sourced from China, the global crisis is increasingly exposing the challenges associated with supply chain security — for medical devices, for personal protective [...]

In a new piece for The Economic Standard, ARPN’s Daniel McGroarty argues that while the “intellectual shrug” of “who could have seen this coming” tends to be a common reaction to our new normal of sheltering in place and social distancing, there were warning signs for a coming crisis we failed to recognize for what they were, and act [...]

In a new piece for the National Journal, Brian Dabbs takes a closer look at efforts on Capitol Hill to address the United States’ “strained” supply chain for pharmaceuticals and medical devices and beyond. He reports that a push to pass “legislation to boost U.S. production of dozens of minerals to stave off similar crises in the future,” — [...]

As the U.S. grapples to flatten the curve of the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus, large swaths of public life have come to a grinding halt. However, as North of 60 Mining News publisher Shane Lasley points out in a new piece for the publication, “it remains imperative for the nation to maintain the critical [...]