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American Resources Policy Network
Promoting the development of American mineral resources.
  • U.S. Senator: Embrace Domestic Mining and Processing of Critical Minerals “Before It’s Too Late”

    In a  column for Newsweek, U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-ID) makes an urgent appeal to the U.S. public and policy stakeholders to embrace domestic mining and processing of critical minerals “before it’s too late.”

    Arguing that while it is “possible to produce them here” he says that “onerous federal rules make it extremely difficult,”adding that “[w]e cannot sit idly by and hope our U.S. mining industry can cut through the red tape currently strangling it.”

    Sen. Risch points to the long-standing and, against the backdrop of surging demand, increasingly dangerous practice of over-relying on foreign – and especially Chinese supplies of critical minerals, which has given our adversaries significant leverage over us. The senator points to China’s penchant for weaponizing the mineral supply chain, with recent examples being the restriction of gallium and germanium exports — key components of semiconductor production and defense technology, arguing that “[i]t is only a matter of time before China decides to punish the U.S. and ur allies again by holding minerals hostage. That will even apply to minerals that are mined in the U.S. but processed in China, like copper.”

    Meanwhile, one of the key obstacles to increased domestic mining and processing according to Sen. Risch, is the Biden administration, under whose guise a “working group on mining regulations released recommendations that, if implemented would transition mineral rights to a leasing program and add a dirt tax to every shovelful of ore, regardless of the value of the mineral,” which, according to the senator “would add years to the already lengthy permitting process and stifle investment in mining projects.”

    Followers of ARPN are familiar with the average permitting timeframe for mining projects of roughly seven to ten years.  Litigation from NIMBY environmental groups — Sen. Risch points to the Rosemont decision in the Ninth Circuit Court which “changed the interpretation of long-established mining law” and “hampers the industry while making mining significantly less efficient and cost-effective”– can further add years to the already onerous process.

    With even U.S. car companies requesting that the Biden administration speed up the mine permitting process, a consensus is growing that reform should be a national priority.

    Sen. Risch points to the U.S. Department of Defense being an outlier in the administration and having recognized the “danger we face, which is why it is awarding grants to critical mining projects.”  The senator highlights the stibnite gold project in the central region of his home state of Idaho, where Perpetua Resources is working to be the sole domestic source of antimony, a key component of military technology.

    But of course, as followers of ARPN know, there are more projects receiving DoD support with even more expected to be announced on a rolling basis.

    In ARPN’s latest post on the blog, we pointed a series of Presidential Determinations involving specific critical minerals which laid the foundation for this type of funding under Defense Production Act Title III authority.

    Current projects, recently highlighted by Oregon Group’s Anthony Milewski, include:

    • Graphite: a $37.5 million agreement between the DoD and Graphite One (Alaska) to fast-track a domestic graphite mine;
    • Antimony (as highlighted by Sen. Risch): two awards — $24.8 million and $15.5 million — by the DoD to Perpetua Resources to secure a domestic source of antimony [an additional conditional award of up to $34.6 million under the existing Technology Investment Agreement was announced earlier last month];
    • Lithium: a $90million agreement to secure lithium production between the DoD and Abermarle;
    • Nickel: a US $20.6 million agreement between the DoD and Talon Nickel to increase domestic nickel production.

    Closes Sen. Risch:

    “Every aspect of our society and security relies on processed minerals and would therefore benefit from expedited permitting and easier access. We cannot afford to wait until China reduces or even cuts off our access to critical minerals.

    It is time for America to see the power of the U.S. mining industry, invest in it, and secure our supply chains. The technology we depend on every day is only possible because of mining. To ensure not just our economic success but our national security, Congress must revamp our mining laws and substantially reduce irrelevant regulations.”

    The stakes are getting higher by the day, and, as ARPN’s Daniel McGroarty pointed out years ago“we can’t admire the problem any longer” because “we don’t have the luxury of time.” However, we are dealing with Washington, D.C., and the question is whether Congressional stakeholders will finally be able to put policy over politics in an election year.

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  • U.S. Military Faces Compounding Problems – Surging Tensions, Depleted Stockpiles, Critical Mineral Supply Chain Challenges

    In a piece that may not be hot-of-the press but is certainly as relevant today as it was in November of last year when it was penned – and ties into the context of ARPN’s latest post on NATO facing the critical minerals challenge –the Oregon Group’s Anthony Milewski warns that the U.S. defense industrial base is ill-prepared to support the current global rearmament trend, particularly with regards to critical minerals underpinning military technology and munitions.

    Milewski points to Russia having fired an estimated 11 million artillery shells in 2022, the majority of which can contain – depending on shell and manufacturing process – at least an estimate 0.5kg of copper. This, he says would amount to 5,500 tons of copper, or the equivalent of copper used in 1,170 wind turbines.

    Copper demand is already forecast to increase by more than 100% by 2035 with many analysts warning there may not be enough copper to meet decarbonization goals in the next few decades after years of underinvestment in the mining industry and falling ore grades.  And those projections, according to Milewski, do not account for surging military demand against the backdrop of increasing geopolitical volatility around the globe.

    Of course, copper is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. According to the National Mining Association, the U.S. Department of Defense uses nearly 750,000 tons of minerals on an annual basis – a number that was calculated around 2016/2017 at a time when the U.S. was not facing any major conflicts.

    Fast-forward to 2024 and the U.S. is supporting allies in the Ukraine and Israel while the situation in the Taiwan Strait looks increasing vulnerable.  Meanwhile, particularly ammunition stockpiles are running so low that NATO officials have warned that Western militaries are scraping “the bottom of the barrel” forcing NATO to provide Ukraine with supplies not from full warehouses, but rather “half-full or lower warehouses in Europe.”

    The issue is compounded by the fact that production time to rebuild weaponry stocks can take anywhere between three and 18 years, depending on equipment according to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies – however that analysis focuses only on manufacturing and production times.

    As followers of ARPN well know, supply chains for the metals and minerals underpinning U.S. military technology and munitions are “extremely vulnerable” due to a perennial over-reliance on supplies from adversary nations, i.e. China.

    For all the talk about decoupling supply chains in recent years, the needle has not moved much, and the latest USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries still has the U.S. 100% import reliant for 12 metals and minerals, while an additional 29 critical mineral commodities had a net import reliance greater than 50% of apparent consumption — a small drop by two over last year’s report.

    However, some important steps have been taken in recent years, and are beginning to bear fruit. Milewski lists several military budget ramp-ups to “try and resolve the massive shortfall.”

    As ARPN previously outlined, a notable example of such efforts is the series of (Defense Production Act) DPA Presidential Determinations involving specific Critical Minerals, beginning with President Trump’s July 2019 designation of the Rare Earth permanent magnet supply chain as being “essential for the national defense,” followed by President Biden’s designation of what ARPN calls the “Battery Criticals” as DPA Title III eligible in March 2022, followed by Platinum and Palladium in a DPA Presidential Determination in June 2022.  Earlier this spring, two further Presidential Determinations (February 27, 2023 Presidential Determination, and DPA Presidential Determination (2023-5)), effectively created an entirely new category of critical minerals – Defense Criticals” as ARPN calls them – by way of designating airbreathing engines, advanced avionics navigation and guidance systems, and hypersonic systems and their “constituent materials” as priority DPA materials.

    Those DPA actions, funded by Congressional appropriations, are now producing Department of Defense funded projects to encourage domestic development of these “defense criticals” and their supply chains.

    Milewski highlights the following:

    • Graphite: a $37.5 million agreement between the DoD and Graphite One (Alaska) to fast-track a domestic graphite mine;
    • Antimony: two awards — $24.8 million and $15.5 million — by the DoD to Perpetua Resources to secure a domestic source of antimony [an additional conditional award of up to $34.6 million under the existing Technology Investment Agreement was announced earlier this week];
    •  Lithium: a $90million agreement to secure lithium production between the DoD and Abermarle;
    • Nickel: a US $20.6 million agreement between the DoD and Talon Nickel to increase domestic nickel production.

    He closes:

    “We see the U.S. military shifting its position and capacity to secure its critical mineral supply gaining more momentum than it has for arguably the past 30 years. However, the U.S. military is America’s largest government agency, and it will take time.”

    However, with conflict brewing in many parts of the world, time is a luxury we do not have, and strengthening critical mineral supply chains should be a key priority for policy stakeholders in 2024.

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  • Groundhog Day All Over Again in Spite of Rising Pressures? USGS Releases Annual Mineral Commodity Summaries Report

    Earlier this week, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) released its latest iteration of the annual Mineral Commodity Summaries, a much-cited report that every year gives us a data-driven glimpse into our nation’s mineral resource dependencies. ARPN has been reviewing the report on an annual basis. Last year, we noted that our coverage of the report coincided with [...]
  • Food for Thought: More Effective Critical Mineral Resource Policy via a Separate Regulatory Framework?

    With its release of an official U.S. Government Critical Minerals List in 2018, the U.S. Department of the Interior sent an important message about the growing importance of the metals and minerals underpinning 21st Century technology and the intensifying green energy shift.  Updated in 2021 by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the list effectively represents a new [...]
  • Tit for Tat – Escalation in Tech Wars Continues as China Alleges “Hysteria” and “Hegemonic Manner” on the Part of U.S.

    While on the surface the Biden Administration and its counterpart in Beijing have been working to “calm the waters” between the two superpowers, and Chinese state media took an almost conciliatory tone, the Tech Wars bubbling beneath the surface have been intensifying, and the arrows continue to point increasingly towards confrontation. This week, a China Daily editorial zeroes in [...]
  • Saudi Arabia Makes Emphatic Entrance onto Critical Minerals Stage — With Implications for U.S. and Allies

    Earlier this month, industry stakeholders and investors flocked to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to attend the kingdom’s Future Minerals Forum.  Reports that Saudi Arabia was throwing its hat into the critical minerals ring had made headlines on several occasions throughout 2023, but the kingdom’s growing importance was palpable at the event, which previously had not been “on the [...]
  • A Visual Reminder Why China Matters in the Context of U.S. Critical Mineral Resource Policy

    Voters of Taiwan have spoken, and have elected the current vice president, Lai Ching-te, the presidential candidate whom China most distrusts according to the Wall Street Journal, as their new president.  As Chun Han Wong writes for the Journal, his election “puts at risk a fragile détente between Washington and Beijing, threatening another flare-up between the world’s biggest [...]
  • Pentagon: First Ever National Defense Strategy More than an “Aspirational” Document – Setting Stage for Concrete Steps

    As followers of ARPN well know, too often in Washington, DC, strategy documents released by the government are not much more than “aspirational” statements postulating lofty goals with little substance. Having released its first-ever National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS), Defense Department representatives are adamant that in light of the urgency of the situation, things are different. The NDIS, they said at the official [...]
  • Hot-Off-The-Press Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS) Brings Defense Production Act Back into Focus for Critical Mineral Supply Chain Security

    Against the backdrop of an already volatile geopolitical context with hot wars raging in Central Europe and the Middle East and the Tech War pitting China versus the U.S. intensifying, the U.S. Department of Defense has announced the release of its first-ever National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS), which, according to the White House’s November 2023 statement is [...]
  • New Year, New Round of Tech Wars Escalation?

    Happy New Year! They may say “Out with the Old, in with the New,” but if the waning days of 2023 are any indication of what is to come in 2024, we’ll likely continue down the path we’ve been on for the past twelve months, at least when it comes to the Tech Wars. Somewhat lost in [...]

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