USGS

Too much family? Too much rockin’ around the Christmas tree? If you’re looking to get away from the hustle and bustle of the holidays and sit down with a good book, look no further – USGS has you covered.

The agency has just released a new study entitled “Critical Minerals of the United States“ which discusses 23 mineral commodities USGS deems critical to the United States’ national security and economic wellbeing.

Weighing in at a hefty 852 pages, the metals and minerals covered include:

antimony (Sb), barite (barium, Ba), beryllium (Be), cobalt (Co), fluorite or fluorspar (fluorine, F), gallium (Ga), germanium (Ge), graphite (carbon, C), hafnium (Hf), indium (In), lithium (Li), manganese (Mn), niobium (Nb), platinum-group elements (PGE), rare-earth elements (REE), rhenium (Re), selenium (Se), tantalum (Ta), tellurium (Te), tin (Sn), titanium (Ti), vanadium (V), and zirconium (Zr).

The study is effectively an update to a widely-used USGS publication from 1973. As ARPN followers know, the ongoing revolution in materials science – and the applications it has spawned; the computer revolution, the Internet, cell phones to smart phones, electric cars, solar and wind power, hydro-carbon fracking (1973 was the peak of the Oil Crisis) — has drastically altered and expanded the ways in which we use metals and minerals, while technological advances have transformed and improved extraction methods. As such, today’s supply and demand picture differs greatly from the one in the 1970s for virtually all metals and minerals.

For example, according to USGS:

“[I]n the 1970s, rare-earth elements had few uses outside of some specialty fields, and were produced mostly in the United States. Today, rare-earth elements are integral to nearly all high-end electronics and are produced almost entirely in China.

Since 1973, there has also been a significant increase in knowledge about geologic and environmental issues related to production and use. This report addresses the sustainable development of each mineral commodity in order that the current needs of the Nation can be met without limiting the ability of future generations to meet their needs.”

The report comes at a critical juncture. At a time when our mineral resource dependencies are alarmingly high, we are finally seeing some positive developments that could help pave the way for long-overdue reforms.

Acknowledging the seriousness of the issue of mineral resource dependence, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke said:

“I commend the team of scientists at USGS for the extensive work put into the report, but the findings are shocking. (…) The fact that previous administrations allowed the United States to become reliant on foreign nations, including our competitors and adversaries, for minerals that are so strategically important to our security and economy is deeply troubling. As both a former military commander and geologist, I know the very real national security risk of relying on foreign nations for what the military needs to keep our soldiers and our homeland safe.” 

Hopefully the report can help carry the momentum over into the new year and help policy makers and other stakeholders develop a comprehensive mineral resource strategy our nation has been sorely lacking.

***With the report hot off the press, we at ARPN have not yet had the opportunity to fully review the report, but we will do so, and will discuss the findings in greater detail in the new year, so stay tuned for our updates.*** 

Against the backdrop of growing threats to U.S. security – recent flash points involve Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea – a new Presidential Executive Order “On Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States,” zeroes in on defense readiness. The E.O. requires heads from various cabinet departments to submit to the President policy recommendations for strengthening the U.S. defense industrial base.

The problem, as ARPN’s Daniel McGroarty outlines in a new commentary for Investors Business Daily, runs far deeper than scenarios in which “there is only one U.S. company that can repair submarine propellers – (…) Our metals and minerals dependency on foreign sources of supply is great and growing.”

ARPN followers are familiar with the overall picture: According to the U.S. Geological Survey, we are 100% reliant on foreign imports for 20 metals and minerals. For another 50, we are more than 50% import dependent – with China being a leading supplier for 28 of the 50. 

McGroarty points to fused aluminum oxide to underscore the severity of the situation, arguing that “there’s nothing quite like a raw material shortage to bring the lengthiest supply chain to a standstill:” 

While we are more than 75% import dependent for our annual domestic fused aluminum oxide supply, according to USGS, defense-grade aluminum fused oxide is even harder to come by, leaving our import dependency for this material at 100%, with the world’ leading providers being China and Venezuela – none of which are the poster children of reliable trading partners. 

Says McGroarty:

“In announcing the Executive Order, Navarro noted that it ‘does not silo defense, the economy and trade and the workforce,’ but embraces ‘all the interconnections between a strong manufacturing base, a strong industrial base, a strong workforce … that strengthen our tax base which … allows us to buy the material and weapons.’

A fine and expansive statement, to which we should make a one-word amendment: Instead of buying the strategic materials used in U.S. weapons platforms, whenever we can, we should be mining that material here at home.

And that requires reversing the slide that has seen the U.S.’s share of global mining exploration investment in steady decline the past two decades, even as the length of the federal permitting process has doubled. Here, we need not wait for the President’s Defense Industrial Base report; we should press for passage of critical minerals legislation now before the Congress, with meaningful permitting reform.”

McGroarty has additional suggestions as to what can be done to foster a policy environment conducive to harnessing our nation’s arguably vast mineral potential, and calls for the realization of the strategic importance of mainstay metals like Copper, which in the tech metal era, serve as “Gateway metals” to other critical minerals. 

He concludes:

 “Defense readiness has long been a key bulwark of American strength — and worrying about it has an equally lengthy pedigree. In his oft-quoted farewell address, in a largely overlooked passage, President Dwight Eisenhower warned: ‘We can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense.’ That was 1961, at the height of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War.

In 2017, with threats emanating from Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang and Tehran, this is one instance where it would pay for America to Be Like Ike.” 

The time for a strategic overhaul of our mineral resource policy is now. 

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