Niocorp Developments Ltd (NB)

[monocle]

A very thorough post, thanks for taking the time. Lots of interesting information.

The current proposed NDAA though has significantly different wording than the one you sighted from 2010. "Given the planned initiation and production in the United States within the next 5 years of as much as 100 metric tons of Scandium, the committee directs the Secretary of Defense to provide a briefing on the potential defense and industrial uses of Scandium to the congressional defense committees by December 1, 2017.” That quote is pretty darned exciting and a big departure from being scandium being lumped in with the other rare earth metals.

This next quote doesn't mention scandium directly but, "Additionally, the committee strongly encourages the Department to make use of existing authorities under Section 303 of the Defense Production Act (50 U.S.C. 2093) to enter into commitments to purchase strategic and critical materials required to meet the defense, industrial, and essential civilian needs of the United States from domestic producers and domestic producers that the Department believes are likely to initiate commercial production of such materials within the next five years.” Lots of potential in that quote.

As you have shown scandium has clearly been on our governments radar for some time. This project represents their first chance to act on any desire they have to make use of this element, so their previous inaction doesn't tell us all that much imo.