Time to capitalize on rare earth abundance in the United States BY STEPHEN MOORE AND NICOLAS LORIS, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS - 06/04/19 7:00 PM ET
Why don't you be a sport and tell us who was in control of the Congress and the White House during that time period?
Then, why don't you look and see what has transpired in the energy and mining sectors over the course of the last 5 years and report back to us, we'll wait.
Oh, and why doesn't it surprise me where the authors of this 5 year old article get their best work done?
Trump administration[edit] In the first year of Donald Trump's candidacy for the presidency, the Heritage Foundation did not embrace his candidacy, and even mocked it. "Donald Trump's a clown," then Heritage Action leader Michael Needham said on a Fox News panel in July 2015.[50]
Once Trump won, however, the Heritage Foundation's position shifted, and they sought and obtained a major influence in his presidential transition and administration.[51][41][52] The foundation had a powerful say in the staffing of the administration, with CNN noting during the transition that "no other Washington institution has that kind of footprint in the transition."[51] One reason for the Heritage Foundation's disproportionate influence relative to other conservative think tanks is that other conservative think tanks had members who identified as "never-Trumpers" during the 2016 election whereas the Heritage Foundation ultimately signaled that it would be supportive of him.[51][41] At least 66 foundation employees and alumni were given positions in the administration.[41]
The Heritage Foundation drew from a database it began building in 2014 of approximately 3,000 conservatives who they trusted to serve in a hypothetical Republican administration for the upcoming 2016 election.[41] According to individuals involved in crafting the database, several hundred people from the Heritage database ultimately received jobs in government agencies, including Scott Pruitt, Betsy DeVos, Mick Mulvaney, Rick Perry, Jeff Sessions, and others who became members of Trump's cabinet.[41] Jim DeMint, president of the Heritage Foundation from 2013 to 2017, personally intervened on behalf of Mulvaney who headed the Office of Management and Budget, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and later become acting White House Chief of Staff.[41]
In 2017, the foundation's board of trustees voted unanimously to terminate DeMint as its president. A public statement by the board said a thorough investigation of the foundation's operations under DeMint found "significant and worsening management issues that led to a breakdown of internal communications and cooperation." "While the organization has seen many successes," the board statement said, "Jim DeMint and a handful of his closest advisers failed to resolve these problems."[53] DeMint's firing was praised by some, including former U.S. congressman Mickey Edwards (R-OK), who saw it as a step by the foundation to pare back its partisan edge and restore its reputation as a pioneering think tank.[54] In January 2018, DeMint, in turn, was succeeded by Kay Coles James, who was appointed president of the foundation.
During the 2020 presidential campaign, former Heritage Foundation adjunct scholar Dov Zakheim was one of over 130 former Republican national security officials to sign a statement that asserted that Trump was unfit to serve another term. "To that end," the statement said, "we are firmly convinced that it is in the best interest of our nation that Vice President Joe Biden be elected as the next President of the United States, and we will vote for him."[55]
In 2021, after Trump lost re-election, the Heritage Foundation hired three former Trump administration officials, Chad Wolf, Ken Cuccinelli, and Mark Morgan, who played a role in the Trump administration's immigration policies.[56] Heritage also hired former U.S. vice president Mike Pence as a distinguished visiting fellow from 2021 to 2022.[57][58]
Biden administration[edit] The Heritage Foundation's positions and management under Kay Coles James drew criticism from conservatives and Trump allies, which intensified in 2020 and 2021. "In the early days of the pandemic in spring 2020, Heritage leadership under James rejected an article from one of its scholars denouncing government restrictions, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The foundation's offices stayed closed for about three months, and signs urging masking became something of a joke for many conservatives who mocked the concept", The Washington Post reported in February 2022. Conservatives also began commenting publicly that the Heritage Foundation had lost the significant intellectual and political clout that led to the foundation's ascent in the 1980s and 1990s. "People do not walk around in fear of the Heritage Foundation the way they did 10 years ago," one conservative told The Washington Post. In December 2021, in response to mounting criticism of her leadership of the foundation, James resigned from the foundation.[59]
In October 2021, the Heritage Foundation announced James would be replaced by Kevin Roberts, who previously led a state-based think tank, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and participated as a member of Texas Governor Greg Abbott's COVID-19 task force.[59][60]
In 2021, Pence, then a Heritage Foundation distinguished fellow, published an op-ed on a Heritage Foundation website that made false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, including numerous false claims about For the People Act, a Democratic bill to expand voting rights. Pence's false claims drew criticism and corrections from multiple media outlets and fact-checking organizations.[61][62][63]
The Heritage Foundation also completely reversed its position supporting military aid to Ukraine in its attempt to repel the Russian invasion of the nation, which it had supported up to at least October 2022.[64] By May 2023, however, the foundation reversed its position entirely on Ukraine, claiming, "Ukraine Aid Package Puts America Last".[65] In August 2023, Thomas Spoehr, the foundation's Center for National Defense director, resigned his position over the dramatic policy change.[66] Earlier, in September 2022, the foundation's foreign policy director said the foundation ordered him to retract his earlier statements supporting aid to Ukraine; he subsequently left the organization.[67]
In 2023, the Heritage Foundation also established a cooperative relationship with Hungary's state-funded Danube Institute.
Project 2025[edit] Main article: Project 2025 The foundation also leads a constellation of groups named Project 2025, preparing for the possible election of Donald Trump in 2024. The project seeks to recruit thousands to come to Washington and prepare to dismantle and reshape the federal government closer to Trump's vision. Former Trump administration official Russell Vought, who is involved in the project, said, "The president Day One will be a wrecking ball for the administrative state."[88][89][90] It includes changes "for nearly every agency across the government", specifically undoing the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, shutting down the Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office, boosting the extraction and use of fossil fuels, and other measures that could have significant effect on how the administration approaches global warming and climate change.[89]
Positions[edit] Anti-critical race theory legislation[edit] In 2021, the Heritage Foundation said that one of its two priorities, along with tightening voting laws, was to push Republican-controlled states to ban or restrict critical race theory instruction.[91] The Heritage Foundation sought to get Republicans in Congress to put anti-critical race theory provisions into must-pass legislation such as the annual defense spending bill.[91]
Black Lives Matter[edit] In September 2021, a Heritage Foundation senior fellow, Mike Gonzalez, released a book, BLM: The New Making of a Marxist Revolution. Gonzalez's book characterizes the Black Lives Matter protest movement as "a nationwide insurgency" and argues that its leaders are "avowed Marxists who say they want to dismantle our way of life".[92]
Climate change denial[edit] The Heritage Foundation rejects the scientific consensus on climate change.[93][94] The foundation is one of many climate change denial organizations that have been funded by ExxonMobil; an oil and petroleum company with over $413 billion in revenue as of 2022 that is currently the eighth-largest corporation in the world.[93][95]
The Heritage Foundation strongly criticized the Kyoto Agreement to curb climate change, saying American participation in the treaty would "result in lower economic growth in every state and nearly every sector of the economy."[96] They projected that the 2009 cap-and-trade bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, would result in a cost of $1,870 per family in 2025 and $6,800 by 2035, which clashed with the conclusions of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which projected that legislation would only cost the average family $175 in 2020.[97]
Transgender rights opposition[edit] The Heritage Foundation has engaged in several activities in opposition to transgender rights, including hosting several anti-transgender rights events,[98][99] developing and supporting legislation templates against transgender rights,[100][101][102] and making claims about transgender youth healthcare and suicide rates based on internal research, which are contradicted by numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies.[103]
Ukraine[edit] In May 2022, Heritage Action, the Heritage Foundation's political activism organization, announced its opposition to the $40 billion military aid package for Ukraine passed that month after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, completely reversing the organization's previous position of support for such aid.[104][105] The Heritage Foundation's foreign policy director at the time, Luke Coffey, said he was ordered to retract his earlier statements supporting aid to Ukraine, and Coffey then subsequently left the Heritage Foundation.[106]
In August 2023, newly installed Heritage president Kevin Roberts stated in an op-ed that Congress was holding victims of the 2023 Hawaii wildfires hostage "in order to spend more money in Ukraine". The op-ed was followed by a public-messaging campaign with the same message and with a tweet by Heritage vice president Victoria Coates, in which she stated, "It's time to end the blank, undated checks for Ukraine." This, in turn, led the foundation's second senior official, director for Center for National Defense Lt. Gen. (Ret) Thomas Spoehr, to submit his resignation.[66][107]
Voter fraud claims[edit] The Heritage Foundation has promoted false claims of electoral fraud. Hans von Spakovsky, who heads the Heritage Foundation's Election Law Reform Initiative, has played an influential role in elevating alarmism about voter fraud in the Republican Party, despite offering no evidence of widespread voter fraud.[108][109] His work, which claims voting fraud is rampant, has been discredited.[110]
Following the 2020 presidential election, in which President Donald Trump made baseless claims of fraud after he was defeated for reelection, the Heritage Foundation launched a campaign in support of Republican efforts to make state voting laws more restrictive.[111][112]
In March 2021, The New York Times reported that the Heritage Foundation's political arm, Heritage Action, planned to spend $24 million over two years across eight key states to support efforts to restrict voting, in coordination with the Republican Party and allied conservative outside groups, including the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, American Legislative Exchange Council, and State Policy Network. Almost two dozen election bills introduced by Republican state legislators in early 2021 were based on a Heritage letter and report.[113] Heritage also mobilized in opposition to H.R. 1./S. 1, a Democratic bill to establish uniform nationwide voting standards, including expanded early and postal voting, as well as automatic and same-day voter registration, reform campaign finance law, and prohibit partisan redistricting.[111][112]
In 2021, Heritage Action spent $750,000 on television ads in Arizona to promote the false claim that "Democrats...want to register illegal aliens" to vote, even though the Democrats' legislation creates safeguards to ensure that ineligible people cannot register.[112] In April 2021, Heritage Action boasted to its private donors that it had successfully crafted the election reform bills that Republican state legislators introduced in Georgia and other states.[114]
Do you remember Trump administration initiatives RE rare earth minerals? Me neither.
You COULD have dropped What is the Biden administration doing about rare earth minerals? into your Google Machine to find out what is actually going on, as I did............
FACT SHEET: Securing a Made in America Supply Chain for Critical Minerals
Biden-Harris Administration, Companies Announce Major Investments to Expand Domestic Critical Minerals Supply Chain, Breaking Dependence on China and Boosting Sustainable Practices
Critical minerals provide the building blocks for many modern technologies and are essential to our national security and economic prosperity. These minerals—such as rare earth elements, lithium, and cobalt—can be found in products from computers to household appliances. They are also key inputs in clean energy technologies like batteries, electric vehicles, wind turbines, and solar panels. As the world transitions to a clean energy economy, global demand for these critical minerals is set to skyrocket by 400-600 percent over the next several decades, and, for minerals such as lithium and graphite used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries, demand will increase by even more—as much as 4,000 percent. The U.S. is increasingly dependent on foreign sources for many of the processed versions of these minerals. Globally, China controls most of the market for processing and refining for cobalt, lithium, rare earths and other critical minerals.
Executive Order 14017 (E.O.), America’s Supply Chains, signed one year ago this week, ordered a review of vulnerabilities in our critical mineral and material supply chains within 100 days. In June, the Biden-Harris Administration released a first-of-its-kind supply chain assessment that found our over-reliance on foreign sources and adversarial nations for critical minerals and materials posed national and economic security threats.
In addition to working with partners and allies to diversify sustainable sources, the reports recommended expanding domestic mining, production, processing, and recycling of critical minerals and materials—all with a laser focus on boosting strong labor, environmental and environmental justice, community engagement, and Tribal consultation standards.
Today, President Biden will meet with Administration and state partners, industry executives, community representatives, labor leaders, and California Governor Gavin Newsom to announce major investments in domestic production of key critical minerals and materials, ensuring these resources benefit the community, and creating good-paying, union jobs in sustainable production.
President Biden will announce that the Department of Defense’s Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment program has awarded MP Materials $35 million to separate and process heavy rare earth elements at its facility in Mountain Pass, California, establishing a full end-to-end domestic permanent magnet supply chain. Paired with this catalytic public funding announcement, MP Materials will announce it will invest another $700 million and create more than 350 jobs in the magnet supply chain by 2024. Currently, China controls 87 percent of the global permanent magnet market, which are used in EV motors, defense systems, electronics, and wind turbines.
Berkshire Hathaway Energy Renewables (BHE Renewables) will announce that this spring, they will break ground on a new demonstration facility in Imperial County, California, to test the commercial viability of their sustainable lithium extraction process from geothermal brine as part of a multibillion-dollar investment in sustainable lithium production over the next five years. If successful, this sets the company a path towards commercial scale production of battery grade lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate by 2026. Imperial Valley contains some of the largest deposits of lithium in the world. Once at scale, BHE Renewables facilities could produce 90,000 metric tons of lithium per year.
Redwood Materials will discuss a pilot, in partnership with Ford and Volvo, for collection and recycling of end-of-life lithium-ion batteries at its Nevada based facilities to extract lithium, cobalt, nickel, and graphite. This builds upon Redwood’s recent announcements including a joint venture with Ford to build a recycling facility in Tennessee and its intention to begin construction on a new cathode manufacturing facility in Nevada in 2022.
Secretary Granholm will discuss DOE’s first-of-its-kind $140 million demonstration project funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) to recover rare earth elements and critical minerals from coal ash and other mine waste, reducing the need for new mining. This project will deliver on the work of the Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization by creating good-paying manufacturing jobs in legacy coal communities.
She will also discuss $3 billion in BIL funding to invest in refining battery materials such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and graphite, and battery recycling facilities, creating good-paying clean energy manufacturing jobs. These are only the latest in announcements by major companies committing to domestic sourcing of critical minerals and materials:
MP Materials recently announced construction of a rare earth metal, alloy and magnet manufacturing facility in Texas and a long-term supply agreement with General Motors to power the motors in more than a dozen of GM’s EV models. Production will begin next year, with capacity to produce enough magnets to power 500,000 EV motors annually.
In addition to BHE Renewables, Controlled Thermal Resources (CTR) and EnergySource Minerals have established operations in Imperial County to extract lithium from geothermal brine. GM will source lithium for EV batteries from CTR. The companies are also working with the state-authorized Lithium Valley Commission to develop a royalty structure that would invest profits from their operations in infrastructure, health, and educational investments for the residents of the surrounding region.
Tesla intends to source high-grade nickel for EV batteries from Talon Metals’ Tamarack nickel project under development in Minnesota. Talon Metals and the United Steelworkers (USW) have established a workforce development partnership for the project to train workers on next-generation technologies in the local community and from mining regions in the U.S. facing declining demand. As part of this partnership, Talon has agreed to remain neutral in any union organizing efforts by USW.
Ahead of the one-year anniversary of E.O. 14017 this Thursday, the Administration has taken action across the Federal government to secure reliable and sustainable supplies of critical minerals and materials, while also upholding the Administration’s labor, environmental and environmental justice, and equity priorities:
Updating outdated mining laws and regulations. This year, the Mining Law of 1872 turns 150. This law still governs mining of most critical minerals on federal public lands. Today, the Department of Interior (DOI) announced it has established an Interagency Working Group (IWG) that will lead an Administration effort on legislative and regulatory reform of mine permitting and oversight. The IWG released a list of Biden-Harris Administration fundamental principles for mining reform to promote responsible mining under strong social, environmental, and labor standards that avoids the historic injustice that too many mining operations have left behind. The IWG will deliver recommendations to Congress by November. They will also host extensive public input and comment sessions to ensure an inclusive process, and will work with the relevant agencies to initiate updates to mining regulations by the end of the calendar year.
Updating and prioritizing the Federal list of critical minerals. Today, pursuant to the Energy Act of 2020, DOI will update its Federal list of critical minerals, listing minerals essential to economic or national security and vulnerable to disruption. To focus the work of Federal agencies on sourcing critical minerals, the Administration will direct agencies to prioritize the production and processing of minerals necessary to produce key products like batteries, semiconductors, and permanent magnets, consistent with our strong environmental, social and labor principles.
Strengthening critical mineral stockpiling. DOE, DOD, and the Department of State signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) to better coordinate stockpiling activities to support the U.S. transition to clean energy and national security needs. In October, President Biden streamlined the National Defense Stockpile by signing E.O. 14051 to delegate authority release of strategic and critical materials to the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment.
B402, Critical minerals bill fails to pass House without Republican support
July 22, 2014
On July 22, the House failed to achieve the two-thirds majority vote required to pass the Securing Energy Critical Elements and American Jobs Act of 2013 (H.R. 1022), which supported federal investment in research and development for energy critical materials. Despite bipartisan support for the bill, many Republicans withdrew their support after the conservative group Heritage Action voiced opposition, saying a vote in favor of the legislation would count against legislators in the group’s annual vote scorecard.
The legislation would have called on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to coordinate actions across federal agencies to secure the domestic supply of critical minerals, and the Department of Energy (DOE) to improve methods for the exploration, processing, and recycling of energy critical elements. The bill would have also created a Research and Development Information Center within DOE to “collect, catalogue, disseminate, and archive information on energy critical elements.” The bipartisan bill, introduced by Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and supported by House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chair Lamar Smith (R-TX), would have authorized $25 million in spending between 2015 and 2019 using previously appropriated funds.
Even Smith's support wasn't enough. Just imagine 10 whole years ago. How the critical mineral situation could have been so different:
Update on Critical Materials Developments
AUG 20, 2014
Richard M. Jones
Indicative of the awareness of Washington policy makers about the importance of critical materials are an announcement from the Office of Science and Technology Policy, action on the House floor on energy critical elements legislation, and a House subcommittee hearing.
[...]
It is ironic that H.R. 1022 failed to win approval since the July 22 motion to suspend the usual House rules to pass the bill was offered by House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX). Motions to pass a bill using this procedure are reserved for measures that are viewed as noncontroversial. They are considered by the House at the discretion of the Speaker. Seventy-seven Republicans joined Smith in voting to approve his motion.
H.R. 1022 was introduced by Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) in March 2013. The sixteen page bill, listing 17 rare earth minerals (such as Neodymium and Gadolinium), establishes an Energy Critical Elements Program at the Department of Energy for “research, development, demonstration, and commercial application to assure the long-term, secure, and sustainable supply of energy critical elements sufficient to satisfy the national security, economic well-being, and industrial production needs of the United States.” A Research and Development Information Center is authorized. The total amount of spending authorized for these and other activities is $15 million per year for FY 2014 through FY 2018. Actual funding would be provided through appropriations legislation. A different section of the bill authorizes OSTP activities to coordinate federal programs, establish an early warning system for supply problems, promote private enterprise solutions, encourage recycling of energy critical elements, and address workforce issues.
The bill also includes an amendment to existing legislation for a “Temporary Program for Rare Earth Materials Revitalization” stating “To the maximum extent practicable, the Secretary [of Energy] shall cooperate with appropriate private sector participants to achieve a complete rare earth materials production capability in the United States within 5 years after the date of enactment of the Securing Energy Critical Elements and American Jobs Act of 2013.”
Smith, Swalwell, and House Science Committee Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) spoke in favor of the bill; no member spoke against it. Smith described China’s current production of more than 90 percent of the world’s supply of rare earths and its manipulation of the market in recent years. Describing the potential threat this poses to the United States, Smith said “While a responsive market will continue to move towards solutions, there are reasonable and proper steps that the Federal Government can and should pursue in this area. These are reflected in this bipartisan bill.”
“We have truly worked in a bipartisan manner to move this bill to the floor” Swalwell said, later adding, “It is time to get America into the game.” Responding to critics of the bill, Swalwell described the tight oversight controls that would be instituted for an existing DOE critical materials innovation hub, saying “there are no new programs, no loan guarantees, and not a new dollar spent.” In her remarks, Johnson referred to a study by the American Physical Society (an AIP Member Society) and the Materials Research Society (an AIP Affiliated Society.)
The next day, the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources held a 75 minute oversight hearing entitled “American Metals and Mineral Security: An examination of the domestic critical minerals supply and demand chain.” Five witnesses testified, representing three companies, an association, and a national laboratory. Each discussed the importance of critical minerals and their recommendations for assuring a future supply. Of note were comments made by Subcommittee Chairman Doug Lamborn (R-CO) and Ranking Member Rush Holt (D-NJ) about the House’s action on H.R. 1022 the previous evening. Lamborn, who voted against the motion, faulted the approach the legislation took in creating, he said, an expensive government program, and criticized the Obama Administration for its policies he contended were “bent on destroying jobs in the mining industry.” Holt, who voted for the bill, criticized an outside group opposed H.R. 1022 for its “incredibly misleading” information about the legislation. Holt faulted a bill passed by the House last September with a “meaningless definition” that he contends would classify gravel as a critical mineral. A “comprehensive strategy” that entails all stages, including mining, recycling, alternative sources and substitution, is needed he said.
Looking ahead to future action on H.R. 1022, Holt said that the House would “have to make another run at it; I assume we will get this straighten out eventually,” adding that the failure to pass the legislation “doesn’t reflect well on this body.” Toward the end of the hearing, Swalwell spoke of his interest in working with Chairman Lamborn and other House leaders “to find a way . . . to not cede leadership to China and other countries on this issue.” Lamborn agreed, saying “how to get there is maybe where the debate comes in.”
The time remaining to find that way is limited. After the House returns from its five week summer recess next month it will be in session for about twelve legislative days before the November general election.
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