A House subcommittee will discuss how to juice domestic production of critical minerals such as lithium, zinc and cobalt to better compete with China.
A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee will hold a hearing Thursday on securing critical mineral supply chains. The U.S. has seen an uptick in the construction of electric vehicle battery plants and other facilities that require raw materials, but the domestic mining sector has said project approval and expansion isn’t keeping pace.
House Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), who leads the Environment, Manufacturing and Critical Materials Subcommittee, echoed that point in a joint statement.
“If America is going to continue its manufacturing and energy leadership, we must significantly increase our domestic supply of the necessary critical materials,” Rodgers and Carter said. “Our current regulatory landscape runs counter to the reasonable predictability necessary for permitting the mining, processing, and refining of these materials domestically.”
