Legislative Hearing on the following bills: • H.R. 1501 (Rep. Shreve)

Thank you to the ranking member as she yields. I now recognize chairman of the full committee, Mr. Westerman, for your opening statement.

Thank you, Chairman Tiffany, and I want to thank my colleague and good friend, Chairman Stauber, for holding this important hearing today. Thank you to the witnesses for joining us and also a thank you to all the members who submitted legislation for this hearing. Each of the bills that we have here are to advance policies to address one of the most urgent challenges facing our nation, and that is our growing and unnecessary dependence on other nations for the critical minerals that drive our economy and sustain our national defense. Now, I want to emphasize this is a hearing. We're not voting on any legislation today. We're not offering amendments. We're here to learn from experts on what the problem is, how we can take the legislation that's before us and make it better. And I hope this is a constructive exercise because this is a very urgent problem that we're dealing with in our country. And this chart behind me that's put out by the US Geological Survey, probably, you know, if a picture's worth 1,000 words, this one's probably worth 5,000 and I could just end my remarks and say we need to work on this. But the blue is where we're dependent. And if you look down that list, most of the major supply or the major supplier for most of those critical minerals is China. So what we're working, what we're doing is not working. We've got some well-meaning legislation. I'm not saying any of it's perfect yet, but we need to go through the process to figure out how to make this work because we've never been more reliant on hardrock minerals than we are today. We know that copper is the backbone of our electrical grid, nickel, cobalt, and lithium going to batteries that power our communications devices and backup critical infrastructure like hospitals and data centers. And rare earth elements make possible the cutting-edge technologies that enable our economy to innovate and our military to keep us safe. The global mineral race is not optional. Over the next 15 years, demand for copper and rare earths is expected to rise by 50 percent, cobalt 150 percent, and lithium up to 500 percent. Shortages of all the above could be upon us within a decade. And yet these minerals are right under our feet. We have the safest, most sophisticated, efficient, environmentally responsible mining technology and workforce in the world. We should dominate in the United States when it comes to mineral supply chains. The only reason we're not is because we have some outdated and shortsighted federal policy, and that's our job as policymakers to change that policy and to do it in a responsible manner that helps our economy, helps our national security, but also protects the environment while we're doing it. I don't think anybody on either side of the aisle wants to rape and pillage the environment for any reason, but there's a way we can develop our resources responsibly and meet the needs that we have at the same time. We're going to discuss several pieces of legislation to reverse these shortcomings and to advance the policies to develop adequate and reliable domestic supplies of critical minerals. I'll just touch on a few of these. Mr. Shreve's bill, the Protecting Domestic Mining Act, makes mining eligible for expedited permitting under the FAST Act. I believe that mineral processing should also qualify for the FAST Act treatment, and I intend to work with Mr. Shreve on that. It's not enough just to mine these minerals and ship them off somewhere else. We need to process them here. Then we need to manufacture things from those processed goods. In a similar vein, I support Mr. Barr's two bills to provide FAST Act treatment for additional critical minerals projects. The RESCUE Act would amend the FAST Act to include efforts to recover critical minerals and rare earths from coal and coal waste, and the Critical Minerals Supply Chain Resiliency Act would make actions to increase critical mineral production authorized under the Defense Production Act eligible for FAST-41 expedited permitting. Mr. Wittman also has a couple of bills. The SECURE Minerals Act, while the USGS currently cooperates with foreign partners on geological mapping and data analysis as authorized under the USGS Organic Act, the Finding ORE Act is another bill that Mr. Barr has that would, or this is Wittman, for formalizing the process for entering into MOUs with foreign nations so we could help in mapping. The SECURE Minerals Act, Chairman Stauber talked about that, but it's closely aligned with the administration's Project Vault, which would give some certainty for American producers that they're not going to invest in producing here at home, following all of our standards and guidelines, and then be undercut by minerals dumped into our market from foreign actors. So again, Representative Hageman has the Domestic ORE Act to allow mineral exploration to be conducted more efficiently on federal lands. And all of these, I think, are bills that have, are well-intentioned, they have a promise to help get us past this chart up here and change the picture in the future. I look forward to discussion and I yield back.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your statement. And I now recognize the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Huffman, for his opening statement.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We can all agree that we have been over-reliant on our adversaries for critical minerals for far too long. But as we move forward, we cannot ignore the environmental disasters and history of human rights abuses that the mining industry has left in its wake, both at home and abroad. These should be red flags. We have to prioritize American security as we go forward along with sustainability and human rights throughout the supply chain. We need to be strategic. We need a whole-of-government, whole-of-supply-chain approach to meeting our country's needs while minimizing harm and actually benefiting communities. With the right investments in American innovation and smart international partnerships, we can close the gaps in our supply chain, including processing and recycling, without sacrificing environmental, labor, or public health standards. I've said before, a lot of our goals on both sides of the aisle seem to be the same. But unfortunately, this administration and Republican leadership here in Congress seem more focused on creating loopholes and giveaways to multi-billion dollar corporations than actually solving problems. And it's no secret that this industry is prone to graft, which makes it a pretty good bedfellow for this administration with its endless corruption and self-enrichment. Since the beginning of President Trump's term, it has been one giveaway after another to his billionaire buddies. While families struggle, Trump claims that he has solved the affordability crisis. I would argue maybe he's solved it only for himself because in the past year, he has enriched himself by more than $1 billion since taking office. Shameless corruption, self-dealing, worse than anything we have seen in our history, and unfortunately, my friends across the aisle always look away. How this administration is handling the mining sector is no different. I'll just give a couple of examples, which if this was a functioning Congress and not, hadn't been reduced to Trump's little Duma, we'd be doing serious oversight on this right now. But in January, the Trump administration announced that it would invest over $1 billion and take an equity stake in USA Rare Earths, a mining and manufacturing company. Reporting found USA Rare Earth hired Cantor Fitzgerald for fundraising, a firm chaired by Brandon Lutnick. Does that sound familiar? That is, of course, the son of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Folks, we're at a stage of the grift now where they just do it right in the open and they know that you're not going to ever ask hard questions or do any oversight. In October of last year, the Trump administration announced equity investments in the mining company Trilogy Metals while simultaneously directing agencies to fast-track permitting for Ambler Road, the project that that company needs to access its proposed mine site in Alaska. So first, this raises serious questions about the administration's ability to thoughtfully consider the permitting process, but it gets worse because Trilogy Metals' third-largest shareholder at the time was John Alfred Paulson, a Trump mega-donor and economic advisor. And according to Forbes, his Trilogy shares increased by $70 million after the announcement. And then later in the fourth quarter of 2025, after the deal was struck, Paulson sold his stock. And just last week, Trilogy released worse-than-expected earnings. The stock tanked nearly a third since January despite the federal investment. So there you go. A Trump donor makes millions and taxpayers suffer. No oversight, no questions from this committee. Back in July, the Trump administration announced an equity deal with MP Materials, after which Trump advisor Stephen Miller, as the ranking member mentioned, personally sold shares valued between $50,000 and $100,000. Do you folks care about this blatant corruption? In another example, the currently third-highest ranking official at the Department of Interior, Karen Budd-Falen, failed to disclose the fact that her husband made a $3.5 million deal with a mine that she had a part in approving. So forgive me if I think that we should be cautious here about handing this president even more tools and authority to do more of this nonsense. Earlier this month, I, along with Ranking Member Garcia and Ranking Member Heinrich in the Senate, sent a letter to the administration asking these important oversight questions about these equity deals. And we haven't got any response, just crickets. But if we had some interest and some cooperation from our Republican friends, we could get to the bottom of this and maybe we could end some of this rampant corruption. That is the essential context for the conversation that we're having here today. We ought to be proceeding with caution. Unfortunately, some of the bills here do not do that. I will look forward to the testimony, Mr. Chairman, and yield back.

Gentleman yields. I now begin our member panel to allow the bill sponsors to speak on their legislation. First, I will recognize Representative Hageman from Wyoming for your testimony.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing today on my bill, H.R. 7458, the Domestic ORE Act. Excuse me. Federal regulation allows for exploration activities on federal lands, such as those under management of the Bureau of Land Management. Developers submit notices of surface-disturbing activities affecting less than five acres 15 days before conducting such operations. This notice includes a description and schedule of activities, the estimated costs, a reclamation plan, and financial assurances guaranteeing that the site will be fully reclaimed. BLM then has 15 days to review that request. This process, however, is limited to activities on just five acres or less. Expanding such operations to a greater area requires the submission of a full exploration plan of operations, which then triggers a NEPA review. Because BLM practices deem these full exploration plans as major federal actions, they must go through an environmental analysis that can create a one- or two-year pause in exploration progress before exploration can resume. Because discovering mineral deposits and identifying its grade and boundaries typically requires disturbances on more than five acres, most exploration activities run into these permitting delays. And this is all just in the exploration phase before any specific project is permitted, running into NEPA delays which can run another decade. America needs more minerals, not less. The Domestic ORE Act would address this challenge by expanding the threshold for notice-level exploration activities on BLM lands to 25 acres and establishing the same criteria on U.S. Forest Service lands. The Breakthrough Institute found that an expansion to 25 acres would reduce the number of exploration activities requiring a plan of operations and NEPA review by roughly 25 percent on just the BLM lands. Such a reduction would have numerous benefits. For example, it would not only increase mineral exploration, but it would reduce agency workloads, and it would achieve these benefits while also protecting our federal lands. Since the bill codifies current BLM requirements for operators prior to conducting notice-level activities, which require notice of activities, reclamation plan, and submissions of financial assurances to cover the full cost of reclamation. Additionally, it is common practice for these operators to retain BLM-approved archaeologists to avoid cultural resource disturbance during the exploration activities. American mineral dominance is necessary to sustain our modern economy and national security, and that starts with mineral exploration. The Domestic ORE Act balances ever-growing demand and the need to conserve our federal lands, reducing bureaucracy and agency workloads in the process. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for your continued American mining leadership, and I look forward to our witness testimony, and I yield back.

The gentlelady yields back. Thank you for your testimony. I now recognize Representative Wittman from Virginia for the testimony on his two bills.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We all know that critical minerals are the backbone of our economy. They're vital inputs to both consumer and national defense technologies, from smartphones to laptops to radar systems to submarines. The United States used to dominance in the global critical mineral supply chain, but over the past few decades, we have lost our strategic advantage. China has overtaken the United States and our allies in the production, processing, and smelting of critical minerals. Take rare earth elements, for example. China controls 70 percent of rare earth mining, 90 percent of rare earth separation and processing, and 93 percent of rare earth magnet production. They exercise this monopoly power in two ways. First, by dumping their products onto the global market to deliberately undercut U.S. producers. And second, by threatening to cut off our access to their exports, as they did recently in October of 2025. We have outsourced our supply chains to them, putting us in an untenable position where they can engage in unfair trade practices that put our nation's strategic and economic security at risk. The Trump administration has long recognized the threat China poses to our critical mineral supply chains and has taken bold actions that I applaud. Recent announcements by the administration, including Project Vault, a physical mineral stockpile housed at the Export-Import Bank, as well as the creation of FORGE, a multilateral effort to secure supply chains with allied nations, demonstrate the administration's emphasis on both reshoring supply chains and working with our allies. Unfortunately, our colleagues chose the other path to actually having meaningful efforts and reform on reshoring those supply chains. They're into the name-calling. You hear on the other side, there isn't a single thought or idea about how to fix this. It's all about name-calling. It's easy to place accusations and innuendos out there. What the other side lacks is substantive ideas to solve this problem. But it's typical of how they look at this issue. Recent announcements, I think, have shown that there is a seriousness in both Congress and in the executive branch to address this. And I've introduced two pieces of legislation that will help counter China's threat, both of which are part of today's legislative hearing. In January, I introduced the SECURE Minerals Act, which is aimed at supporting our domestic industry, unlike our colleagues on the other side of the aisle that have no interest in domestic production. They want to continue to buy from China. Buy from China, the largest human rights violator on the face of the earth. So buying from them continues to enable them. Those are things that they want to continue to do. Doesn't make sense to anybody else, but makes sense to them. Let's keep doing that. The SECURE Minerals Act that I introduced would establish a strategic resilience reserve that would be tasked with stabilizing critical mineral prices and supporting domestic processing and extraction supply chains here at home, not enabling human rights violators like China. By deploying a suite of financial tools, including loans, non-recourse lending, advanced market commitments, and price floors, the strategic resilience reserve would send a signal to the private sector that the U.S. government is taking action to support the development of mineral markets. This is an all-hands-on-deck situation. These financial instruments are key tools that will help create market certainty, aggregate demand, stabilize mineral prices, and ultimately reshore critical mineral extraction and processing supply chains that we need for our national and economic security. But we cannot counter China's chokehold on the global supply market alone. If we are to break their monopoly, we have to coordinate with our allies. I've also introduced the Finding ORE Act, which would enable the administration to work in coordination with our allies to map critical mineral resources across the globe. The Finding ORE Act authorizes the United States Geological Survey and Department of State to enter into memorandums of understanding with allied nations to assist with the mapping of critical mineral reserves. Importantly, under this legislation, the federal government would be given the authority to help facilitate investment in the development of these newly mapped minerals. These two bills represent a two-pronged approach also undertaken by the administration. We must act boldly and swiftly to bring these supply chains back home. We must continue to work closely with our allies to break China's chokehold, not enable our adversary China to exploit human beings, to destroy environments around the world in order to enhance their own political agenda. The time to act to secure our future is now. Our economic and national security depend on it. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Thank you to the gentleman for his testimony. We will now move on to our second panel. I want to remind the witnesses that under committee rules, they must limit your oral statements to five minutes, but your entire statement will appear in the hearing record. To begin your testimony, please press the on button on the microphone. We use timing lights. When you begin, the light will turn green. At the end of five minutes, the light will turn red, and I'll ask you to please complete your statement. I will allow all witnesses to testify before member questioning. Our first witness is Mr. Sean Pi. He is the founding partner of Heeney Capital, and he is stationed in West Palm Beach, Florida. Mr. Pi, you're recognized for five minutes.

Chairman, Ranking Member, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. My name is Sean Pi, and I'm the founding partner at Heeney Capital. We are a private capital firm that specializes in development-stage mining assets. We partner with industry leaders to drive long-term asset growth and value realization. Our firm currently supports a portfolio of projects in the United States and abroad, representing approximately $1.2 billion in assets. I'm here today to speak in support of two bills introduced by Congressman Barr: the RESCUE Act and the Critical Minerals Supply Chain Resiliency Act. But first, I'd like to share that my perspective as a professional investor is grounded in financing and developing mining and related processing projects that require large, long-duration investments. Uncertainty around the sequence and duration of federal reviews can materially affect project feasibility. Stretched timelines increase the cost of capital. From the perspective of private investors, the question is neither willingness to execute nor whether these critical mineral projects are strategically important. The question is whether a project can reach key milestones on a timeline that makes the investment viable. As for the bills, first, I support the RESCUE Act because it expands the definition of a covered project, making certain recovery and processing projects eligible for the permitting dashboard and the FAST Act's coordinated timelines and interagency review process. Expanding eligibility to include mine tailings and other sources is a welcome change for both investors and operators. Second, the Critical Minerals Supply Chain Resiliency Act allows certain DPA actions taken by the Secretary of War to be treated as covered projects under the federal permitting framework. This is particularly helpful during early and intermediate stages of project development. Treating feasibility studies, beneficiation and downstream processing, byproduct production at existing mines or waste sites, and modernization efforts as covered projects would greatly support projects that are currently vulnerable under existing market conditions. These two bills will help our country today. For example, we are currently working to develop a vertically integrated vanadium production chain in the United States. Vanadium is used to strengthen steel and titanium alloys and is critical to several strategic sectors and has direct military applications. Global vanadium production is heavily concentrated, with about 75 percent controlled by China and Russia. Our project would include mining, smelting, and refining, with the objective of producing vanadium domestically by the end of 2027. Both bills would speed up federal permitting for this project. They would classify this as a covered project under the FAST Act, enabling quicker approvals, and further accelerate development by automatically placing it as a DPA-supported critical mineral processing project onto the federal permitting dashboard for streamlined review. Taken together, these bills would create a more favorable regulatory environment for investment in domestic mineral projects, and I strongly support their passage. Thank you to the committee for working to address this challenge. I would also like to take this opportunity to highlight two important points where Congress could further work to strengthen the domestic critical mineral supply chain. First, I recommend further support for feasibility studies. Feasibility work is often one of the most cost-intensive components of mining development, and broader support could help U.S. industry scale mining projects more quickly. Second, while H.R. 5929 rightly highlights the importance of DPA Title III authorities, DPA incentives are currently limited to the United States and a narrow set of partner countries. While the United States is blessed with vast natural resources, many critically needed metals are not available in the required volume or timeline demanded by American supply chains to meet our AI, shipbuilding, defense infrastructure, and industrial revitalization aspirations. In our view, expanding this set of partner countries would meaningfully and quickly improve U.S. access to key mineral resources in ways more in consonance with solving the critical mineral supply crisis. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify, and I would be pleased to respond to any questions from the subcommittee.

Thank you for your testimony. Our next witness is Ms. Chelsea Hodgkins. She's the senior auto supply chains policy advocate at Public Citizen, and she is stationed right here in Washington, D.C. Ms. Hodgkins, you are now recognized for five minutes.

Good morning, Chairman Stauber, Ranking Member Ansari, Mr. Huffman, you're still here. Good morning. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Chelsea Hodgkins. I lead mineral supply chain work at Public Citizen. We're a national public interest advocacy organization with over 1 million members. President Trump's sweeping deregulatory agenda and abuses of power are turning America's mineral policy into a platform for backroom deals that are transferring natural resource wealth away from Americans and into the hand of Trump's allies. Executive orders have rolled back environmental standards and opened up sacred public lands to mining. Many companies are waived from requirements to even demonstrate the economic feasibility of their projects. And meanwhile, Congress has allocated at least 360 billion taxpayer dollars for critical mineral supply chain projects under this system of inadequate safeguards and absent oversight through legislation like the partisan One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Mining is already the most toxic industry in the United States. Domestic operations are governed under Gold Rush-era laws, subsidized by billions of public dollars, and cause long-lasting harm to the environment, communities near mines, and public health more generally. President Trump's mineral policies are worsening these harms. They're also undermining efforts to improve U.S. industrial capacity, and they're ushering in corporate corruption and cronyism. The federal government has used public dollars for sizeable investments in six mining and minerals processing projects in exchange for equity stakes. A Public Citizen analysis found stakes were taken in risky and contested projects to increase company stock value and generate generous payouts for Trump's billionaire buddies, his inner circle, and mining executives. This agenda makes the United States more vulnerable, not stronger. Doubling down on new mining projects may also hinder the growth of an internationally competitive circular minerals industry in the United States. Instead, direct investments to research and innovations in material substitution, recycling, and new battery chemistries would curb the need for new mining and create the type of supply chain resilience that competes more effectively with China. As written, the bills under consideration do not create the incentives for this high-road circular economy for minerals. Instead, they institutionalize President Trump's misguided approach that violates human rights and creates risks of supply chains and economic disruptions. The SECURE Minerals Act proposes a reserve led by a presidentially appointed board that would operate without basic good governance measures, rigorous congressional oversight, or a strategic approach to financing projects. It hands President Trump the opportunity to pick allies for board positions managing 2.5 billion taxpayer dollars, creating an opening to finance projects that would personally enrich them over the country, just like we're seeing with equity stakes. The Finding ORE Act legislates the type of bullying tactics this administration has used in minerals deals with countries to force benefits for U.S. mining companies. The act creates MOUs between the U.S. and partner countries to map minerals, but gives U.S. companies the right of first refusal to develop these resources without clear requirements for project-level environmental or social safeguards. This facilitates a new wave of dispossession in the Global South. Instead of acquiescing to Trump's vision of a minerals rush that results in a profit bonanza for the mining industry but little benefit or accountability to the public, Congress should push for a strategic, forward-thinking minerals policy that builds our industrial base, promotes recycling and reuse over new mining, and creates real economic benefits for communities while respecting human rights. An important first step that Congress must take towards this agenda is to fully account for existing federal mining subsidies. We need to make sure public dollars are being used responsibly and for the public good. We also need a clear understanding of strategic material needs and a supporting roadmap that builds industries like remining and recycling that keep materials in domestic supply streams and creates good-paying jobs. This also benefits overall national security and competitiveness. Legally binding safeguards are crucial to facilitating high-road projects that prioritize worker and community prosperity and environmental sustainability over corporate profit. Public Citizen remains open and ready to work with this Congress and members of this committee on this vision for a stronger, more sustainable future. Thank you.

Gentlelady yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Barr, for his opening comments.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you convening this hearing and for your strong leadership on mineral development. I want to thank Chairman Stauber also and Chairman Westerman for guiding this committee's efforts to strengthen America's energy dominance and mineral independence. Your commitments to strengthening American production and reducing our reliance on adversarial nations are exactly what this moment demands. I also want to welcome one of our witnesses, Sean Pi of Heeney Capital. Sean is a highly respected investor in the mineral development space with deep experience financing and advancing complex projects. I appreciate his willingness to share his expertise on how Congress can align private capital with America's strategic priorities. At the moment, China controls roughly 60 percent of global critical mineral production, 90 percent of processing, and 75 percent of manufacturing capacity. We currently import the vast majority of our rare earth elements. That level of dependence is not merely an economic vulnerability, it is a national security threat. Critical minerals are essential for everything from semiconductors, artificial intelligence, hypersonic weapons, missile defense systems, secure telecommunications networks, and next-generation energy storage. Without them, modern life cannot function. The good news is that we have the resources here at home. According to the Department of Energy, American coal reserves and coal-related byproducts may contain up to 17 million metric tons of rare earth elements. That's more than a thousand times our current annual consumption. We are literally sitting on an ocean of coal-based mineral reserves. The problem is not geology, the problem is bureaucracy. That's why I've introduced the Rare Earth Solutions and Carbon Utilization Enhancement Act, or the RESCUE Act. The RESCUE Act amends the FAST Act to expand the definition of a covered project to include projects that extract, recover, or process mineral resources from coal, coal waste, mine tailings, acid mine drainage, and related byproducts. By bringing these projects within the FAST-41 framework, the bill ensures they benefit from coordinated interagency review, established timelines, and full transparency through the permitting dashboard. In capital-intensive industries like mineral development, time is of the essence. It is one of the most consequential variables in determining whether a project is economically viable. Extended permitting timelines increase carrying costs, elevate financing risk, and deter long-term investment. I know Mr. Pi will speak to this. FAST-41 has demonstrated measurable results. On average, projects covered under FAST-41 experience permitting timelines that are 23 percent shorter than comparable projects. In an industry where projects require substantial upfront capital and long development time horizons, a reduction of that magnitude can make domestic mineral projects decisively more feasible. This is how we compete with China, not by copying its state-directed economic model, but by de-risking private capital investment and unleashing the strength of American capital markets. For Kentucky and other coal-producing states, this means new investment, new facilities, and new opportunities to transform coal resources into a strategic mineral supply. This is how we push back against the war on coal, not with rhetoric, but with results. We are putting Kentucky coal miners back to work powering America's technologies of the future. My second bill, the Critical Minerals Supply Chain Resiliency Act, ensures that when we designate a mineral project as critical to national security, our permitting system treats it that way. Under Presidential Determination 2022-11, the administration can use taxpayer dollars under the Defense Production Act to streamline domestic mineral supply chains. If we are investing public funds because these projects are vital to national security, then we must give them the best path forward, not bury them in red tape. My bill ensures that Defense Production Act-supported mineral projects receive coordinated, prioritized permitting under FAST-41. If a project is critical enough to warrant federal investment, it is critical enough to move with urgency. Strategic importance should be matched by strategic execution. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the subcommittee's attention to these bills. I look forward to working with you, Chairman Westerman, and our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to move this legislation forward. The choice before us is clear: continue relying on adversaries for strategic minerals or unlock the resources beneath our own feet. I choose American production, I choose American workers, and I choose American mineral independence. I look forward to hearing the testimony from the witnesses, and I yield back.

Thank you, Representative Barr, for your hard work on these two pieces of legislation. Our next witness is Mr. Adam Johnson. He is the CEO of Principal Mineral, and he is stationed in Southlake, Texas. Mr. Johnson, you are now recognized for five minutes.

Chairman Stauber, Ranking Member Ansari, thank you and to all the committee members for having me testify today. I serve as...

Mr. Johnson, could you bring the microphone a little closer? Thank you.

I serve as CEO of Principal Mineral, where I lead a dedicated team of folks focused on the intersection of critical minerals, capital markets, and operating particularly strategic materials. That includes North America's only copper foil facility necessary for printed circuit boards, rare earth metals and fluorides production necessary for jet turbines and other important products, and then a nickel composite business necessary for electromagnetic shielding of vital telecoms and other communications. I've previously engaged Congress on these topics through the China Select Committee, and happy to be here today. The United States can and should position itself at the center of global critical minerals markets. Our leadership in this sector will determine who shapes the future, and that includes everything from pricing power, capital flows, as well as security of supply and even technical innovation, and ultimately how these minerals and materials markets impact everything from labor and our environmental standards. Chief to this is achieving leadership means an integrated industrial system, not just a series of interconnected or loosely connected efforts and dots. Global critical minerals markets today are characterized by concentrated control, opaque pricing, recurring episodes of price volatility, and demonstrated ability of foreign state-backed actors to influence price, availability of these minerals in ways that distort our long-term investment decisions, but more importantly, the stability of our economies. In capital-intensive industries with multi-year development timelines, sustained price suppression or extreme volatility raises the cost to a degree that makes them infeasible. When capital cannot model forward prices or even understand what's driving those prices, projects stall, innovation slows, and supply concentration deepens. Critical minerals policy, again, it's a systems policy. It is not mining, it is not one thing, it's everything working together. It requires alignment across permitting timelines, capital formation, price visibility, coordination in trade with allies, strong environmental standards, and certainty around defense industrial base and other critical technology needs. When these elements operate together, capital becomes confident, investment horizons extend, and industry scales. Resilience becomes a structural feature of that economy. In this environment, America's advantages that we currently have deepen: our trusted markets, our competitive innovation ecosystems, and our entrepreneurial environment. The SECURE Minerals Act of 2026 institutionalizes this approach. By establishing the Strategic Resilience Reserve as a wholly owned government corporation and equipping it with dedicated capabilities driving market data, risk modeling, and production standards, the act moves the United States from reactive intervention to proactive market stewardship. It creates an institutional capacity to monitor volatility, evaluate systemic risk, and reinforce competitive conditions before instability undermines investment. I'll also add that it puts it in the hands of a long-term visible institution driven by the law directed by Congress. In addition, the Finding ORE Act strengthens the long-term development pipeline that will determine future supply security. Production capacity 10 and 15 years from now is shaped by the exploration and resource definitions decisions made today. By authorizing the United States Geological Survey to enter into formal cooperation agreements with partner countries for critical mineral mapping and resource assessment, the act expands visibility into prospective deposits and aligns technical standards across allied jurisdictions. Regulatory predictability driven by Congress directly determines the success of these efforts. When timelines are clear and consistently applied, institutional investors, operators, and even the future of those who want to work in this space commit their time and effort and money to these projects. When they're uncertain, projects simply don't advance. Expanding domestic and partner country production while reducing concentrated dependence shifts this pricing power, strengthens strategic leverage, and stabilizes downstream manufacturing for all of the applications and technologies we rely on every day. Consistent environmental and labor standards prevent a... Expanding domestic and partner country production while reducing concentrated dependence shifts this pricing power, strengthens strategic leverage, and stabilizes downstream manufacturing for all of the applications and technologies we rely on every day. Consistent environmental and labor standards prevent a race to the bottom.

Mr. Johnson, could you wrap it up? Mr. Johnson, could you wrap it up?

Yes, sir. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Johnson, for your testimony. Our last witness is Mr. Mark Compton. He is the executive director of the American Exploration & Mining Association, and he is stationed in Spokane Valley, Washington. Mr. Compton, welcome back. You are now recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Chairman Stauber, Ranking Member Ansari, members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to join you today. Mineral demand continues to increase rapidly, whether for the materials people use in our everyday lives, for conventional or renewable sources of energy, for artificial intelligence and quantum computing, or for weapons systems to bolster our national security. Leaders across the globe increasingly understand the importance of secure mineral supply chains. Unfortunately, the U.S. has for decades pursued policies that discouraged mineral exploration and mine development. And that has resulted in our dangerous dependence on foreign countries for dozens of important mineral commodities. And it has empowered our adversaries to weaponize minerals against us. Make no mistake, our mineral import reliance is a national security threat. But I'm encouraged that we now have bipartisan acknowledgment of the need for more domestic mineral production. Because hardrock minerals are a rare geologic phenomena, it's imperative that lands remain accessible to mineral exploration and development. Mines can only be developed in those few places where economically viable deposits were formed and geologists have discovered them. We can't choose where they're located, and we can't move them. About two-thirds of federal lands are already off-limits or severely restricted to mining. Further restricting access to mineral resources threatens our mineral security and chills investment. If we aren't investing in mineral exploration, we can't discover that needle in a haystack deposit. The National Academy of Sciences estimates that only one in 1,000 prospects actually becomes a producing mine. It takes years of drilling, geological analysis, baseline studies, project feasibility evaluations, and hundreds of millions of dollars of investment to advance a prospect from exploration to the start of permitting. Indeed, there are complex logistics of mining that cannot be easily changed. But what can be changed is putting the right policies in place to prevent unneeded bureaucratic hurdles to domestic production. We need to incentivize mineral exploration, the lifeblood of the minerals industry. We must ensure federal land access to explore for and develop mineral resources. We must permit mining projects in a timely manner. And we must develop the skilled workforce necessary to carry out these objectives. The bipartisan commitment to meaningful permitting reform is encouraging, and we applaud the important work already accomplished by the House, including the bipartisan passage of the SPEED Act and the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act. Two more bills on today's agenda will help facilitate the timely and responsible production of domestic mineral resources. H.R. 1501 codifies mining as a covered sector under Title 41 of the FAST Act. FAST-41 process provides a pathway to reducing permitting inefficiencies while retaining our world-class environmental protections. And as all minerals are critical, we must ensure it's available to the entire mineral mining sector. H.R. 7458 codifies and expands the BLM's notice-level authority for hardrock exploration from five to 25 acres, and very importantly, extends it to National Forest System lands. Because the Forest Service has not had a similar notice-level provision, many companies have simply avoided exploring for minerals on national forests due to the difficulty in pursuing even preliminary exploration drilling projects. Projects that involve a limited range of activities with short-term environmental impacts that can be fully reclaimed. In fact, before exploration even begin, operators must provide financial assurance that guarantees the surface disturbance will be reclaimed. H.R. 7458 would help accelerate the discovery of mineral deposits that can become future mines, ultimately reducing our nation's dependence on foreign minerals. We look forward to working constructively with you to ensure that made in America includes mined in America, and sourcing minerals from U.S. mines that use state-of-the-art environmental protection measures, put a premium on worker health and safety, and are committed to the communities in which they operate. I'm happy to address any questions.

Thank you very much. The chair will now recognize members for five minutes of questions, and I will now recognize myself for five minutes. Mr. Compton, currently the Bureau of Land Management allows activities that disturb less than five acres to proceed as a so-called notice-level operation, where a company provides information on the activity to the agency, the agency reviews it, and within a few weeks the company can proceed. If that acreage threshold is increased to 25 acres and this authority is also granted to the Forest Service, what kind of impact would this have on domestic producers?

Well, number one, it would help, as I just stated, it would help us reduce our mineral import reliance, quite often from adversaries. But I think it actually has several benefits. One to the producers, obviously, they're given certainty on what's required of them. They're able to find and develop mineral resources in a faster way. It benefits the agency. Fewer personnel are required, less resources required on the agency's part. But I think it also has a benefit for the environment, and especially on Forest Service lands. Currently, because the Forest Service does not have that notice-level provision and they require an exploration plan of operations for any exploration activity, a company is not incentivized to keep their footprint small. If you know you're going to have to go through two or three years of a mine plan of operations process, an EA or an EIS, you're going to scale it up. You're going to go big. If by keeping it under 25 acres you can be assured that you are going to likely get a faster approval, that incentivizes you to keep that smaller footprint.

Thank you. You know, under Representative Hageman's legislation, project sponsors, they're still going to need to submit a reclamation plan to the BLM or Forest Service and also provide a financial assurance guarantee. Is that correct?

That is correct, sir.

And I want to be clear, this legislation does not cut corners on reclamation and will not waive financial assurances or bonding requirements. Is that correct?

That is correct.

Thank you very much. The chair will now recognize members for five minutes of questions, and I will now recognize myself for five minutes. Mr. Compton, currently the Bureau of Land Management allows activities that disturb less than five acres to proceed as a so-called notice-level operation, where a company provides information on the activity to the agency, the agency reviews it, and within a few weeks, the company can proceed. If that acreage threshold is increased to 25 acres and this authority is also granted to the Forest Service, what kind of impact would this have on domestic producers?

Well, number one, it would help, as I just stated, it would help us reduce our mineral import reliance, quite often from adversaries. But I think it actually has several benefits. One to the producers, obviously, they're given certainty on what's required of them. They're able to find and develop mineral resources in a faster way. It benefits the agency. Fewer personnel are required, less resources required on the agency's part. But I think it also has a benefit for the environment, and especially on Forest Service lands. Currently, because the Forest Service does not have that notice-level provision and they require an exploration plan of operations for any exploration activity, a company is not incentivized to keep their footprint small. If you know you're going to have to go through two or three years of a mine plan of operations process, an EA or an EIS, you're going to scale it up. You're going to go big. If by keeping it under 25 acres, you can be assured that you are going to likely get a faster approval, that incentivizes you to keep that smaller footprint.

Thank you. You know, under Representative Hageman's legislation, project sponsors, they're still going to need to submit a reclamation plan to the BLM or Forest Service and also provide a financial assurance guarantee. Is that correct?

That is correct, sir.

And I want to be clear, this legislation does not cut corners on reclamation and will not waive financial assurances or bonding requirements. Is that correct?

That is correct.

Thank you. I wanted to make sure that was clear for all of us. Mr. Pi, what are some of the benefits of being listed as a covered project on the FAST-41 dashboard? And specifically, how do these benefits help Defense Production Act projects?

So could you just repeat that question one more time? Sorry. I had a little problem here.

Sure. What are some of the benefits of being listed as a covered project on the FAST-41 dashboard? And specifically, how do these benefits help Defense Production Act projects?

Sure. So thank you for the question, Congressman. As noted in my testimony, one of the biggest barriers to investment in the minerals sector is whether a project can reach key milestones on a timeline that makes financing realistic. When federal reviews for mining projects drag on for years, it creates uncertainty that makes it difficult for investors like ourselves to commit capital. Both H.R. 4781 and 5929, but also the other bills that are under discussion here today, help address this specific challenge by expanding the type of projects eligible for permitting streamlining and coordinated federal review. By reducing permitting uncertainty for key projects, these bills make it easier for such projects to attract investment and private sector buy-in. In my view, that step is long overdue and necessary if we're serious about building more resilient and reliable mineral supply chains for U.S. industry.

Thank you very much. Mr. Johnson, how would the provisions in the SECURE Act function to mitigate critical mineral price fluctuations and stabilize the markets?

And as this bill is written, is there sufficient independent oversight of the board's activities to protect against conflicts of interest or abuses of power? And are there sufficient safeguards to make sure that the investments with the reserve's $2.5 billion fund are made transparently with fair and open competition for taxpayer money?

No. The three things that I'd like to say on that are first and foremost, independent auditing is a particularly important safeguard to be able to make sure a body is being held accountable to someone other than itself. And under this bill, the auditors would be chosen by the board members, so that is a classic case of the fox guarding the henhouse. The second thing I'd like to say is that the measures that could deal with any potential conflicts of interest are not strong at all. In fact, if a member was found to be investing in companies that were receiving federal financing, they have 30 days to recuse themselves with a potential for extension, and the only way that they could be removed from the board is through presidential impeachment, which I find highly unlikely. The last thing I'd like to say is this board really lacks any standards. And I think one point that is often missed is that there are salient risks in the mining sector that abuse human rights and the environment. Those are also risks to investors. There've been research showing how much money a mining project can lose. Harvard did a study showing that social delays can cause up to $20 billion in losses daily of a mine, and it costs companies less than half percent, 0.5 percent, of their CAPEX to be able to put in place these practices in the first place. That is from a forthcoming study from the Rocky Mountain Institute looking at IRMA audits. So in essence, the disregard for environmental standards is not only ill-thought out, but it is quite putting our own investments at risk for delays.

Thank you so much. And now, one of the other significant announcements this administration has made over the last several weeks is Project Forge, a new framework for bilateral and plurilateral critical mineral agreements. It's not fundamentally a bad thing. We should be working with our allies to secure our critical mineral supply chains. It's the only way to do it. But we must also ensure that we respect other country sovereignty, of course, and human rights. Following an agreement the United States made with the Democratic Republic of Congo, significant opposition is growing there. There's even litigation over the deal arguing that it violates the Congolese constitution. There are echoes of this issue in one of the bills up for discussion today, the Finding ORE Act, which requires companies headquartered in the United States or allied countries to be given the right of first refusal for mineral development in other partner nations. Ms. Hodgkins, can you expand on why you have concerns about the right of first refusal as well as why we need environmental and social safeguards when U.S. companies invest abroad?

Yes, thank you for the question. First and foremost, partnership should come from a place of mutual benefits, and coercing countries into signing away their mineral rights is not a way to create sustainable lasting partnerships that will actually be competitive in a in the type of world that we're living in. The second is that it really would facilitate a massive wave of dispossession. We like to talk a lot about China's practices, but U.S., Canadian, Australian companies also have decades of documented abuses. So even our so-called partner nations need to be reined in and held to higher account. I think the last thing I'd like to say is going back to the standards, when we decide to disregard environmental reviews and let partners operate under weak standards, what kind of sustainability do we really think that we're putting forward for projects and what kind of supply chains are we actually creating if they're not going to be able to sustain themselves over time?

Thank you so much, and thank you for the extra time. Appreciate it.

You're welcome. Representative Tiffany from Wisconsin, you're up for five minutes.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Hodgkins, do you support mining in the United States?

I support investments in smart strategies across supply chains.

Do you support mining in the United States of America?

I support strong mineral supply chains, yes.

Name a mine that is being proposed right now that you think should be built in the United States of America.

I can't speak to that, sir.

Have you studied what mines are in the exploratory process across the United States currently?

Could you repeat the question?

Are you familiar with the mines that are in the exploratory process currently in the United States that could potentially be a mine? Are you familiar with that list?

Not the entirety of it, but a few, yes.

You said recycling is the answer and that's going to get us mineral abundance. Is that the answer, to recycle?

To be clear, what I said is that recycling is a core part of the strategy to making our supply chains safe because they keep minerals in domestic supply.

But we're still going to need to mine, right?

Depends on what study you read.

What study do you read?

Well, there have been studies that have shown that actually remining and investing in recycling can cover up to 90 percent, for example, for lithium. So I think the extent to which we'll need new mining actually depends on the extent to which we invest in other infrastructure that can make those materials easily available.

If you would forward that study to my office, I'd really appreciate it. I would like to see it.

I'd be happy to.

Does China have higher standards for manufacturing and mining than the United States?

I'm an expert in the U.S. system, sir, so I can speak to that, not to China.

Don't you think it's worth I mean, you saw the chart earlier. China has dominance and they seek total dominance. Shouldn't you also be familiar with what China's doing?

I know at a high level, sir, but I don't know enough to speak to it in detail in the extent that I can speak to this system.

Does Public Citizen take any money from Chinese interests or other adversaries that we have from around the globe like Iran, Russia, and others because some environmental groups it has been rumored take money from foreign adversaries? Does Public Citizen take money from foreign adversaries?

No, we do not accept foreign funding.

Do you have do you have open books that we can see that someone like myself can see who your donors are?

I would have to follow up with you on that. That's above my pay grade.

So you don't know if you're taking foreign money or not.

I do know that we don't take foreign money.

Is that up for review? Can we see it publicly? You're Public Citizen, I'm sure you would put your donors out there publicly, correct?

Yes, sir, I'm on the record. I don't want to misspeak, and so I'm more than happy to go back and ask if we could provide those records for you.

If you would do that, that would be greatly appreciated to know who all their donors are because there's this notion of corruption that's being put out there and we've heard about environmental groups that have taken money from our foreign adversaries to undermine our ability to be energy and mineral dominant. And I think most people in America think that would be a good thing. Mr. Compton, if we care about the environment globally, when I was a kid, the Sierra Club always said think globally, act locally. If we're to act locally to do the best by our environmental standards, where would we mine on planet Earth?

Thank you for the question, Congressman. It would be the United States of America.

Why?

Because we do have the highest environmental standards in the world, the highest worker health and safety protection standards in the world.

Has investment been encouraged, mining investment been encouraged in the United States over the last couple decades?

Unfortunately, it's been just the opposite.

Mr. Johnson, I say regularly, we are in this race with our chief adversary, Communist China, deciding who's going to win the 21st century. And at this point, it's very much in question because we do not have mineral dominance and China seeks world hegemony. Don't you think that's a critical question that runs to the core of what we're talking about here today? Are we going to be mineral dominant here in the United States of America? Isn't that going to be a critical question who wins the 21st century?

In my opinion, over the next century, there are certainly a lot of fronts, whether it's currency or whether it's other aspects that are fundamental to sort of any geopolitical position. Minerals is one of them, for sure.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the time.

Thank you very much. Next up is Representative Grijalva for five minutes.

...for Chairman Grijalva sent a letter to the U.S. Forest Service requesting an extension of the public comment period on the scoping phase for the Hermosa project. Despite his raising serious concerns about the lack of information in Spanish, the predominant language in the community, this request was denied. Late last year, citizen scientists discovered and reported contamination from heavy metals, including lead, in the watershed at levels exceeding EPA limits. Community members are seeing their wells run dry, and yet this mine is still on the fast track for approval. We must remember that this is yet another piece in an ongoing erosion of public process. To further emphasize my point, the Trump administration just permitted a uranium mine in 14 days with a seven-day tribal consultation process. Completely unacceptable. Public process is not a nice-to-do, it's necessary and critical. So, Ms. Hodgkins, can you expand on why mining permitting should be modernized from the long-outdated mining law of 1872 to better integrate the public far earlier in the permitting process?

Yes, thank you for that question. First and foremost, my understanding of the process is that there's not sufficient public input to begin with. A lot of times, the plans are already made by the time that the community gets to weigh in, and my understanding of that process is that many community members feel slighted and left out. So with the data I referenced before about the need to accommodate and really assess social risks, that is a safeguard. I think the other thing that is worth saying here is mining is the only extractive industry to my understanding that doesn't pay to mine on public lands, but that actually taxpayers are paying billions of dollars to clean up their mess because they leave their mines behind. And that's not even accounting for the public health issues, the cancer, the toxic pollution that's left behind. So it's really common sense to me. If you're expecting someone to clean up your mess, you should at least ask them if they welcome it in the first place.

Thank you. Thank you. And we in Arizona know very well what that feels like when all the remnants are left over and the community is the one that has the health risks and the cleanup. Another bill on the agenda would expand notice-level mining activities from five acres to 25 acres. That means all the mining company needs to do is give notice to the Bureau of Land Management that they're drilling test wells, building roads, and performing other potentially destructive activities. Right now, when notice-level activities occur, the Bureau of Land Management isn't even required to notify neighboring tribes that resources have been impacted. Ms. Hodgkins, I know that you're not here testifying on that bill, but could you please touch on why this is a concern and how it plays into the overall deregulatory efforts that favor industry over public?

Yes, thank you for the question. In addition to reducing public input and the points that I made earlier, it really is just creating a situation where these projects are more risky. At a moment when we are rolling back key regulations such as Clean Water Act requirements of mines and even requirements that would make a project demonstrably feasible in the first place, you really are creating a lot more gaps than you are safeguards to being able to secure your supply chains and projects that will be functional.

Thank you. I yield back. Thank you.

Thank you very much. The chair now recognizes Representative Wittman for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Hodgkins, I'd like to start with you. You work for Public Citizen, which is an extreme far-left organization that touts that it takes money from individuals, not corporations, not government. Can you confirm to this committee that none of your donors are connected to the Chinese Communist Party?

Sir, we don't have any foreign funding.

I didn't ask you that. I asked you can you confirm that the individuals that contribute to your organization are not in any way, shape, or form tied to the Chinese Communist Party? Do you vet your individual donors? I understand you don't take it from corporations or from entities. Can you confirm that every individual that contributes to your organization is not in any way, shape, or form connected to the Chinese Communist Party?

I would be happy to follow up with you on that. As I alluded earlier...

So you cannot confirm to us that you don't take money from people connected to the Chinese Communist Party. Let me move on to my next question. You talk about recycling, and I want to make sure we're basing this on a fact-based conversation. Talk about recycling. Do you know the top five rare earth elements that are needed in the United States for things like electric vehicles, things like wind turbines, things like defense systems? Do you know the top five rare earth elements?

For electric vehicle batteries, I do because that's my area of expertise.

Okay, and what are they? For the highest in demand across the nation.

Nickel, cobalt, manganese...

Those are not rare earth, ma'am. The top five are neodymium, dysprosium, praseodymium, terbium, and lanthanum. Top five, top five. Can you tell me the amount of recycled material that would yield us what the United States demands for the production of wind turbines, EVs, defense systems that need these top five rare earth elements?

I cannot speak to that, no.

You can't because there is not a source in the United States to be able to do that. You said that we can't mine, we don't want to mine. You refused to answer Mr. Tiffany's question about whether or not we'd need mines here. Let me ask this: if you're not going to mine here, then we're going to be buying it on the world market. The major producer on the world market of these rare earth elements, of these critical minerals, is China. Do you not acknowledge that China is the largest human rights violator on the planet? That they use forced labor? That they destroy environments in other countries like Africa and other places? Do you believe that it is morally correct to continue to purchase from China as we do now? They produce 90 percent of the world's source of these critical minerals. They mine that, they process about 92 percent, and they produce 93 percent of the world's rare earth magnets. Do you believe that it is proper for the United States to continue to buy and enable the world's largest human rights violator, enable the largest destroyer of the environment on the face of the earth? Do you think that that is morally the proper direction that we go from a policy standpoint?

Sir, what I do know is that we've spent over $360 billion with no oversight at a time that we're rolling back our own environmental regulation.

I'm asking you this question: is it morally defensible for us to continue to buy from China, the world's number one human rights violator, the number one violator of environmental standards on the planet?

Can you repeat your question?

Yes. Do you think it is morally defensible for the United States to continue to buy from China, the number one human rights violator, the number one environmental standards violator on the face of the earth? Do you think it's morally defensible for us to continue to buy rare earth and critical minerals from China?

I think the United States should be using its position in the world to raise the bar globally.

So how does that help us meet the demand for rare earth and critical minerals?

Yes, as I discussed earlier, social and environmental risks can actively stop projects. So when you speed projects...

So stopping projects is the way for us to be able to make more production and do the things necessary to meet our demand.

No, to be clear, I'm saying that's what American policies would promote at this point in time because they're weakening environmental and social standards.

So we should be promoting reduced production in order to have the things that this country needs to do the things that you promote, the production of electric vehicles, the production of wind turbines.

I think it's more fiscally responsible for taxpayers to have full accounting for the money that has been spent and for those dollars to go towards projects that won't pollute their water source.

That doesn't do anything about what we need in this nation to meet the demand for critical minerals and rare earth. It's intellectually corrupt for you to come in here and tell us that we've got to do all these things which are not attainable, which are not in any way, shape, or form going to supply the United States with what we need and not put us at the mercy of China.

Sir, I'd be happy to forward you numerous studies that show recycling rates that can help be a part of the solution. And I would just say that if you don't have a workforce to do the mining because the water is toxic or the air is toxic, we're not going to get very far.

Well, ma'am, I chaired the critical minerals and rare earth working group for a year on the China committee. We had six hearings with multiple expert witnesses that came in across the political spectrum, and not a single one of them said we ought to continue to buy minerals from China. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Thank you very much. The chair now recognizes Representative...

Can I enter something into the record?

Yes.

I'd like to enter into the record this page from the American Exploration & Mining Association listing Rio Tinto as a member whose largest shareholder is a Chinese state-owned company. Thank you.

With that being said, I also want to ask unanimous consent that the following statements from the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Mining Association related to the pieces of legislation before this subcommittee be entered into the record without objection. Without objection, so ordered. Representative Lee, you are now up for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you know, this Congress has considered a steady stream of critical mineral bills, including at today's hearing, and I've supported many of these on a bipartisan basis, including your own bill, the Critical Mineral Dominance Act, because I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, that this is an incredibly important topic. And I think you'd agree with me that because this topic is so important, it's vital that we think holistically and strategically. Despite the good work across multiple federal agencies to secure our critical minerals, there seems to be no formalized central strategic organizing body to coordinate intergovernmental efforts across the federal, state, local, and tribal governments, together with a full range of key stakeholders from industry to labor to the conservation community. And last Congress, this subcommittee took up the Intergovernmental Critical Minerals Task Force Act, which I led with Representative Obernolte, and the conservative nonprofit ClearPath Action testified in support, emphasizing that our bill would bring together essential cross-government and non-governmental entities around the table to create a unified strategic approach to securing the U.S. critical mineral supply chain and establish a foundation for long-term growth within the critical mineral sector. Mr. Compton, good to see you. AEMA's collaboration with the state and local officials in my home state of Nevada stretches back decades. Would you agree with my and Representative Obernolte's shared belief that combating China's dominance of critical minerals will take an all-of-government approach?

Thank you for the question, Congresswoman. I do, in the from the standpoint that, you know, mining projects are subject to all environmental laws and regulations at the federal, state, and local level. And if we are going to increase our domestic mineral production in a timely and efficient manner, we need good intergovernmental coordination in that effort. I do think that the FAST Act has the ability to facilitate that type of coordination, as well as potentially avoiding some duplicative efforts in that.

Thank you. And you know, the Senate certainly agrees as well, which is why it previously passed our bill by unanimous consent, news that was cheered loudly by voices like ClearPath on the right and the Sierra Club on the left. Chairman Stauber, despite the bill's success in the Senate last Congress, and I think it might have just been a timing issue, and it also received a very favorable hearing here in our own subcommittee in November of 2024, this bill, the Intergovernmental Critical Minerals Task Force Act, has not yet received a full committee markup. And I was hoping that you could be willing to work with me and Representative Obernolte to get this bipartisan, bicameral legislation passed this Congress. ...timing issue, and it also received a very favorable hearing here in our own subcommittee in November of 2024. This bill, the Intergovernmental Critical Minerals Task Force Act, has not yet received a full committee markup, and I was hoping that you could be willing to work with me and Representative Obernolte to get this bipartisan, bicameral legislation passed this Congress.

Representative Lee, we will certainly look into that, and I appreciate what you did with that task force, and I also appreciate your support for mining. You have been a great member on that front, and I yield back.

Thank you. Let me see how much time I have. I now want to take a moment to highlight just a concern that I have as it relates to Congress's work on critical minerals recently. At our most recent markup earlier this month, both Democrats and Republicans on this committee came together to unanimously advance my bill with Juan Ciscomani, the Critical Mineral Consistency Act. In short, this legislation established that whether something is a critical mineral as identified by the Interior Department or a critical mineral as identified by the Energy Department, all are critical and should be treated that way by the federal government. Yet at the same time this committee was advancing that hard-won bipartisan agreement, Republican leadership unfortunately put a bill on the House floor that may have had the words critical minerals in the title, the so-called Securing American Critical Minerals Supply Act, but which discounts both the DOI and DOE lists, instead leaving the door wide open to items not appearing on either list receiving the kind of federal attention and resources that should be reserved for truly critical minerals and materials. Ms. Hodgkins, could you please speak briefly why it's so important that Congress keep our legislative work in this space firmly fixed on critical minerals and materials actually identified as such, and what we risk when we don't do that?

Thank you for the question. I think this is very important, and I echo the concerns that you shared. Maybe just to answer briefly, two points. The first is that everything in the kitchen sink that some of these bills take is not a strategic approach and it won't work. We need a clear set of priorities to guide what we're doing, and we need a core set of sectors that deserve that investment. I'd like to also point to the example of Japan. Many countries are looking to Japan because they have successfully reduced their reliance on China for their rare earth supplies by about 20 percent. The four key parts to their strategy are a very clear list of priorities to stockpile and to invest in. They also define the length of time that stockpiling is for to help with logistics and cost and determining quantities. They have strict rules for use and release of the reserves, and they also have a lot of environmental laws, believe it or not, that are looking to have the body manage any potential consequences of the projects they invest in.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm sorry I took a little extra time.

No, that's no worries. The chair now recognizes Representative Westerman, the full committee chair, for five minutes.

Thank you, Chairman Stauber, and again, thank you to the witnesses for being here to talk about a very important subject. Last summer, I had the opportunity to go up to the Ames National Laboratory with Secretary Wright and see some of the amazing things they're doing on recycling up there. Kind of reminded me like a throwback to college days in a chemistry lab. They were using copper sulfate to precipitate out a lot of the rare earths that were in used electronics components. They just ground it up, put it in the solution, and with the right chemical formula, they were able to target different rare earths. Fascinating technology that I think we need more of that, need to have it commercialized. But also, I'm thinking of reports I've read, I think one from the World Bank said that they said a few years ago that by 2045, we would need to produce as much copper as we've mined in the history of the world to meet future demands. Ms. Hodgkins, you may want to clarify this, but I think you said we have sufficient amounts of lithium, and I know your specialty area is EVs. Do you think we have enough lithium that we can just recycle lithium now?

To clarify, what I said was that studies have shown that recycling rates for lithium with the technologies that we currently have could be feasible up to 90 percent.

So recycling what's already been mined, but the reports I've read show like we need a 500 percent increase in lithium in just a few years, which is exciting because in my district, we have lithium in brine water. USGS says maybe 19 million tons of lithium down there. So a lot of lithium opportunity where the way you mine it is you pump the brine water up, separate the lithium out, and pump the water back into the ground. I'll just go down the line. Mr. Pi, do we have sufficient minerals and elements already that we can recycle and meet future demands? That's all I need. Ms. Hodgkins, can we recycle and meet all of our demands?

It depends on the mineral that you're talking about. Right. Today, no. But if we made investments, we could recycle a lot more than we are now.

So where are we going to get those added minerals and elements?

Well, in the EV space at least, by 2030, there's going to be a lot of batteries that are coming up for recycle. I don't have the exact number on me, I'd be happy to get it to you, but it's something...

That's fine. Mr. Johnson, do we have enough stuff out of the ground we can just recycle it all and meet our demands?

No.

Mr. Compton?

No, we don't, and I can actually get you a report that says with the current generation of EV batteries, once they are retired, if we could recycle them 100 percent, which we do not have the technology to do currently, if we could recycle them 100 percent, it would supply us with about 10 percent of our mineral needs.

Yeah, that's more in line with the data I've heard. Mr. Pi, the RESCUE Act would expand FAST-41 coverage to include coal and mine tailings. I've got a production facility in my district that takes petcoke and they produce the only vanadium in the United States. Can you expand on the potential that exists to extract critical minerals from these historically overlooked sources?

Yeah, I think that we need to spend a lot more time exploring extracting additional metal credits from these primary sources. They're an incredible source for both transitioning metals and rare earth metals.

Mr. Johnson, what are some past examples of China using its dominant market position to distort U.S. markets and make domestic critical mineral efforts uneconomic?

So every year, China publishes new export controls. So they've done that in the past year with rare earth processing, metallurgy, magnet technologies. They've done it the year previous in gallium and germanium, and they've done this essentially every year. They publish increasingly stringent export controls and broad...

So there's no question they're using their dominance in the market to affect potential projects here in the United States.

It's systematic, like clockwork. They increase that stranglehold every year.

And Mr. Compton, over 90 percent of the world's critical minerals are processed in China. Does it make sense to make mineral processing facilities eligible for expedited permitting under the FAST Act?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think it does. As we increase domestic mineral production, we need to simultaneously be increasing domestic processing. Processing facilities are expensive, they're difficult to permit, so a more coordinated approach to that, such as FAST-41, would certainly be helpful. Yes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Thank you, Chairman Westerman. I will now recognize Representative Crank for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For too long, the United States effectively ceded dominance in the global critical minerals market to China, an adversary whose market power now directly threatens our national and our economic security. China doesn't just produce these minerals, of course, they control the pricing, the processing, and the supply chains for the materials that go into everything from our electricity grid to our fighter jets and our missile systems. I'm a member of the House Armed Services Committee. These things are essential to national defense and to our energy security. That level of market control gives Beijing the ability to influence global market prices, choke supply chains, and weaponize access to essential materials. This isn't a theoretical concern. We see it happen and we see it happen day in and day out. China has restricted access to rare earth minerals, antimony, tellurium, and tungsten. All materials critical to defense, advanced manufacturing, and energy technologies, all of them. Those actions send shockwaves through global markets and they leave U.S. manufacturers scrambling for alternatives. At the same time, the U.S. has struggled to counter China's dominance because of our own internal constraints, particularly our burdensome and unpredictable permitting process. We are literally our own worst enemy as a government sometimes. To put this into perspective, S&P Global found that developing a new hard rock mine in the United States can take 29 years from discovery to production. Twenty-nine years. No wonder minerals projects want to protect their eligibility for FAST-41. And a mine that's able to successfully move through the U.S. permitting regime must also face the reality that China is watching. China has enough market control to flood global markets with minerals or processed materials just as U.S. projects are preparing to come online, driving prices down and they render those projects uneconomic before they ever even get off the ground or reach full operation. Mr. Chairman, I ask for unanimous consent that the following articles be entered into the record. An article from Reuters detailing China dumping cobalt onto the market, preventing the U.S.'s first cobalt mine in decades from coming online, an additional article from Reuters on China flooding the markets with lithium to eliminate rivals, and finally an article from Benchmark Minerals on China dumping graphite anode into U.S. markets.

No objection, so ordered.

Our reliance on foreign sources has put us in this position, making us not only vulnerable to supply cutoffs, but to strategic manipulation of market prices designed to keep U.S. companies on the sidelines. Let's be clear, China wants to keep us on the sidelines. That's why as we continue to pursue permitting reform and expand access to FAST-41, we must also evaluate how to protect U.S. companies from a minerals market that is distorted by foreign state-backed actors. Permitting reform alone will not solve the problem in global prices. They can still...

...be manipulated to undercut domestic production before it ever has a chance to succeed. Mr. Johnson, in your testimony, you highlighted the same concerns I have about concentrated control and foreign state-backed actors who can distort prices. How would U.S. acquisition through the Strategic Resilience Reserve as outlined in the SECURE Minerals Act help reduce price volatility in the global critical mineral market?

One of the biggest challenges with new projects and, again, the SECURE Mineral Act is really about midstream, right? It's about processing. It's about driving, you know, throughput and taking the mine, you know, assets and getting them to produce, right? There needs to be consistent offtake. There needs to be buyers on the other side and there needs to be a market that forms that's data-driven, that's, you know, informed about the broader geopolitical landscape. So the SECURE Mineral Act provides certainty around offtake, around demand, provides pricing transparency to offtakers who end up building the manufacturing around these minerals, which, you know, they ultimately are the consumers of the minerals. And they bring them all to the table around a cohesive, policy-driven approach.

And then finally, I've just got a couple of seconds here left, but beyond price volatility, how can target acquisition help signal pricing stability to investors and encourage long-term investment in U.S. mining and processing capacity?

One of the challenges, and I believe it was mentioned earlier, is around, you know, visibility of large data information and then making that available. Right now, we live in a world where bilateral agreements are the only way to do it. So a big OEM will negotiate with a mining company now, which they've never done in the last 70 years. And so everyone is a fish out of water. And what this will do is it will synchronize those markets to operate effectively and allow private capital to come in intelligently.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Representative Hageman, you're up for five minutes.

Thank you. Mr. Compton, I want to thank you for your testimony on my bill, H.R. 7458, the Domestic ORE Act. This bill makes reforms to improve the efficiency of the mineral exploration process on federal lands. Would you briefly explain what mineral exploration is and why there can be no mining without it?

Thank you, Congresswoman, and thank you for sponsoring the legislation. Mineral exploration really is the lifeblood of the mineral industry. You know, if we're not discovering new deposits, we are not developing the future mines that can make us less reliant on foreign sources of minerals. And exploration is really a very... it is both simple and complex. I mean, it is an iterative process. Hardrock deposits are, as I mentioned earlier, very rare. They are geologically unique phenomena. And, you know, unlike coal or oil and gas where you hit a well, you get a gusher, you know where it is. Hardrock deposits are scattered. It takes multiple drill holes to be able to define a resource and plan for a profitable mine.

When thinking about how discovery and identification of the grade and boundaries of a mineral deposit is done, can you please explain why the current threshold of five acres just simply doesn't align?

Yeah, so it's just not... it's obviously not enough because we are not discovering mineral deposits at the rate we need to to make ourselves mineral independent. It is very helpful on BLM lands to have that notice-level provision, but expanding it to 25 acres would make a huge difference in reducing that timeline that it takes to get from exploration to constructing a mine.

And production.

Yeah, the exploration phase is the most time-consuming of all the mining phases.

Well, and the fact is, in America, we need more minerals than ever to sustain our economy and national security, yet we are increasingly reliant on adversaries such as China for these minerals. What role does having an efficient and effective exploration process play in meeting our nation's mineral needs?

It's critical. It's absolutely critical.

Okay, so if a notice-level activity affects more than five acres, this can trigger a NEPA process that can result in delays running well over a year. Is that correct?

It is. And on Forest Service lands, that notice-level provision does not even exist at this point.

And that's before the process of permitting a mining operation, which is also going to run into delays because of the NEPA process as well as anticipated litigation. Is that also correct?

That's absolutely.

All right. So if we need more minerals and we need them quickly, a good system starts with the exploration, doesn't it?

Yes, ma'am.

In this bill, we are proposing efficiency but not at the expense of conservation. This codification of existing regulatory requirements means that plans and funding for reclamation are part of the process. Can you speak to that further?

Yes, so as I mentioned earlier, no exploration begins without the project operator providing the land management agency, whether it's the BLM or the Forest Service, with financial assurance or a reclamation bond to guarantee that full reclamation will occur.

And under the current system, are there other practices as well that operators use and already apply to avoid disturbances to cultural resources?

Yeah, quite often, again, on BLM lands because they're the only ones that have the five-acre notice-level provision currently, quite often project operators will consult with a BLM archaeologist or something to ensure that there are no cultural or sensitive resources.

And even though the bill's expansion to 25 acres also applies to Forest Service lands, in your written testimony, you pointed out how little of those lands actually encompass hardrock mining. Can you speak to that a little bit further?

Yeah, it's kind of interesting because I hadn't really looked into this before on just how small mining's footprint is. According to the Forest Service, all operating mines on Forest Service lands today equals to about 10,000 acres. That is less than the size of Dulles International Airport.

Okay. I believe that the National Forest Service lands make up about 192 million acres.

That's, yeah, about 192, 193 million acres. And if the... so the Forest Service has thankfully has proposed a rule to have a notice-level provision similar to BLM's. They estimate that about 62 operations would qualify for that. Even at the 25-acre level, we're talking about approximately 1,500 acres National Forest System-wide.

Well, I'm at a time, but I appreciate your testimony and the point being we need to do the exploration so that we can do the mining and obtain the resources that we need in this space. So thank you for your testimony and I yield back.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. The chair now recognizes the representative from Alaska, Representative Begich, for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Let's start with some numbers. We're out here on the East Coast. I'm from Alaska. 222, 44, nine and a half, and 750. Alaska has 222 million acres of federal land. That is 44 times the size of New Jersey. New Jersey has nine and a half million people. Alaska has 750,000. Just to put some things in perspective of just how vast the resource is in my home state of Alaska. Alaska holds more federal public land, in fact, than any other state, sitting on world-class deposits of graphite, rare earths, copper, cobalt, and other critical minerals that remain largely unexplored due to federal permitting delays and land access restrictions. Every bill before this subcommittee today has a direct impact on whether Alaska can fulfill its potential as the cornerstone of American mineral independence. China controls roughly 60 percent of global critical mineral production, 90 percent of processing, and has repeatedly weaponized that dominance through export bans and deliberate price manipulation. Alaska's strategic location on the Pacific Rim and its extraordinary mineral endowment make it an essential asset in breaking this dependence, but only if the federal government stops being the obstacle and starts being a partner. For Alaska's rural and remote communities, many of them Alaska Native villages, responsible mineral development provides a path to high-paying jobs, economic self-sufficiency, and the revenues that fund schools, clinics, and basic infrastructure. Streamlining exploration permitting, stabilizing critical mineral markets, and ensuring regulatory certainty ensures that we have a lifeline in Alaska. I'm going to start my questions to you, Mr. Compton. How important is it that we permanently codify mining as a covered sector under FAST-41 and what would it mean for investor confidence in large-scale projects in frontier states like Alaska?

Thank you for the question. So a phrase that you hear a lot in the mining industry and really through every sector of the economy is the need for certainty. And, you know, it's the uncertainty created by policies and debate over the last few decades that have led to our dangerous mineral import reliance that we currently face. To attract the needed investment, companies need to know what the rules are. They need to know that they're going to have the security of tenure in place to put forth the billions of dollars of investment to help secure our mineral supply chains here at home. And they need to be able to get through the permitting process in a reasonable timeframe. You know, it's great that the Permitting Council included mining as a covered sector and they did it by rule. That can just as easily be undone by a rule. So having it in statute is, I think, critically important for that certainty.

Thank you. I'm going to direct my next question to Mr. Pi. Mr. Pi, how does H.R. 5929's approach of automatically enrolling DPA-supported projects in the FAST-41 process eliminate the kind of bureaucratic friction that currently delays projects that the federal government itself has identified as strategically essential?

Yeah, so, you know, as alluded by some of my colleagues here, it takes such an incredible amount of time to permit not only mines but also midstream processing in relation to critical materials here in the United States, right? I think someone here at some point mentioned for a mine alone in the United States on average it takes 29 years from greenfield to production. And then when you look at midstream processing, it's somewhere on the order of magnitude of 12 to 15 years. And Congressman, you know, by putting in place this bill, it can help for eligible projects substantially reduce those timelines and meet what is at this point, I think, well known to everyone on this committee, meet a critical lack of minerals that the United States needs in order to function.

Thank you. And just one more question as my time is expiring, directed to Mr. Johnson. Can you walk the subcommittee through how the SECURE Minerals Act's Strategic Resilience Reserve would provide financial tools necessary to retain and attract long-term investment in this sector?

...reserve would provide financial tools necessary to retain and attract long-term investment in this sector.

So one of the major problems with projects as we've talked about today is sort of these gaps in time between a mine, processing, sort of midstream and advanced materials, and sort of advanced manufacturing of end products, right? So each one has different timelines of when they start. What the reserve would allow for is a demand pull from independent market-making functions like traders and others to sort of form in around that with risk-reduced capital to drive towards mineral projects that are going to be most important, make that available so that the other projects downstream can form around them over time. And so that allows capital to go into those projects because they have more certainty around the execution of those projects and the offtake of them going forward.

Thank you. I see my time has expired. You can't build this nation back without the critical ingredients to do so. Critical minerals are those ingredients, and I am happy to support, proud to support the bills before the subcommittee today. Thank you, and I yield back.

Chairman Begich, the only state that has more mineral, I might debate you on that with Arizona. Mr. Compton, who ultimately owns public land?

The people.

Do you agree, Mr. Johnson?

Yes.

How about you, Ms. Hodgkins?

Yes.

Mr. Pi?

Yes.

Okay, so now, Mr. Compton, in the Domestic ORE Act, is it just a handout or is it a deregulatory common sense application to increase the acreage from five to 25 acres?

Well, it is a common sense change if we want to secure our domestic mineral supply chains. And I would also point out that one of the unique things about our system is we leverage private investment to explore for and discover minerals. It's the private sector that takes all that risk so that taxpayers do not have to.

And it's not magical, these acreages. You need, fundamentally, if you're going to drill case wells, you've got to look at those core samples, right?

Correct. Like I mentioned earlier, exploration really is an iterative process and you're following a mineral deposit where it goes. You don't know where it's going to go. So multiple drill pads and drill holes are ultimately needed. Expanding that to 25 acres will greatly speed up that process and ultimately increase the level of discoveries.

So, Mr. Compton, I believe that you believe in new technology, do you not?

Oh, absolutely, sir.

So, Ms. Hodgkins, what if I told you that there was a means of actually cleaning water when you're utilizing it within like the recovery of lithium? Would you be for that?

Could you clarify your question, sir, or repeat your question?

Yeah, so you know when you process lithium, it takes lots of water, right?

Correct.

Okay. And if you had technology that actually cleans water, wouldn't you want to use that that way?

I'm not sure I understand your question, sir.

Well, I mean, if you've got technology that actually cleans water when you're processing lithium, why wouldn't you do that? Especially if you have like the chairman said, briny underground water, like say the Harquahala in Arizona. Why wouldn't you process that lithium when you're cleaning the water at the same time?

Sir, I'm here to speak to the investments that have been made and...

Oh, I get your saltiness. So let me ask you another question. So since the public owns the land, are you in favor of the LASSO Act, which gives 10 percent of all the public lands, the royalties off of it to the Social Security Trust Fund?

Sir, I can't speak to that.

Can't speak to a lot of different things, can you? So you would be in favor of then all NGOs, non-governmental organizations, so to properly said, if you take a dollar from the federal government, you're required to actually tell us where all your money comes from, either directly or a pass-through. Would you support that?

Sir, I'm sorry, can you repeat the question?

Transparency. I'm looking for transparency. If I had a bill, and I do have a bill, that requires all NGOs who take one dollar, either through a pass-through or directly through an entity, you'd have to tell us where you got all your money. Would you be for that bill?

I think the same standard should be applied to companies. I think we should be accounting for public taxpayer dollars that are going to these companies.

Well, that's exactly what I'm asking. So you would support that clarity. If you take federal dollars, a tax dollar, you've got to tell us where you got all your money.

Public Citizen doesn't take federal dollars, so I can't speak to that. I'm here on behalf of Public Citizen.

Okay, so let me go back to Mr. Tiffany's question again. How are you so sure that you're not getting any Chinese money because you take individual money?

Sir, as I alluded to your colleague, I'd be happy to follow up with you with our records. That is above my pay grade. I don't control those records, so...

Well, I know that we will ask for that, so be prepared to get those to us.

Happy to do so.

And Mr. Compton, you're familiar with this dumping, right?

I'm sorry?

Dumping by China.

Yes.

And we've had a rare earth mine over in California for years that's gone under like several times because of this dumping process, right?

Correct.

Mr. Chairman, I'll yield back.

All right, thank you very much. I want to thank the witnesses for your valuable testimony and all of our members for their questions. The members of this subcommittee may have some additional questions for the witnesses and we will ask you to respond to these in writing. Under committee rule three, members of the subcommittee must submit questions to the subcommittee clerk by 5:00 PM on Friday, February 27. The hearing record will be held open for 10 business days for these responses. If there is no further business, without objection, this subcommittee stands adjourned.