Last week, 13 House Republicans introduced the American Critical Mineral Independence Act.

"Minerals and metals are the building blocks for everything from infrastructure and health care to national defense, clean energy and electric vehicles, necessitating a reliable domestic supply chain. Unfortunately, a lack of access to economically viable mineral deposits and an inefficient federal permitting system leaves our nation increasingly dependent on foreign sources of strategic and critical minerals, and that vulnerability has been clearly exposed by the COVID pandemic. Securing our domestic mineral supply chains is essential for our environment, our communities, and all Americans, and we applaud Reps. Waltz and Gosar for their comprehensive approach to addressing these issues." - Mark Compton, executive director, American Exploration & Mining Association

"Mining is vital to Arizona and economic development in the nation as well as providing clean energy solutions for a sustainable future. We must take the proper measures to protect, responsibly extract and utilize our resources so we are not reliant on foreign sources such as China and Russia. We are sincerely grateful to members of Congress who understand this." – Steve Trussell, executive director, Arizona Mining Association

"The American Critical Mineral Independence Act is a long overdue correction to policies that ceded control over mining, manufacturing, and recycling critical minerals to undemocratic regimes that abuse human rights and exploit child labor. Critical minerals are the building blocks for advanced technologies including clean energy generation and are essential to our economic and national security. CRES thanks U.S. Reps. Michael Waltz and Paul Gosar for championing this important legislation, which will ensure a secure supply chain by promoting domestic exploration, research, development, and processing of critical minerals and will help strengthen America’s global competitiveness and energy security." – Heather Reams, executive director, Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions

"The American Critical Mineral Independence Act has the potential to play a crucial role in a clean energy economy. The production of technologies essential to a clean energy transition not only relies on a secure supply of critical minerals, but has increased demand for them in recent years. The critical minerals list includes lithium, cobalt, and graphite, necessary for energy storage; hafnium and uranium, necessary for fuel rods and nuclear fuel; and rare earth elements, necessary for wind turbines. If the U.S. aims to design, deploy, and export clean energy technology, it needs a secure supply of essential materials. It is vital to encourage domestic production of these resources to give American innovation the strongest foundation for success.
Thank you for your continued leadership to advance American clean energy. We stand ready to help pass this important legislation this Congress." - Rich Powell, executive director, ClearPath Action

"Across the federal government, we have seen strong, bipartisan recognition of the vulnerabilities that exists across our nation’s vast network of supply chains. This has given rise to a renewed focus on the importance of domestically produced minerals as the front end of the supply chain for the infrastructure, energy, defense, healthcare, manufacturing and transportation sectors. The American Critical Mineral Independence Act brings together commonsense solutions to support mining in the U.S., where highly paid and skilled miners work under the strictest environmental, health and safety standards. Bipartisan support for this legislation will further strengthen our national security and provide the foundation for economic recovery and job creation." - Rich Nolan, president and CEO, National Mining Association

"On behalf of the 400 members of the NSSGA, I would like to thank Ranking Member Westerman, Ranking Member Stauber, Rep. Waltz and the leaders on the Natural Resources Committee for introducing the American Critical Mineral Independence Act. Mining stone, sand, and gravel is essential to our American way of life and key to developing the infrastructure and public works needed to transition to a cleaner future. The development of more sustainable energy and transportation networks is impossible without the materials NSSGA members produce in 11,000 aggregates mines across the country. That is why we support today’s legislation as it will promote increased sustainable access to the aggregates needed to deliver our 21st century economy. We are especially grateful for the focus on developing the next generation of mining engineers at our universities and colleges which is essential to addressing the workforce challenges faced by our industry." - Michele Stanley, vice president of government and regulatory affairs, National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association

"The U.S. Chamber believes that securing adequate access to critical minerals domestically and from our allies is a strategic imperative. Deployment of new transportation, electric generation, and storage technologies that are heavily reliant on this supply chain are projected to increase demand dramatically in the coming decades. The American Critical Mineral Independence Act is an important and necessary step towards growing our domestic production and processing of critical minerals by creating greater permitting certainty as well as developing research and demonstration programming to foster innovation." - U.S. Chamber of Commerce

"The Uranium Producers of America applaud Representatives Waltz and Gosar for introducing the American Critical Mineral Independence Act. Critical minerals like uranium are vital to our national security and economic well-being and this legislation will take important steps to ensure we can produce and process these minerals domestically. It’s crucial we reclaim U.S. leadership in uranium production and not place our ability to produce clean nuclear energy in the hands of countries like Russia and China." - Jon Indall, counsel, Uranium Producers of America