Congress Failed to Pass Any Critical Minerals Bill During 2023-24 Sessions

A worker uses a shovel to show the raw material for the manufacture of lithium carbonate inside a salt recovery pool at the Llipi pilot Plant in the Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia on Aug. 13, 2022. The Uyuni Salt Flats, in the Potosi province, have the largest lithium reserves in the world. Gaston Brito Miserocchi/Getty Images

The nation’s reliance on imported critical minerals and rare earth elements from China was discussed in 245 committee meetings and mentioned in 95 reports during the 118th Congress’s 2022 and 2023 sessions, according to Congress.Gov.

When Congress adjourned on Dec. 20 with the midnight passage of a continuing resolution to fund the government through March, it did so without adopting any of the 415 proposed bills related to critical minerals as standalone legislation over the last two years.

While measures bolstering supply chains and processing capacity for national defense were incorporated into omnibus spending packages, such as the annual National Defense Authorization Act, only a handful of critical mineral bills were vetted in committee and a rare few presented for floor votes before dying unheard in the other chamber.

Critical minerals are just one of many issues where the 118th Congress left reams of unresolved legislation languishing in its wake, a lame-duck body now in dissipating repose before expiring when the 119th Congress convenes on Jan. 3.

There were 19,304 measures introduced in 2023 and 2024 in the Senate and House, with 399 adopted through Dec. 20, according to reviews of GovTrack.us bill tracker and Congress.gov’s Statutes At Large, which documents “all laws and resolutions enacted during each session of Congress.”

The 19,304 introduced bills were the most since the 95th Congress put more than 22,000 on the docket in 1977-78, according to GovTrack.

The 399 adopted measures, meanwhile, is the fewest to pass both chambers since at least 1973-74, which is as far back as Govtrack.us and Congress.gov chart such statistics; 233 originated in the House, 157 in the Senate, and nine were joint resolutions.

Those 2023-24 adopted measures, which “enacted 83 public laws,” are less than a third of the 1,234 that were passed in 2021-22 by the 117th Congress.

Critical minerals are rare earth elements that were a common topic in hearings the last few years because, of the top 50 critical minerals defined by the United States Geological Survey’s (USGS’s) November 2022 list, the United States can only now domestically source a handful.

These are minerals and elements needed for electronics and national defense. For instance, nearly three-quarters of the world’s lithium is produced in Australia and Chile; three-quarters of cobalt comes from the Congo; two-thirds of the world’s platinum from South Africa; and 90 percent of niobium from Brazil.

While raw critical minerals and ores can be found around the world, including the United States, China-based companies dominate processing them. China controls the global processing of at least 30 such minerals, according to a November 2023 report.

The United States is 100 percent import-reliant on, for instance, yttrium, used in alloys, radar microwave filters, and ethylene polymerization; rare earths used in smart phones and cameras; bismuth and tungsten for metallurgy; arsenic for semiconductors; barite for hydrocarbon production; antimony used in batteries; germanium and gallium used in semiconductor chips and fiber optics; and graphite used in batteries and lubricants.

On Dec. 2, the Biden administration expanded export controls on semiconductors and manufacturing equipment to China, imposing restrictions on 24 types of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, three software programs, and high-bandwidth memory chips to entities related to Chinese semiconductor manufacturing and investment companies.

In response, China announced on Dec. 3 that it was tightening restrictions on exporting minerals needed for advanced semiconductors, essentially banning export of gallium, germanium, and antimony to industries and companies linked to the United States. The next day, it added graphite to the list.

A loader shifts soil containing rare earth minerals to be loaded at a port in Lianyungang, in China's Jiangsu Province, on Sept. 5, 2010. STR/AFP via Getty Images

Stymied by Definition

Facing these trade war actions, Congress did little in its waning days before adjourning to address economic and national defense priorities it had deliberated the last two years.

It left a parcel of bills related to overall energy development on the table, including measures that can streamlined the permitting process despite a pan-industry, bipartisan rally cry.

Most notably idling for more than a year was HR 1, The Lower Energy Costs Act, essentially a blueprint for a House GOP “drill baby drill” energy policy that the Democrat-led Senate never heard in committee.

The proposed Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024—co-sponsored by Sens. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and lauded by energy and mining associations as a good first machete hack into the regulatory thicket—died unheard in the House.

A significant component of hearings was dedicated to getting the Department of Energy (DOE) and USGS on the same page in defining what is a critical mineral and how the federal government should comprehensively assess sources, supply chains, and end-uses in developing a strategy.

Among bills seeking to define critical minerals, HB 8446, The Critical Mineral Consistency Act of 2024, advanced the furthest.

Sponsored by six Republicans led by Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.), it amends The Energy Act of 2020 to require the Interior secretary to submit an annual report comprehensively assessing all global critical mineral and rare earth element resources and to harmonize minerals definitions and listings used by the DOE and the USGS.

It spiraled into boxed canyon partisanship by including copper as a critical mineral, which Democrats objected to as a “gift to the copper industry and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),” noting Resolution Copper, owned by Rio Tinto, a global mining corporation, is proposing a copper mine in New Mexico.

“And guess who owns the largest stake in Rio Tinto?” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) asked. “The Chinese government.”

HB 8446 was among the bills the House Rules Committee moved to the floor on Nov. 12. The proposal passed the House on Nov. 14 in a 245-155 vote and was never heard in the Senate where the copper inclusion nixed its passage.

A piece of ore containing rare earths is displayed during a tour of a rare earth mineral mine in California on June 29, 2015. David Becker/Reuters

November Bred, December Dead

The House Natural Resources Committee’s Energy & Mineral Resources Subcommittee on Nov. 19 advanced three critical minerals-related bills that were never heard on the floor, including HR 7807, The Intergovernmental Critical Minerals Task Force Act, sponsored by Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.).

The bill would establish an intergovernmental critical minerals task force to “assess the reliance on the People’s Republic of China for critical minerals.”

It is similar to several other bills attempting to lay the foundations for how the government will deal with critical minerals that never got to a floor vote.

Others include SB 3631, The Critical Minerals Security Act of 2024, which would require reports on critical mineral and rare earth element resources around the world and outline the development of strategy for the development of advanced mining, refining, separation, and processing technologies.

Co-filed by six sponsors led by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), it was adopted by the Senate on Nov. 19 and never heard in the House.

Also advanced that same day by the House subcommittee was SB 3631’s companion bill, HB 7662, and HR 10005, “The Expedited Appeals Review Act” (EARA), sponsored by Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.), which would have decluttered the Department of Interior’s Board of Land Appeal process that only saw 34 of 290 cases resolved “on actual merits” in 2023 with just two decisions favoring appellants.

The backlog-building continued into December, with further deliberation of new go-nowhere bills while those already heard pend expiry.

On Dec. 11, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party’s Critical Minerals Policy Working Group on Dec. 11 adopted three more measures aimed at mitigating China’s dominance of the critical minerals and rare earth supply chain.

The bipartisan panel, led by Reps. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) and Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), introduced the Earth Sciences and Cooperation Enhancement Act of 2024, which would have appropriated $3 million in authorizing the interior secretary to sign memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with foreign governments to promote collaboration on critical mineral supply chains.

The working group endorsed a proposed amendment to the Export Reform Control Act of 2018 co-sponsored by Wittman and Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), which establishes export controls on “black mass,” a mixture of components in recycled lithium-ion batteries, and “swarf,” a byproduct of the metal machining industry.

It also advanced a proposed Critical Minerals Workforce Enhancement Act, co-filed by Reps. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) and Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) which, among other provisions, amends the Immigration and Nationality Act to allow those with critical minerals experience to apply for a national interest waiver as part of their EB-2 visa petition.

Not only didn’t these December-filed proposals advance further, but they weren’t enumerated.

If Congress wants to hear these bills, and literally hundreds of others, again, they will need to be repackaged, re-numerated, and re-filed.

The good news is, after hundreds of hours of hearings and nearly 100 reports, many of these measures—the vast majority bipartisan—should move quickly after the new Congress is seated.