Joe Biden order to accelerate mining may not have quick payoff

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden is relying on a Cold War-era law to boost lithium and other minerals used in electric vehicles production, but experts say the move alone is unlikely to ensure the robust domestic mining that Biden seeks as he promotes cleaner energy sources.

The White House stated that Biden’s decision, which is part of his efforts to develop alternatives to fossil fuels and tackle climate change, does not waive or suspend existing environmental or labour regulations. It also ignores the most significant impediment to greater domestic extraction of so-called vital minerals: the lengthy process of obtaining a federal permit for a new mine.

Despite this, the mining sector and congressional backers applauded Biden’s use of the 1950 Defense Production Act to boost U.S. supply of lithium, nickel, and other minerals required for electric vehicle batteries and other clean-energy technology.

According to Rich Nolan, president and CEO of the National Mining Association, his March 31 executive order is a historic step by the White House to “recognise the critical importance of minerals and push to electrify the car industry.”

But “unless we continue to build on this action” and approve new hardrock mines, Nolan added, “we risk feeding the minerals dominance of geopolitical rivals” such as China and Russia.

“We have abundant mineral resources here,” he said. “What we need is policy to ensure we can produce them and build the secure, reliable supply chains we know we must have.”

Meanwhile, environmentalists are concerned that Biden is using a wartime tool to increase mineral mining, which might pollute groundwater and threaten livestock and wildlife.

“The clean energy transition cannot be built on dirty mining,” said Lauren Pagel, policy director of Earthworks, an environmental organisation that has advocated for tougher hardrock mining regulations.

Biden’s directive orders the Defense Department to assess at least five metals as critical to national security, including lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel, and manganese, and allows actions to boost domestic supplies. Former Vice President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have both invoked the defence production statute to expedite the US response to the COVID-19 epidemic.

On minerals, Biden wants to ensure that the United States has adequate lithium and other materials for electric vehicle batteries, heat pumps, and large-capacity grid batteries. China, Australia, Argentina, and Chile supply the majority of the world’s lithium, while Russia dominates the nickel market and the Democratic Republic of Congo is the world’s top cobalt producer.

“We need to end our long-term reliance on China and other countries for inputs that will power the future,” Biden said, vowing to “use every tool I have to make that happen.”

Despite the fact that lithium reserves are found all over the world, the United States only has one working lithium mine, in Nevada. In Nevada, Maine, North Carolina, and California, new and potential lithium mining and extraction projects are in various phases of development. California has been dubbed the “Saudi Arabia of lithium” by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, and two projects there might produce lithium by 2024.

The Pentagon is authorised to spend millions of dollars under Biden’s directive to assist a variety of operations, including feasibility studies to establish the economic viability of prospective mines and the development of mineral-waste recycling programmes. According to the Pentagon, money might also be used to help existing mines and other industrial locations create important commodities. A copper mine, for example, may also produce nickel.

It’s unknown how much money will be available for mining, but the Defense Department is allowed to keep a strategic and critical material stockpile of up to $750 million on hand.

Biden’s directive, according to Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, is “a good first step toward expanding our electric vehicle battery manufacturing and infrastructure.” However, she and other politicians have stated that the United States requires a long-term strategy to boost the domestic supply chain for essential minerals.

“We should not expect any meaningful increase in American mineral production unless the president streamlines permitting,” said Wyoming Senator John Barrasso, the senior Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. During a recent hearing before a committee. “Stand up to mining opponents in his own party,” Barrasso advised Biden.

Biden’s order, according to Arizona Democrat Raul Grijalva, who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, is “misguided.” “”Fast-tracking mining under archaic standards that endangers our public health, wilderness, and holy places isn’t the solution,” he stated.

Grijalva and Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico, have presented legislation to update the 1872 statute governing hardrock mining in the United States.

(asterisk)”Our current mining law was put in place before we even knew what a car was, much less an electric car,” Grijalva explained. “Modernizing this relic of a law isn’t extreme or anti-industry; it’s just common sense.”

Over the last 150 years, mining companies have extracted hundreds of billions of dollars worth of gold, silver, copper, and other minerals from federal lands “without paying a cent in federal royalties,” according to Grijalva and Heinrich. A 12.5 percent royalty on new mining activities and an 8% royalty on existing operations would be established under the House measure.

The law would also create a Hardrock Minerals Reclamation Fund, which would require the industry to pay for the cleaning of abandoned mine sites.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, hardrock mine runoff has contaminated around 40% of watersheds in the western United States. Within 35 miles or 56 kilometres of tribal territories are substantial nickel, copper, lithium, and cobalt reserves.

Biden’s decree was slammed by indigenous people living near a proposed lithium mine in Nevada.

Day Hinkey, a member of the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone tribe and an organiser with People of Red Mountain, a group opposing the massive Thacker Pass lithium mine in northern Nevada, said, “I believe this is going to be the second coming of environmental destruction.”

Another Nevada lithium mine is being proposed near a desert ridge where a rare wildflower is being considered for endangered species status. The mine’s developer, Ioneer, located in Australia, said the projected habitat restrictions for the rare Tiehm’s buckwheat would have no impact on the mine’s operations, and that the company’s operations would not risk the species’ conservation.

Opponents argue that this isn’t true. “I believe the next one will be lithium mining,” Hinkey remarked, referring to the first environmental disaster created by the fossil fuel sector.

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