Biden To Invoke Cold War Powers To Bolster Mining In U.S.

President Joe Biden is prepared to use a Cold War-era law to boost U.S. production of critical minerals essential for electric vehicle batteries and defense equipment.

Should the president move forward with the plan, he will add battery materials to a list of materials protected under the 1950 Defense Production Act (DPA). The move would give mining firms access to a $750 million fund established under the DPA and used to “to carry out all of the provisions and purposes” of the act, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

Use of the DPA however would not reverse current regulations and legal hurdles facing mining projects across the country.

Minerals such as cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel, graphite and zinc are essential for the production of electric vehicle batteries, battery storage facilities, solar panels and wind turbines. Currently, China, Russia and other hostile nations dominate the global production of such materials.

“Unless we continue to build on this action, and get serious about reshoring these supply chains and bringing new mines and mineral processing online, we risk feeding the minerals dominance of geopolitical rivals,” National Mining Association President and CEO Rich Nolan said. “We have abundant mineral resources here. What we need is policy to ensure we can produce them and build the secure, reliable supply chains we know we must have.”

But the Biden administration has put roadblocks in the way of domestic mining production in the form of environmental regulations and permitting over the last 14 months.

The Interior Department shut down a Minnesota mining project that had been approved under the Trump administration which would have produced copper, nickel, cobalt and platinum. The agency said the project hadn’t undergone an efficient environmental review.

“It was purely a political decision,” Minnesota Rep. Pete Stauber, the top Republican on the Natural Resources Energy and Mineral Subcommittee, said. “We need to secure our critical minerals, we need energy and mining dominance in this nation.”