Critical Mineral Consistency Act of 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. WITTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the Critical Mineral Consistency Act. This measure is an essential step forward to secure our supply chains, and in so doing to protect our national security and economic competitiveness.

Today, critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, and graphite are the building blocks of everything from advanced weapons systems to consumer electronics. Every advanced economy depends on these resources, but the challenge we face is that these minerals are in limited supply and overwhelmingly sourced from China.

Our dependence on the Chinese Communist Party for these materials puts our energy independence, technological leadership, and national security at risk. China has deliberately developed its control over these supply chains to build leverage against Western economies. It has been developing these capacities for decades, and it is already using it.

China placed export controls on gallium, germanium, and graphite just last year, and it announced new controls on antimony in August. They will continue to put us at risk unless we act.

Currently, the United States Geological Survey and Department of Energy each maintain separate lists of critical minerals leading to inconsistency in policy and program funding. These lists used different standards to determine what made a mineral or material critical, and this misalignment led to crucial elements like copper being listed by one agency while being ignored by the other.

This bill is a simple but significant step forward to streamline interagency coordination, improve efficiency, and ensure that Federal efforts to stockpile, recycle, and develop alternative supplies of these minerals are focused on the same priorities.

We must ensure that our Nation has the resources it needs to remain a global leader in defense, energy, and innovation. We cannot be at the mercy of China that uses forced labor and destroys environments around the world. My colleagues would like for China to continue to use forced labor. They would like for us to continue to see them increase the production of copper. They would like to see us continue to advocate for human rights violations and using forced labor and also to make sure, too, that they are destroying environments.

Thank you to the folks on the other side of the aisle for your stand on human rights, not so much.

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