Securing America's Critical Minerals Supply Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. CASTOR of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding the time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 3617. I wish we were here discussing how we could lower the cost of living. I wish in the Energy and Commerce Committee, where we are controlling the time, we could discuss a bill that will lower electricity prices for our neighbors back home. Or even as the title of this bill suggests, it is related to critical minerals, but when you read the bill, Mr. Speaker, the text of the bill, there is nothing related to critical minerals. It is kind of a sneaky little bill.

Actually, if we pass this bill, it is quite likely that energy bills and electricity bills are going to go up. It is likely that this will lead to higher costs across the entire economy. Electric bills are already sky-high.

American families last year were suffering from, on average, about 13 percent increases in their electric bills. They were much higher in many places across the country.

In Florida, they passed along a $6 billion rate increase. They were calling it the largest rate increase and the highest rate increase in the history of the country.

What have we seen out of this administration?

We have seen just the sabotage of affordable, reliable, clean, and cheaper energy coming onto the grid, and now this.

This is an important topic. I have gained a little bit of knowledge not just from the Energy and Commerce Committee, but I serve on the bipartisan Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. My colleague, Republican Rob Wittman, and I led a critical minerals working group in the last Congress.

It is clear the United States is way too reliant on China. Beijing has weaponized the critical mineral supply chain. That is why Democrats leaned into it and passed important policies in the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act to spur domestic manufacturing and policies that enabled us to work with our partners and allies across the globe to counter China. We didn't do anything like threaten Greenland or insult Canada. We thought it was important to work together to counter all of the coercion from the Chinese Communist Party.

There have been major investments in domestic critical mineral supply chains, breaking the dependence on China. The United States energy sector relies on a broad portfolio of critical minerals, so we have to have a resilient supply chain for the advanced technologies and the innovation in energy generation, storage, and transmission.

The International Energy Agency estimates that mineral demand for clean energy technology will almost triple by 2030 and quadruple by 2024. Therefore, the development of diverse, resilient, and sustainable critical mineral supply chains, free from Chinese Communist Party influence, will be fundamental.

However, this bill just doesn't do it. As I said before, it is a sneaky, sneaky little bill.

It was introduced the last Congress. It hasn't gone anywhere because it doesn't solve any problem. It doesn't get to the heart of the matter.

Mr. Speaker, if you look at what they want to do, they say: We are going to amend the Department of Energy's mission to include securing the supply of critical energy resources--not minerals--and it directs the DOE to conduct ongoing assessments to develop strategies to strengthen critical energy resource supply chains--not minerals.

Again, this vague definition risks diverting resources away from critical minerals actually and towards--and here is where we will yank the curtain back on what this really is about. It is about everything that this administration has done to serve the fossil fuel industry, the dirty fuel industry, from canceling clean energy projects that would help lower electric bills that would bring cleaner and cheaper resources onto the grid, projects like offshore wind that is fully permitted and ready to go and provide resources we can rely on during winter storms.

This administration has canceled large-scale transmission projects to help bring the additional load we need onto the transmission system, just to make the grid more resilient in America as we suffer through these extreme weather events.

We cannot afford these diversions. We cannot afford the Republicans continuing to sabotage cleaner, cheaper energy in America. This kind of sneaky maneuver reminds me of what they have done on tariffs this entire Congress that we finally overcame.

Everyone kind of understands now that they are paying more at the grocery store because of the President's arbitrary tariffs. I know he likes to say: Oh, other countries are going to pay these tariffs, but all of the experts, everyone knows, prices are higher because of these import taxes.

In fact, tariffs are at their highest level in about 100 years. That is how high they are. The Budget Lab at Yale says on average households are paying probably $1,700 more than they would have without these crazy tariffs that the President wields like a tool of retribution and fear.

That is not how you--you have got to keep the American people and their pocketbooks central rather than you are threatening Greenland. He has to have Greenland. He is going to insult Canada and put tariffs on Canada.

Thankfully, later this afternoon, we are going to debate and try to remove some of these arbitrary added taxes on the American people and lower the cost of living. That is why your shoes, your clothes, and, yes, electric equipment and metals are costing more right now. It is costing everybody way too much more.

Here is what they did here in the House of Representatives. They actually said: We are not going to be able to debate a removal of tariffs in the House of Representatives, the people's House. They were able to get away with it for a year, almost a year after the President's liberation day. They snuck it into a rule so we wouldn't have any debate on the high cost of living driven by these import taxes.

Well, last night, late last night in the House of Representatives-- while you were probably watching ice skating in the Olympics--because three brave Republicans crossed over and joined all of the Democrats, we are going to have that debate.

We are going to have that vote because what is central to people's lives right now is their pocketbooks. They are just being hammered, not just by their electric bills, but also their grocery bills and everything they buy.

We have a responsibility in this House to look out for the people back home rather than serve the special interests. This Congress has been all about serving the special interests, and that includes the folks who really are pushing this bill.

It is not about critical minerals. If it were, then it would actually be in the text of the bill, but it is not. It is about, again, giving a gift to political supporters, the polluters who are running the show and the agencies that have all too much influence here in the Halls of Congress while electricity prices are up well over 13 percent and 80 million Americans are struggling to pay their electric bills. I say Americans deserve a whole lot better. They deserve a whole lot better than what they are getting from this Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to defeat this sneaky little bill, and let's get on to the debate on how we improve the cost of living and serve the people who sent us here.

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