Critical Mineral Consistency Act of 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. STAUBER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 755, the Critical Mineral Consistency Act, introduced by my good friend from Arizona (Mr. Ciscomani). The Energy Act of 2020 took a significant first step, recognizing the importance of critical minerals and critical materials to the American economy and our strategic national security.

While the respective lists developed by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Department of Energy have been helpful in ensuring we have policies in place that increase and stabilize our access to these critical minerals and materials, they are not hitting the mark and require further direction from Congress.

The two agencies use different criteria and do not take into consideration the same parameters, sometimes leading to different lists. Notably, the USGS list does not account for forward-looking data and analysis, such as international demand and growth trajectories, which the DOE list does. Currently, DOE automatically adopts any minerals USGS deems critical for their own critical materials list, but it doesn't work the other way around.

H.R. 755 fixes this and amends the Energy Act of 2020 to automatically place DOE's deemed materials on the USGS list.

Under this legislation, each agency would still be responsible for reviewing elements under their unique purview based on their own technical expertise. It would simply streamline interagency coordination and ensure USGS is taking into account the full picture and the best, most complete information when developing its critical minerals list.

This legislation is a small yet important step in ensuring we have access to the critical minerals and materials that are necessary for our national security, along with our ability to compete and win in this 21st century. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill.

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