National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. AMODEI. Mr. Chairman, only in Washington would we be having a debate about whether 4 years is okay or 2 1/2 years is okay when we're talking about a jobs bill. And only in Washington would we talk about cherry-picking when we're talking about the vast majority of the production that is sought for permitting, and the vast number of jobs that is created is not--I want to make this very clear so the record is clear--is not handled within 3 years.

Now, it may be true that it's less than the Bush administration, which is fine. Let's assume that it is.

But when you're talking about primarily issues that deal with Western lands whose States are at or near a majority of Federal ownership, and you want to talk about the middle class, and you want to talk about generating jobs, and you want to say, hey, by the way, you can take as long as you want; we don't know if you're going to have a job in that industry or not because there are no rules.

Only in Washington would we be defending no time limits whatsoever. To say 30 months is a bad idea, with language that says, if both sides agree, you can take longer, is not an unreasonable environmental or administrative stance.

Nobody wants a nice, crisp denial in 30 months; and by the way, if the application should be denied, then I presume that it will be denied.

But what we're seeing now, and you can find no legislative history for this anywhere in any of the applicable environmental regulations and statutes, of which all still apply, there is nothing that says, by the way, if nothing else works, just see if you can drag it out as long as possible and hope that that capital goes away. Because when you talk about permitting attractiveness, it's not what these folks are those folks say, it's where the capital goes. And the capital isn't going here.

And the strategic interest of having to go to China for your rare-earths or having to go to other countries to produce those is not apparent.

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