National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. AMODEI. Mr. Chairman, having a real debate on this issue is something that I wholeheartedly support.

We probably ought to start with the facts. First of all, you've heard much about the overly broad definition. H.R. 761 deliberately contains a broad definition of strategic and critical minerals. Here are some of the reasons why:

In 2006, prior to the worldwide economic downturn, there was great concern over the future availability of platinum, group metals, and copper. At the time, projections in demand for copper indicated that by 2016, 30 large-scale copper deposits would have to come online to meet worldwide demand. At the time, there were not enough copper deposits in the permitting pipeline to make up for the projected downward curve.

And you have heard much about sand and gravel. Even sand and gravel and other construction mineral materials can be in short supply or not available, as the USGS discovered in 2009 during the great California shakeout. What they discovered during that was that, in its assessment of scope and damage and materials needed for construction in the event of a large-scale earthquake, USGS discovered there were not enough sand, gravel, and other construction materials available in the region to meet the affected area's reconstruction needs.

So when you talk about the ability to foretell the future and you say, well, we should just limit things to the i-u-m ending minerals, I say you probably ought to think about what it takes to get a bill through Congress to respond to those things because it's less timely than the Federal permitting process.

Much has been made about getting rid of NEPA review. You know, when all else fails, read the bill. Take a look at page 7. And when you look at lines 4 through 9 there, these are not the words that you would be using if you were trying to get rid of the NEPA process. Starting up at page 6, line 24, it says, ``The lead agency with responsibility for'' permitting. Then you go down to page 7, line 5, it says, ``if the procedural and substantive safeguards of the permitting process alone,'' they must find that those are there. Look at line 5, ``if the procedural'' are found. That is unlimited discretion in an executive branch agency.

So don't tell me that we're getting rid of NEPA, because the bill would have been written differently if we were trying to get rid of NEPA.

I want to also point your attention to the base of this is an infrastructure executive order from the current administration that talks about avoiding duplication of efforts. I also want to point out some words in there. It says, ``infrastructure projects in sectors, including surface transportation''--oh, by the way, I think that has something to do with sand and gravel--``aviation''--runways I think have some of those elements that people don't think are critical--``ports, waterways, water resource projects, renewable energy generation, electricity transmission, broadband, pipelines''--hello, Keystone. See how good it's done them.

If this is an attempt to skirt environmental regulations, somebody probably should have written it differently. We didn't. It is simply not the truth.

And I want to talk about fair return on all this taxation stuff. In my State, which is 85 percent owned by the Federal Government, the Federal Government gives $22 million a year to the rural counties in Nevada for PILT. And I know some of my colleagues from east of the Mississippi don't understand what that acronym means. It's payment in lieu of taxes, $22 million. What this bill is really about is about jobs.

The final piece is this. This does not require anybody in the Federal permitting agencies to say, Yes, you can have your permit in 30 months. It requires an answer in 30 months. Nobody seeks to apply this to get a nice, crisp ``no'' in 30 months, which is why the language is in there, Mr. Chairman, that says, by the way, if both sides agree, you can have longer to process it.

Now, when you bounce that off the claims of 3 1/2 and 5 years, under existing administration permitting timelines, asking them to set a 30-month timeline is not something which undoes environmental responsibility, rapes the landscape, and outdoes the taxpayers out of their normal revenues that are there.

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