Efforts to cut lead times for US mineral projects must go beyond NEPA reform.
New white paper by @cookpj.bsky.social and myself lays out a menu of options: enhanced mineral mapping $$, reforms to General Mining Law, improved BLM + Forest Service regs, and more.
thebreakthrough.org/issues/energ...
Statement by @thebti.bsky.social with my remarks applauding the newly introduced SECURE Minerals Act of 2026 by Rep. Wittman, Rep. Moolenaar, Sen. Shaheen, and Sen. Young establishing a U.S. Strategic Resilience Reserve Corporation with $2.5B in initial capital.
thebreakthrough.org/press/releas...
Full bill text, section-by-section summary, and an explanatory one-pager can be found here:
www.shaheen.senate.gov/news/press/s...
The big picture from this menu of ideas is that the permitting and regulatory landscape for mining is much larger than just NEPA, and so the reform conversation has to look beyond NEPA alone for ways to speed project timelines.
For our full set of ideas:
thebreakthrough.org/issues/energ...
- Agencies could set pre-approved financial assurance amounts for developers for the mine reclamation bond process, letting developers skip lengthy estimation of reclamation costs + waiting for agency review/approval by paying higher pre-set contributions with a safety margin.
4th, regulatory fixes:
- Raise max acres for notice-level exploration activity from 5 to 25 acres.
- CATEXs for small changes to mine plans (changes to operational sequencing etc)
- rescind regs forcing projects to occupy every 2.5 acres of mill site for that part of mill claim to be valid
3rd, some helpful Congressional measures:
- Funding siting consultations for processing plants
- cost-sharing for 3rd-party contractors to collect field data for NEPA reviews
- Direct agencies to proactively collect programmatic enviro review data for sites with promising deposits
2nd, improving the General Mining Law is contentious but useful:
- Let projects swap flexibly between mine claims + mill site claims
- Outlaw mine claim patenting (letting holders buy claimed federal land for cheap)
- Lifting arbitrary limits on # of mill site claims per mining claim
Exploration work in Canada + Australia suggests strong returns for public interest. One Australian effort spent ~$35 million in 9 yrs producing 16 new deposits, with another program (Exploration Incentive Scheme) estimating $31 in economic revenue per $1 spent.
amec.org.au/wp-content/u...
1st, public $$ for mineral exploration measurably cuts lead times by letting developers jump to later stages of development. Congress should extend funding for USGS mapping, expand USGS work to include drilling + feasibility work on minerals at abandoned mine sites.
Broad NEPA reform will unquestionably be helpful to the mining and processing sector, but an effective approach to reducing lead times for projects in this sector necessarily will require industry-specific reforms to be part of the conversation.
Efforts to cut lead times for US mineral projects must go beyond NEPA reform.
New white paper by @cookpj.bsky.social and myself lays out a menu of options: enhanced mineral mapping $$, reforms to General Mining Law, improved BLM + Forest Service regs, and more.
thebreakthrough.org/issues/energ...
"The SECURE Minerals Act is a crucial part of efforts to modernize and strengthen U.S. critical minerals policy, and will establish the market conditions America needs to compete with China across these vital supply chains.”
thebreakthrough.org/press/releas...
"The bill would establish a robust + varied toolkit for the dvlpmt of independent, liquid, free + competitive commodity markets, and combat China’s market dominance in minerals"
@skandaamarnath.bsky.social @arnabdatta.bsky.social @employamerica.bsky.social
www.employamerica.org/expanding-th...
This addresses key needs we flagged in our July 2025 report:
- de-risking new domestic mines/refineries
- developing market infra to improve liquidity/transparency of mineral transactions
- adding flexible rapid response tools to U.S. minerals strategy.
thebreakthrough.org/issues/energ...
The Strategic Resilience Reserve would be a wholly owned govt corporation empowered to:
- contract financially with critical mineral producers/processors
- stockpile minerals
- conduct global market risk, transaction, and production analysis
www.axios.com/2026/01/15/c...
Statement by @thebti.bsky.social with my remarks applauding the newly introduced SECURE Minerals Act of 2026 by Rep. Wittman, Rep. Moolenaar, Sen. Shaheen, and Sen. Young establishing a U.S. Strategic Resilience Reserve Corporation with $2.5B in initial capital.
thebreakthrough.org/press/releas...
Given today's absurd U.S. Greenland envoy news, re-upping an older thread by me on why Greenland's mineral resources simply wouldn't be useful to the U.S. anytime in the near-to-medium term.
That's on top of the sheer idiocy of continuing to pester European allies with such stunts, of course.
New work from my colleague @cookpj.bsky.social as the year winds down: what unconventional mineral resources could help take the US from import dependence to surplus in certain critical commodities?
Byproduct recovery, waste mining, new deposit types:
www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/could-the-...
"Beautiful clean coal" with Chinese characteristics:
"Environmentally leading, towards the green future" (环保先行绿色未来) is painted over the carbon anode furnaces at Xinjiang Qiya Aluminum & Power--powered by 6 onsite coal units (2160MW) with another 2x660MW on the way.
Folks, look at above commenter's replies on their account to see what a bot looks like.
China is also the clear world leader in building coal plants and consumed 4482 million metric tons coal in 2022--more than the rest of the world combined and 12x the 373 million tons of US consumption last year.
Further reading, by yours truly.
Video in first post also downloaded off of vjshi and edited by yours truly.
www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/greenwashi...
See the plant yourself at these coordinates (44.860, 89.039).
Yes, those are coal mines + more coal power units east of the Xinjiang Qiya smelter, which uses a direct coal conveyer from the pit just west of the "East Hope coal transport" marker.
Such green leadership.
A message board post from shortly after the smelter first opened in 2013: "There is no salary for the first two months, and the first month's salary is not paid until the third month, which means that you will be imprisoned for two months' salary."
issuu.com/horizonadvis...
Xinjiang Qiya was also one of the first aluminum producers identified as engaging in coercive labor transfers targeting Uyghur people:
- located in and a shareholder of an industrial park that has employed hundreds of transferred workers
- helping coordinate transfer programs
"Beautiful clean coal" with Chinese characteristics:
"Environmentally leading, towards the green future" (环保先行绿色未来) is painted over the carbon anode furnaces at Xinjiang Qiya Aluminum & Power--powered by 6 onsite coal units (2160MW) with another 2x660MW on the way.
P.S. Shoutout to another major unconventional mineral resource opportunity not covered in this piece: magnesium metal from seawater.
cen.acs.org/materials/St...
Additionally, seafloor minerals. A good reminder that outside-the-box means not being terrestrially constrained either!
US minerals strategy can't afford to limit itself only to conventional deposits + existing techniques.
The public sector can play a key role by supporting added byproduct recovery via grants, and new deposit types via mapping + lab studies.
www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/could-the-...
Opportunities for new deposit types:
- mining coal areas not for coal, but for rare earths between coal seams
- analyzing historic rock core libraries
- geologic hydrogen
- uranium extraction from shales
- liquid solution ("in-situ") extraction of nickel/cobalt/REEs/vanadium/manganese
For byproducts, Peter highlights:
- gallium recovery at an operating US zinc smelter and alumina plant alone could make the US a net exporter
- iron mines could co-produce rare earths
- improving tellurium recovery from its current ~10% during milling
