Bruce Westerman: “Mr. Speaker, if you read the bill, there is absolutely nothing in the bill about allowing foreign mining companies to…”

“Mr. Speaker, if you read the bill, there is absolutely nothing in the bill about allowing foreign mining companies to come into the U.S. and exploit our Federal lands, to bypass all Federal regulations, and create scenarios like may have happened in some other country. Those are just scare tactics to continue this idea of not in my backyard. We all want these things. We all recognize that we need these things. We have to have these critical minerals. We have to have these rare earth elements, but the mindset is that we will just get them from somewhere else. We will ship off our environmental issues to some other country and let them deal with it instead of dealing with them here in America, where we, again, have the most stringent rules, have the highest expectations, protect human rights, protect the environment, and promote occupational health and safety. Show me some place in the world that does that better than we do. It is certainly not Communist China, where all of these rare earths and critical minerals are coming from right now.”