Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. In closing, we have heard in this discussion that we should have a sweeping definition, every mineral should be under the definition of a critical mineral, and that we should not be beholden to foreign sources if we don't do that. Well, I agree in many ways. We should not be. This bill doesn't really deal with that issue because, if the authors were really concerned about restrictions to the supply, they would make the definition of ``critical'' and ``strategic minerals'' much narrower. We would not give up our environmental protections. We would not give up our public participation. We would not give up our legal protections when, in fact, there is no danger to the Nation's supply of this mineral. The problems are really that we are now broadly including everything under this definition, and the bill that is in the Senate under--I think it is Senator Murkowski--has a much more limited definition of what is a strategic and critical mineral. I urge the authors here, the proponents, to really amend this bill so that we can all work together on this to really restrict the two very specific occasions of when we would enable a change in the protections that we already have under NEPA. Right now, everything is included. This eviscerates all of our protections. I urge a ``no'' vote. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.”