Troy Downing: “I thank the gentleman from California for yielding. Montana has many mottos, official and unofficial: The Last Best…”

“I thank the gentleman from California for yielding. Montana has many mottos, official and unofficial: The Last Best Place, Big Sky Country, the Treasure State. This last one recognizes the rich natural resources we have in the great State of Montana right underneath our feet. Up until recently, Biden's anti-American policies have allowed foreign actors to dominate mineral markets, and this has stifled domestic energy production to the detriment of Western States like Montana. I had the opportunity to return home last week, and I heard about these issues firsthand from miners across the Second District. In fact, I probably spent more time below ground than I did above it. Actually, I really enjoyed that. I am going to talk first about Stillwater County. In Stillwater County, the miners of the Sibanye-Stillwater Mine are hard at work producing the only platinum and palladium that is mined in America. Years of feckless trade policy on the part of the Biden administration has allowed malign foreign actors like Russia to flood commodities markets, crippling smaller producers like Sibanye-Stillwater. Russia, which represents more than a third of the market, has been subsidizing and dumping these critical minerals, causing artificially low commodity prices.…”