Jeff Bingaman actually said...

"The most fundamental question to consider today is how we should go about determining exactly which minerals and materials are critical?"

"But the main problem here is it hasn't been profitable for U.S. farms to produce these minerals."

"I think my colleague Senator Murkowski referred to bureaucratic intransigence as the reason why we do not have a production of these rare earth elements."

"I don't really believe, based on what I've seen that the problem, the core problem here is the permitting process."