Political Quotes

“our national security depends upon minerals that enable nearly all of the defense and weapons systems used by the U.S. Armed Forces. These minerals are also critical to the clean energy, electronics, and medical industries. Yet, for how critical these minerals are, the vast majority of our domestic supply is imported from China in order to reduce cost. In fact, China supplies 90 to 95 percent of our rare earth oxides, a special class of critical minerals. We have seen how dangerous this dependence can be--in 2009, China choked off the supply of these materials to the rest of the world, restricting exports by 72 percent and causing the prices of rare earth elements to skyrocket here in the U.S. I am pleased to join Senators Murkowski, Udall, and Heller as the leading sponsors of bipartisan legislation to prevent future supply shocks of these critical minerals that are the key to our defense, energy, electronics, and medical industries by expanding U.S. production and supply of these important substances. This legislation-- the Critical Minerals Policy Act of 2013--builds on two bills that were introduced in the 112th Congress and which were referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. S. 383, the Critical Minerals and Materials Promotion Act of 2011, which I cosponsored, was introduced by Senator Mark Udall. S. 1113, the Critical Minerals Policy Act, was introduced by Senator Murkowski.…”