Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the Critical Mineral Consistency Act. This measure is an essential step forward to secure our supply chains, and in so doing to protect our national security and economic competitiveness. Today, critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, and graphite are the building blocks of everything from advanced weapons systems to consumer electronics. Every advanced economy depends on these resources, but the challenge we face is that these minerals are in limited supply and overwhelmingly sourced from China. Our dependence on the Chinese Communist Party for these materials puts our energy independence, technological leadership, and national security at risk. China has deliberately developed its control over these supply chains to build leverage against Western economies. It has been developing these capacities for decades, and it is already using it. China placed export controls on gallium, germanium, and graphite just last year, and it announced new controls on antimony in August. They will continue to put us at risk unless we act. Currently, the United States Geological Survey and Department of Energy each maintain separate lists of critical minerals leading to inconsistency in policy and program funding. These lists used different standards to determine what made a mineral or material critical, and this misalignment led to crucial elements like copper being listed by one agency while being ignored by the other.…”