Securing America's Mineral Future: Unlocking the Economic Value Beneath Our Feet (House Small Business Committee hearing, June 24, 2025)
Summary
The printed record of a House Committee on Small Business hearing, Securing America's Mineral Future: Unlocking the Economic Value Beneath Our Feet, held June 24, 2025, Small Business Committee Document Number 119–015. Chairman Roger Williams and Hon. Hillary Scholten gave opening statements. Four witnesses testified: Aaron T. Dowd, Chief Executive Officer of Rare Earth Salts, Beatrice, NE; Harvey Kaye, Executive Director of U.S. Critical Materials; Ken Mushinski, President and Chief Executive Officer of Rare Element Resources, Littleton, CO; and Dr. Laura Stoy, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Rivalia Chemical, Lemont, IL. The appendix carries their prepared statements and letters from the Alliance for Mineral Security, Ecological Economics, the National Science Foundation, the Outdoor Alliance, ReElement Technologies and Robert Anderson.
Summary drafted by a model from the document's text below and checked by script against that text before publication. It is a navigation aid, not a reading of what the document proves. Where AI is used
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“Securing America's Mineral Future: Unlocking the Economic Value Beneath Our Feet (House Small Business Committee hearing, June 24, 2025).”
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SECURING AMERICA’S MINERAL FUTURE:
UNLOCKING THE ECONOMIC VALUE BENEATH
OUR FEET
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS
UNITED STATES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
HEARING HELD
JUNE 24, 2025
Small Business Committee Document Number 119–015
Available via the GPO Website: www.govinfo.gov
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
60–853 WASHINGTON : 2025
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HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS
ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas, Chairman
PETE STAUBER, Minnesota
DAN MEUSER, Pennsylvania
BETH VAN DUYNE, Texas
JAKE ELLZEY, Texas
MARK ALFORD, Missouri
NICK LALOTA, New York
BRAD FINSTAD, Minnesota
TONY WIED, Wisconsin
ROB BRESNAHAN, Pennsylvania
BRIAN JACK, Georgia
TROY DOWNING, Montana
KIMBERLYN KING-HINDS, Northern Marina Islands
DEREK SCHMIDT, Kansas
JIMMY PATRONIS, Florida
NYDIA VELÁZQUEZ, New York, Ranking Member
MORGAN MCGARVEY, Kentucky
HILLARY SCHOLTEN, Michigan
LAMONICA MCIVER, New Jersey
GIL CISNEROS, California
KELLY MORRISON, Minnesota
GEORGE LATIMER, New York
DEREK TRAN, California
LATEEFAH SIMON, California
JOHNNY OLSZEWSKI, Maryland
HERB CONAWAY, New Jersey
MAGGIE GOODLANDER, New Hampshire
LAUREN HOLMES, Majority Staff Director
MELISSA JUNG, Minority Staff Director
(II)
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CONTENTS
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Hon. Roger Williams ................................................................................................ 1
Hon. Hillary Scholten .............................................................................................. 2
WITNESSES
Mr. Aaron T Dowd, Chief Executive Officer, Rare Earth Salts, Beatrice,
NE ......................................................................................................................... 5
Mr. Harvey Kaye, Executive Director, U.S. Critical Materials ........................... 6
Mr. Ken Mushinski, President and Chief Executive Officer, Rare Element
Resources, Littleton, CO ...................................................................................... 8
Dr. Laura Stoy, PhD., Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Rivalia Chemical,
Lemont, IL ............................................................................................................ 9
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Mr. Aaron T. Dowd, Chief Executive Officer, Rare Earth Salts, Beatrice,
NE .................................................................................................................. 35
Mr. Harvey Kaye, Executive Director, U.S. Critical Materials .................... 38
Mr. Ken Mushinski, President and Chief Executive Officer, Rare Element
Resources, Littleton, CO ............................................................................... 41
Dr. Laura Stoy, PhD., Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Rivalia
Chemical, Lemont, IL ................................................................................... 47
Questions for the Record:
None.
Answers for the Record:
None.
Additional Material for the Record:
Alliance for Mineral Security Letter ............................................................... 51
Ecological Economics Letter ............................................................................ 57
National Science Foundation (NSF) Letter .................................................... 66
Outdoor Alliance Letter ................................................................................... 73
ReElement Technologies Letter ....................................................................... 77
Robert Anderson Letter ................................................................................... 79
(III)
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SECURING AMERICA’S MINERAL FUTURE:
UNLOCKING THE ECONOMIC VALUE
BENEATH OUR FEET
TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 2025
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:08 a.m., in Room
2360, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Roger Williams [chair-
man of the Committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Williams, Stauber, Meuser, Alford,
Finstad, Bresnahan, Downing, Patronis, Scholten, McIver,
Cisneros, Morrison, Tran, Simon, Olszewski, and Goodlander.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Good morning, everyone. I now call the
Committee on Small Business to order. And without objection, the
Chair is authorized to declare recess of the committee at any time.
I recognize myself for my opening statement.
Welcome to today’s hearing entitled Securing America’s Mineral
Future: Unlocking the Economic Value Beneath Our Feet. Thank
you to all our witnesses for joining us today. We appreciate you
taking time away from your busy businesses to participate in to-
day’s conversation. So today, we will examine how to secure our
mineral supply chains against hostile foreign adversaries such as
the Chinese Communist Party and how America’s small businesses,
national security, and ability to create new, innovative technologies
rely on these essential materials.
Rare earth minerals and the broader category of critical minerals
used in the manufacturing process of batteries, magnets, com-
puters, and medical devices, to name a few, are vital to the func-
tioning of the American economy. Unfortunately, far too long, bur-
densome regulations have made the production and refining of rare
earth and critical minerals difficult in America, contributing to
China’s dominance in this market.
Now, to combat the CCP’s monopoly, President Trump issued
several executive orders aimed at bolstering domestic mineral pro-
duction and reducing our reliance on foreign adversaries. Cur-
rently, the Mountain Pass Mine in California is the only active
mine in the United States that extracts rare earth minerals. As a
result, approximately 80 percent of the critical minerals used in
America are supplied from foreign sources. The lack of domestic
production undermines our national security and hinders small
business innovation.
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Thankfully, the Trump administration is working to unleash
American energy production, safeguarding national security and al-
lowing American small businesses to compete on a global stage.
Small businesses are at the forefront of American innovation. The
enhancement of the defense industry that provides our homeland
relies on groundbreaking technology often developed by small busi-
nesses that need rare earth minerals to produce.
I want to thank our witnesses again for their contributions to
end U.S. reliance on foreign rare earth elements and critical min-
erals. We look forward to your testimony.
With that, I will yield to the distinguished Ranking Member
today from the great state of Michigan, Ms. Scholten, for her open-
ing remarks.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you
to our incredible witnesses and thank you for your patience. We
had a very important caucus meeting this morning. It kept me tied
up. I am so grateful, Mr. Chairman, that we are holding this hear-
ing this morning. Critical minerals are pivotal to our nation’s clean
energy transition and national security. On this, we agree there is
a lot of common ground. That is why I am so grateful that we are
having this hearing.
These minerals are an essential component of our smartphones,
electric vehicles, and, importantly, military hardware. Yet the sup-
ply chains for these 50 materials often run offshore and through
the influence of our adversaries, most notably China, as you men-
tioned. That is why federal policy should redirect our critical min-
eral supply chains through our shores and the shores of our allies,
not our enemies.
Every critical mineral is unique. Some, like aluminum, are rel-
atively easy to extract and process into usable material. Others,
like certain rare earth elements, are less concentrated in ore.
Therefore, they require advanced, complex refinement methods
that are developed by and accessible to only a handful of countries
and companies. And crucially, some critical minerals just aren’t de-
posited within U.S. territory, meaning they can’t be mined here.
The diversity of these materials, their properties, and extraction
and refinement techniques means that the avenues to onshoring
them must be equally diverse.
It is a complex problem, and we need a complex solution to make
these minerals accessible. In other words, Mr. Chairman, we can’t
only mine our way out of our critical mineral needs. The federal
government must prioritize and maintain investments in recycling,
waste recovery, friend shoring, and industrial policy if our nation
is to reclaim control over our critical mineral supplies.
In particular, I want to mention the invaluable boosts to domes-
tic critical mineral sourcing, processing, and component manufac-
turing found in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and
the Inflation Reduction Act, two landmark pieces of legislation
signed under the previous administration. Democrats stand ready
to defend and expand upon the massive long-term investments the
federal government has already made in this space. We want to
make it better.
I would also be remiss if I didn’t highlight the downsides of min-
ing when not done properly. When a new mine is opened, America
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gains another source of minerals, yes, but it often loses unique
pristine land that would have yielded far more economic activity
and value through tourism, hunting, fishing, and other outdoor
recreation business. In my family, we are avid outdoorsmen and
women, year-round anglers. This matters deeply to us. Commu-
nities near mine often have to contend with new large competitors
for wastewater resources and pollution of what remains with min-
ing waste and byproducts. Sometimes, new mines even run rough-
shod over long-standing treaties and agreements with neighboring
tribes. It is vital that we, as federal policymakers, consider the
tradeoffs of expanding mining and the harm it can pose to nearby
towns, tribes, and small businesses.
It is also important to remember that hard rock mining in Amer-
ica is not governed by an outdated law from the 1870s. You heard
me right. Not the 1970s, but the 1870s. Nearly 150 years ago. Long
before the concepts of land preservation and environmental protec-
tion and even consumer automobiles entered the mainstream.
Before we consider any changes to mining regulation, we have to
reform the underpinning mining law to further balance the inter-
ests of miners and other industries and make mining activities
more sustainable for the environment. To ensure that we can all
continue to use these vital resources on shoring our critical mineral
supply chain is a complicated issue intertwined with many other
topics and policy areas. But I have trust in this committee, our wit-
nesses here today, and our shared commitment to making sure that
the vast majority of these critical earth minerals are not sourced
only through our competitor.
I look forward to the hearing, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Gentlelady yields back. And I will now in-
troduce our witnesses.
Our first witness here with us today is Aaron Dowd. Mr. Dowd
is the chief executive officer of Rare Earth Salts in Beatrice, Ne-
braska. Mr. Dowd has more than two decades of experience leading
efforts at the intersection of global business strategy, government
affairs, and national security. Mr. Dowd previously served as chief
of staff in the U.S. Senate and supported high-level policy work at
the Atlantic Council and Department of Energy. Mr. Dowd earned
a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Duke, Home of
the Blue Devils, right, University, and Bachelor’s degree in Polit-
ical Science from Marquette University. Thank you for being with
us today, and we look forward to our conversation.
Our next witness here with us today is Mr. Harvey Kaye. Mr.
Kaye is the executive director of U.S. Critical Materials in Salt
Lake City, Utah. Mr. Kaye has over 45 years experience in finance,
strategic planning, and executive leadership across both public and
private companies. Mr. Kaye has served as Founder, Chairman,
and now Director of Zero Gravity Solutions, an agricultural bio-
technology firm. Mr. Kaye also held various leadership roles at
Latitude Solutions, a company specializing in water remediation
and treatment. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Mar-
keting from Temple University. So we are glad you are here today
and look forward to your testimony.
Our next witness is Mr. Ken Mushinski. Mr. Mushinski is the
President and chief executive officer of Rare Element Resources in
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Sundance, Wyoming. Mr. Mushinski has over 30 years experience
in corporate development, mergers and acquisitions, and regulatory
navigation across the mining and nuclear energy sectors. Mr.
Mushinski previously served as vice president of corporate plan-
ning and acquisitions for General Atomics Technologies Corpora-
tion. Mr. Mushinski earned a Master’s degree in Business Adminis-
tration and Bachelor’s of science in Mechanical Engineering from
San Diego State University, where the Aztecs are. And we appre-
ciate you being here today.
And I now recognize the Ranking Member Ms. Scholten from
Michigan to briefly introduce our last witness.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Laura Stoy is an environmental engineer and the founder
and CEO of Rivalia Chemical, an Illinois startup developing a
novel method to chemically recover rare earth elements from coal
ash and other mining waste. Rivalia Chemical patented the process
and has been working on commercializing it since 2022. Addition-
ally, the firm enjoys access to the Argonne National Laboratory in
Lamont under the Department of Energy’s Lab-Embedded Entre-
preneurship Program, LEAP. Previously, Dr. Stoy served at the
Environmental Protection Agency as a National Science Founda-
tion intern fellow. At the EPA, Dr. Stoy worked on an environ-
mental assessment of rare earth extraction from mining waste, pre-
cisely the process that she is developing and using now. While at
school, Dr. Stoy also helped create an app named RocketJudge,
which automates judge work for competitions such as fashion
shows, barbecue festivals, and professional conferences. It is safe to
say, Mr. Chairman, that Dr. Stoy is a serial innovator. Dr. Stoy
holds a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Chemistry from Vanderbilt
University and a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from Georgia
Tech. Welcome, Dr. Stoy.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Welcome again to all of you. And then,
before we begin to recognize the witnesses, we do have a few rules
around here. Got to go over the rules, all right? And I would like
to remind all of you that your oral testimony is restricted to 5 min-
utes in length. If you see the light turn red in front of you, it
means your 5 minutes has concluded, and you should wrap up your
testimony. If you keep talking, you will hear me do this. That is
a kind way of saying, quit talking. Okay? And so, and also on an-
other note, you periodically will recognize or will see some of our
panel move in and out. That is because we got other hearings going
on. It has nothing to do with whether you said the right thing or
the wrong thing. We will be moving in and out, but you will see
that.
So with that in mind, I now recognize Mr. Dowd for his 5-minute
opening remarks.
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STATEMENTS OF MR. AARON T. DOWD, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF-
FICER, RARE EARTH SALTS; MR. HARVEY KAYE, EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR, U.S. CRITICAL MATERIALS; MR. KEN MUSHINSKI,
PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, RARE ELE-
MENT RESOURCES; AND DR. LAURA STOY, PHD., FOUNDER
AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, RIVALIA CHEMICAL
STATEMENT OF AARON T. DOWD, CEO, RARE EARTH SALTS
Mr. DOWD. Chairman Williams, Congresswoman Scholten, and
distinguished Members of the committee, thank you for the invita-
tion to testify on the critical issue of securing America’s mineral fu-
ture. I appear before you today representing Rare Earth Salts, a
Nebraska-based small business at the forefront of addressing one
of our nation’s challenges.
The United States confronts an unprecedented threat to our eco-
nomic sovereignty and national security through China’s control of
the rare earth elements supply chain. Rare earths are a set of 17
elements in the periodic table that play a critical role in our na-
tional security, energy independence, environmental future, and
economic prosperity. These elements are far more than mere com-
modities; they form the backbone of modern technological advance-
ments. From powering batteries and electric vehicles to enabling
medical equipment, military systems, smartphones, and wind tur-
bines, rare earths are foundational to the innovation driving our
technological civilization.
The age of technology is indeed the age of critical minerals with
vast geopolitical implications. The need for securing both domesti-
cally sourced rare earth elements and domestic rare earth proc-
essing infrastructure is vital.
Today, China controls 90 percent of the global downstream rare
earth market, impacting the rest of the world’s supply chain and
giving them significant control in restricting America’s access to
materials vital for manufacturing and defense capabilities. This
was not always the case. From the 1960s until the 1990s, the U.S.,
specifically California’s Mountain Pass mine, led global production.
However, China’s deliberate industrial policy systematically cap-
tured market control, creating the vulnerable supply chain we face
today. Though China’s dominance in the rare earth market has
prompted global efforts to find alternative sources and processes to
produce these critical compounds, producers outside of China con-
tinue to face formidable challenges, struggling to compete with the
highly competitive pricing of China’s domestic market.
The challenge extends beyond supply security to economic com-
petitiveness. China’s current market dominance stems from their
large-scale use of Solvent Extraction, which were developed and
implemented in the U.S. in the 1960s. These processes require hun-
dreds of separation stages and generate excessive chemical waste.
Western companies utilizing this proven method face higher pro-
duction costs due to necessary environmental and worker protec-
tions. This cost differential has created a market failure where
Western innovation cannot compete with Chinese production, de-
spite superior technology and environmental stewardship. For
small businesses like ours, this represents both a challenge and an
extraordinary opportunity to innovate and lead.
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Founded in 2012 by Dr. Joseph Brewer, Rare Earth Salts exem-
plifies how America’s small business innovation can address stra-
tegic national challenges. Rare Earth Salts addresses the global
need for a cost-effective, sustainable, and environmentally friendly
rare earth separation process.
Prior to developing our proprietary processes, we evaluated the
strengths and weaknesses of every separation process used since
the 1940s. That allowed us to invent a revolutionary electro-
chemical process from the ground up based on sound basic chem-
istry. The separation process advancements by Rare Earth Salts
represent industry-changing solutions demanded by the rare earth
supply chain to profitably compete with Chinese production and
maintain a low environmental footprint.
Rare Earth Salts has been working closely with the U.S. govern-
ment and has received multiple grants and awards for its separa-
tion technologies from the Department of Defense and the Depart-
ment of Energy. These private-public partnerships demonstrate
how federal investment in small business innovation can yield stra-
tegic returns for national security while building defense industrial
capacity. Rare Earth Salts recently received an award from the De-
partment of Defense to increase production of heavy rare earth ele-
ments, specifically Terbium.
The rare earth challenge represents more than supply chain vul-
nerability; it is a defining opportunity for American small busi-
nesses to lead the next generation of critical mineral production.
Companies like Rare Earth Salts exemplify how American innova-
tion can compete globally.
Supporting domestic innovation in mineral processing can help
ensure the United States does not merely secure its mineral future
but leads the world in sustainable, competitive production of these
essential materials. By supporting small businesses developing in-
novative separation technologies, we can reestablish America’s
leadership in this critical sector.
Rare Earth Salts stands ready to contribute to America’s mineral
independence. The mission requires collective effort. With a robust
policy framework that acknowledges the strategic importance of do-
mestic critical mineral production, American small businesses can
help transform this challenge into a competitive advantage. The
technology is ready. The market need is undeniable. The national
security imperative is urgent. We need to now unlock the economic
value beneath our feet and secure America’s mineral future.
Chairman Williams, Congresswoman Scholten, and distinguished
Members of the committee, thank you again for the invitation to
testify, and I look forward to your questions.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Thank you.
I now recognize Mr. Kaye for his 5-minute opening remarks.
STATEMENT OF HARVEY KAYE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, U.S.
CRITICAL MATERIAL
Mr. KAYE. Thank you Mr. Chairman and Members of the Com-
mittee for allowing us to testify today. This is an issue that has
taken 15 years to come to the point that we are at right now. We
have all talked about Chinese dominance. It is actually 90 or 95
percent dominance in terms of its ability to process rare earths.
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Their concerns about the environment are not the same as ours. It
is no longer acceptable to spend 20 or 29 years to get a project on-
line.
To that end, U.S. Critical Materials controls 339 claims covering
approximately 11 square miles in a place called Sheep Creek, Mon-
tana. Montana in the past has been known as the Treasure State.
Our objective is to make it the Treasure State again.
To that end we have a two-point point of our spear to accomplish
those goals. First, is the rare earths that encompass our deposit
have been considered now the highest-grade rare earths ever found
in America, averaging 9 percent up. We also have a very robust de-
posit of gallium. Gallium is a mineral, a critical mineral that has
3,800 military applications. We now face a geopolitical situation
that we are all aware of. It is in the front page news. To that end,
we have expanded a great amount of the critical minerals and rare
earths required for missiles, for radar, for advanced aircraft, the
F47, et cetera. We cannot be dependent upon the Chinese to be our
supply of these materials.
Therefore our focus and the focus I hope of this committee is to
assist companies such as ourselves to accomplish those goals. What
do we need to do that? We need help in accelerating permitting.
Today, as the congresswoman stated, there is regulations that we
are dealing with since 1870. Okay? We have made an attempt to
fix that through Fast-41. Okay? Now, it requires cutting the red
tape, unchaining the American entrepreneurial spirit in order to
accomplish the goals. We have it here. It should be found in Amer-
ica.
We also have now entered into a venture with one of the pres-
tigious American National labs called Idaho National Lab. Dr. Rob-
ert Fox is an acknowledged expert in the world of developing proc-
esses and technologies to process these kinds of minerals. We did
a full-court press with them, and at the end of a year, they have
accomplished the goal of setting forth the flow diagrams and the
methodology for a process that we call an electrochemical mem-
brane reactor. It is environmentally conscious. It has the ability to
process rare earths in an efficient environmental manner.
To that end, therefore, we are working very hard to cooperate
with the government. This committee can help us and the entire
industry enormously. We need to do what we did with Sputnik. We
need to do what we did with the Manhattan Project. This country
can no longer have the Chinese knee on our neck. Therefore, as a
group, we need to work together, government-private partnerships.
And what is required? What is required is help in permitting. What
is required is for us to establish a permanent market for the
offtake so the Chinese can no longer utilize price manipulation to
hurt our domestic marketplace. And we need to work together as
a team in order to make the United States critically mineral inde-
pendent and sovereign again. And so with that, I yield with 22 sec-
onds left.
Chairman WILLIAMS. You are going to go far in this company.
Thank you for the testimony.
I now recognize Mr. Mushinski for his 5-minute opening re-
marks.
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STATEMENT OF KEN MUSHINSKI, PRESIDENT AND CEO, RARE
ELEMENT RESOURCES
Mr. MUSHINSKI. Chairman Williams, Ranking Member
Scholten, and esteemed Members of the committee, thank you for
the opportunity to address this committee on issues of vital impor-
tance to this nation-securing critical minerals and, in my case spe-
cifically, rare earths, for our National defense and high-tech indus-
tries and supporting small businesses in meeting that need.
RAR is a publicly traded company with a critical rare earth de-
posit and state-of-the-art innovative rare earth processing and sep-
aration demonstration plant in Wyoming. We have invested over
$170 million in developing our USGS-recognized world-class rare-
earth deposit and proprietary separation technology.
I know you are all well-versed in why rare earths are critical
components in our modern technology, essentially, in everything
from smartphones, electric vehicles, wind turbines, and defense
systems. Our rare earth elements are enablers to the evolution of
our high-tech world and vital to our American defense system.
It is also widely known that China dominates the rare earth in-
dustry and is taking deliberate action to control the entire proc-
essing and manufacturing supply chains where rare earths are uti-
lized for downstream products. This has created an untenable Na-
tional and economic scenario. Chinese dominance and manipulation
of the rare earth extraction, processing and separation, and perma-
nent magnet production is an existential risk to our modern world.
Further, this dominance allows China to influence global prices,
making it risky for competitors to invest.
Small businesses like RER have unique technologies and the po-
tential to innovate and contribute to domesticating the rare supply
chain from mine to magnets. However, our small companies face
challenges that have distinct needs and must be addressed to en-
sure a sustainable domestic rare earth supply chain.
As an example of the obstacles faced by RER, we have completed
our resource confirmation and commenced the arduous NEPA per-
mitting of the Bear Lodge Project in 2011. We spent over $30 mil-
lion and many years progressing that effort, an effort that was ulti-
mately derailed through Chinese market manipulation whereby
rare earths supplied by the Chinese flooded the market, and prices
bottomed out. As a result, RER’s access to capital quickly dis-
appeared and, ultimately, resulting in cessation of operation and
almost bankrupting our company.
Realizing we could not compete with predatory Chinese market
dominance, RER, in conjunction with its now majority shareholder
and affiliate of General Atomics, pivoted to proving our novel and
proprietary rare earth material separation technology so that we
and potentially other domestic rare earth companies would not be
reliant on China to economically and efficiently separate the rare
earth concentrates produced here in the United States. Our goal is
to compete with China in rare earth production and also create a
path for processing and separation that is economically and envi-
ronmentally superior—adhering to all U.S. Environmental regula-
tions while supplanting the environmentally detrimental and costly
steps in conventional Chinese technology.
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With that challenge in front of us, RER, with partial funding
from the Department of Energy and the state of Wyoming, have
constructed and will soon begin operating our over $66 million
demonstration plant that is intended to prove our separation tech-
nology on an industrial scale. Even with the expected success from
this plant’s operation, without additional support from the govern-
ment, RER and other innovative small businesses face monumental
hurdles. Specifically, access to capital requires a certain level of
market stability that is thwarted by Chinese ability to manipulate
the rare earth market.
Small businesses like RER, unfortunately, find themselves in a
paradox whereby investors and potential industry supply chain
partners require certainty in the markets, and yet this is not pos-
sible with the ongoing threat of Chinese market interference.
We believe addressing this nascent market’s unique challenges,
especially for small and innovative businesses, requires a multi-
faceted approach to market stabilization. RER encourages Congress
to pursue policies and support funding to support small businesses
that are innovating and progressing a secure domestic rare supply
chain, including government purchasing to establish strategic
stockpiles as potentially envisioned, but with the $2.5 billion crit-
ical minerals included in the recently passed reconciliation pack-
age, government grants to unlock industry innovation, government
incentives and guarantees to encourage private investment in loans
and permitting reform to bring surety to project timeliness.
We believe these types of initiatives will remove the significant
market obstacles and barriers to progress for small businesses en-
gaged in rare supply chain so that collectively, we can become a so-
lution to a very real and present danger to our nation’s defense and
high-tech industries.
I am honored to be here today to share with you RER’s unique
experience as a small business in the rare earth industry, and I
look forward to addressing your questions. Thank you very much.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Gentleman yields back.
And now recognize Dr. Stoy for her 5-minute opening remarks.
STATEMENT OF LAURA STOY, FOUNDER AND CEO, RIVALIA
CHEMICAL CO.
Ms. STOY. Chairman Williams, esteemed Member Scholten,
Members of the committee, thank you so much for the opportunity
to speak today. It is an honor to discuss this issue that is critical
to the future of U.S. mining and materials, securing our critical
mineral supply chains for national defense, technological innova-
tion, and manufacturing strength.
My name is Dr. Laura Stoy, and I am the CEO and founder of
Rivalia Chemical Company. At Rivalia, we are pioneering new
chemical extraction technologies to cover valuable rare earth ele-
ments from industrial wastes, including coal fly ash and other coal
combustion byproducts, phosphogypsum, acid mine drainage, and
mine tailings. Our patent-pending process extracts rare earths
from these materials and separates them from their major ele-
ments in a single step. A significant challenge in traditional mining
processing for rare earths. Using this method and by using wastes,
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we can avoid the environmental and economic costs of mining while
minimizing hazardous waste generation.
The U.S. has approximately 2 million metric tons of rare earths
and reserves. However, there is far more locked in our waste mate-
rials. Researchers at UT Austin estimate that there are 11 million
metric tons of rare earths and coal ash alone. Oak Ridge National
Lab found millions of tons of rare earths in phosphogypsum. Duke
University did research that found that abandoned mine drainage
releases 500 to 3,400 tons of rare earths annually through acid
mine drainage. These waste streams are often overlooked, but they
present an opportunity to both recover rare earths and remediate
environmental damage in local communities.
There are currently no companies producing rare earths from
waste at scale in the U.S. right now, though I will note to this com-
mittee that there are many small businesses and startups address-
ing this opportunity space.
Rivalia’s focus is on mining rare earths from waste, but I want
to emphasize that it is likely that this is just one component of a
broader rare earth element supply chain along with traditional
mining. Building a broader, more diverse supply chain for rare
earths will make our system overall more resilient to disruption
and manipulation by our adversaries.
To achieve supply chain stabilization, the U.S. can’t only mine.
We can’t mine our way out of this. We also need to separate, find,
materialize, and produce the finished products—the permanent
magnets.
China’s dominance in rare earths comes from its control over this
entire supply chain, which includes processing minerals both from
its own mines and from international partners. To compete glob-
ally, U.S. rare earth producers must have robust midstream proc-
essing. This requires a skilled workforce, innovation, and efforts to
derisk the market for private investors, especially given the price
volatility caused by China’s outsized market influence. Our market
also must be cost competitive. China has subsidized their supply
chains, enabling their businesses to offer products at significantly
lower costs. Competing with that will require American ingenuity
and innovation to lower our production costs and make U.S. rare
earths attractive to both customers and investors.
I founded Rivalia after completing my PhD in environmental en-
gineering at Georgia Tech, where I was fortunate enough to receive
both government and private funding, the National Science Foun-
dation’s Graduate Research Fellowship, as well as funding from
Georgia Power, one of the major utilities in the Southeast. This
funding allowed me to develop the core technology behind Rivalia.
Since then, we participated in TechStars, a prestigious startup
accelerator which included raising venture capital. This also al-
lowed us to secure a future pilot with Southern Company. We have
also raised non-dilutive funding through the National Science
Foundation’s SBIR program, which is helping us to de-risk our
technology and validate it with other materials. We also have ob-
tained funding through the Department of Energy EnergyWerx
Vouchers Program as well as the Department of Energy Lab-Em-
bedded Entrepreneurship Program called LEAP. And through that,
we have gained access to critical expertise and facilities at Argonne
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National Lab. This support has been crucial to scaling our tech-
nology and positioning it for high market impact.
For hard tech startups like Rivalia and my colleagues here, gov-
ernment funding is essential. It provides early-stage capital that is
needed for high-risk project with immense potential but limited in-
vestor interest. Government funding acts as a third-party valida-
tion, attracting private capital and allowing us to make tangible
progress on critical milestones. Hard tech ventures require signifi-
cant upfront capital from prototyping, testing, and compliance, and
without government support, companies like ours would face much
greater challenges in bringing new game-changing technologies to
market.
The U.S. is at a critical juncture in securing its mineral future.
We need to embrace innovation, leverage public and private fund-
ing, and develop new technologies to ensure a robust and diverse
critical supply chain here. Government support for startups like
Rivalia are essential for maintaining U.S. leadership and tech-
nology, national security, and economic competitive—competitive-
ness.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Gentlelady yields back. We will now move
to the Member questions under the 5-minute rule, and I will recog-
nize myself for 5 minutes.
Throughout the Biden and Harris administration, the govern-
ment has burdened small businesses with endless regulatory red
tape. These regulations have slowed business-building projects and
mining efforts. And I think we can all agree that we should get the
government out of the way to let small businesses do what they do
best. Now, Mr. Kaye, can you provide us with some examples of
how the government has stood in your way?
Mr. KAYE. We have had these claims for better than 35 years.
They—our approach is to do this with a great amount of environ-
mental consciousness. Therefore, we deal with the U.S. Forest
Service. The response many times is slow to get back. There has
been a great amount of progress, however, recently with the advent
of Fast-41. We have filed an application for that. And what it does
is it holds the various agencies that are responsible for approvals
to a very strict timetable.
Our plan is to be able to extract from our deposit literally this
year, to be able to, in effect, stand on the steps of the White House
and or Congress with a bag of gallium rare earths that were found
in Montana, processed with American technology, and available for
the defense of this country and indeed the free world. So it is start-
ing to change. And we are seeing the effect of that because there
is now a recognition that there is an issue, and we can’t wait 15
or 20 years to bring a deposit online. So we feel that things are get-
ting much better, and for that, we are grateful.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Good. Let’s book that date, okay?
Mr. KAYE. Yep.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Domestic mining of rare earth elements
and critical minerals faces numerous challenges, and one of which
is that America has few known large deposits of pure rare earth
elements. Despite these challenges, the United States is well posi-
tioned to quickly build its rare earth refining capacity. So, Mr.
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Dowd, can you please explain the innovative approach your com-
pany has taken in the refining process and what impact those inno-
vations have on the entire mining industry?
Mr. DOWD. Thank you, Sir. We believe the enormous demand
for non-Chinese rare earth supply will only be met with the re-
imagining of innovative, nontraditional clean separation tech-
nologies. Our processes have a significant advantage over existing
separation technologies in an industry that has not seen much via-
ble refining innovation in more than three-quarters of a century.
Our technology significantly reduces the cost of producing rare
earths from concentrate, be it from recycled material, rare earth
elements, specific mining operations, or as a byproduct of a mining
operation. Our patented processed capital expenditure and oper-
ating expense are highly cost-competitive versus traditional rare
earths refining. Our processing time from concentrate to first fin-
ished products is days with very limited separation steps versus
months and dozens of steps with solvent extraction. Rare Earth
Salts provides an immediate opportunity to reestablish domestic
commercial production. The capability of our technologies has been
thoroughly validated.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Okay, thank you. And now, quickly in the
time I have got left, rare earth mining extraction is a heavily regu-
lated industry that we have talked about today. Well, rare earth
mines must comply with a substantial number of regulations in-
tended for traditional mines. Rare earth mines also must navigate
Nuclear Regulatory Commission requirements. So Mr. Mushinski,
how is your business dealing with this complicated web of regula-
tions? How can it be simplified?
Mr. MUSHINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We do have a NRC
possession license because as with most REE ore, it does have some
naturally occurring thorium and uranium in it. So, we do have a
license. That was quite a detailed and lengthy process. They, the
NRC, did their own environmental assessment in addition to what
is required by the EPA for a mine. It was costly, expensive and
took a significant amount of time. We do have that license. That
license is valid through 2027. However, we, like others, have a de-
posit that is on National Forest Service. We also have invested and
had various meetings with the permitting council and are pro-
gressing toward Fast-41 permitting of our mine. That (Fast-41) is
a much welcome improvement to the permitting process, and I will
admit it is not a Trump administration policy, it is a previous ad-
ministration that started Fast-41, but it is this administration that
has advanced it into the mining sector. And we are very appre-
ciative of that, and that is looked at as being helpful to our proc-
essing.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Gentleman yields back.
I now recognize the Ranking Member for her 5 minutes of ques-
tioning.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Stoy, I am won-
dering if you could just start out and elaborate on the recovery
process Rivalia is developing. Talk to us about how you are getting
these minerals out of waste.
Ms. STOY. Absolutely. Thank you so much for the question. So
Rivalia’s patent pending technology employs a recyclable ionic liq-
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uid in a closed-loop process that selectively extracts rare earths
from the starting material. So again, this starting material might
be coal ash, bauxite residue, phosphogypsum, mining tailings, acid
mine drainage magnets, for really any rare earth element-rich
waste is in our realm. So, we have some physical separation proc-
esses optimized to isolate higher rare earth element contained frac-
tions within the original material. This helps improve our down-
stream efficiency. And depending on the material we also might
have some chemical pretty treatment steps.
But our core innovation is that our method both extracts the rare
earths from the starting material and does the separation from the
bulk in one single step. We use this using—or we do this using pro-
prietary chemistry to selectively bind with the rare earths while
leaving most of the elements behind. This approach achieves higher
selectivity than conventional acid leaching methods, reducing
chemical consumption and waste generation. Following extraction,
the chemical chemicals are recovered and recycled through the sys-
tem, so they are ready for reuse, while the residuals are condi-
tioned for beneficial use applications.
We generate two valuable rare earth element product streams.
Scandium oxide product, which is a valuable rare earth used in
solid oxide fuel cells, high-performance aluminum alloys, and spe-
cialized lighting applications. Second, we produce a mixed rare
earth element concentrate containing multiple elements, including
neodymium, cerium, lanthanum, terbium, europium, yttrium. All of
these have significant roles in different applications that we have
talked about already.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. Thank you. For my second question and stick-
ing with you, Dr. Stoy, how much of the rare earth in existing
products currently are we recycling?
Ms. STOY. Thank you for the question. To my knowledge, there
is very limited recycling of rare earths in the U.S. I don’t know of
any companies doing this at scale right now. For some products, it
is fundamentally challenging to extract rare earths from them. You
know, consider consumer electronics, you know, your cell phone,
your laptop is not designed to easily pull the rare earth elements
out. You also have to collect them from the consumers. And that
is not trivial. This is the same for EV motors. Permanent magnets
in the motors will need to recover those. Industrial wastes don’t
have that kind of spatial distribution issue. In that way, they are
almost more like a mine. But there is no one really recycling rare
earths at this time.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. So, as a follow-up to that, can you describe the
potential for recycling to add to the rare earths supply that we
have here?
Ms. STOY. Yeah, absolutely.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. And be as specific as you can. I know it is not
currently being done, so it is hard to sort of, you know, get into
specifics. But in terms of percentages.
Ms. STOY. Yeah, there is a lot of potential here. It is hard to
quantify and be forward-looking here. There is a researcher at
Ames National Lab in Iowa, Dr. Kenneth Nlebedim, and one of the
things he suggested was in the next 10 years, more than 25 percent
of the demand for rare earths could come from recycling efforts.
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Ms. SCHOLTEN. Okay, very good. I agree with your comments
about, you know, the pressing nature of this problem requiring a
bit of an all of the above approach. Traditional mining, as well as
recycling. How would you characterize added returns created by
new mines individually, but as well as opposed to recycling or in
contrast to recycling?
Ms. STOY. Yeah, I think all of the above is really the answer
here. You know, we, right now, we have one active mine. Would it
be helpful if we had more? I can imagine so, but it is hard to say,
right? Is five new mines the new—is the right answer. 50? 500? At
a certain point, we do reach diminishing returns. Frankly, you
know, what all of these minds do really need is refining. And I
know some of my colleagues here are talking about integrating that
into their processes. And that midstream or refining, in my opin-
ion, is much more important and a higher priority than opening a
new mine. Because if we don’t have that refining capacity, we are
sending our concentrate abroad for refining. And 99 percent of the
time, that is going to be in China. We don’t have—we won’t have—
you know, we could have dozens of mines, but if we are still send-
ing the concentrate abroad, we haven’t solved the problem.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. Okay, thank you. Very enlightening. I yield
back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Gentlelady yields back. I now recognize
Mr. Stauber from the great state of Minnesota for 5 minutes.
Mr. STAUBER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. The develop-
ment of America’s abundance of resources is critical, and rare earth
minerals are of deep importance to me in my district. The Min-
nesota’s 8th Congressional District holds the biggest untapped cop-
per-nickel find in the world. The previous administration banned
224,000 acres of it and took two leases away from a mining com-
pany that they had since 1966. Just last week, Talon Metals in
Tamarack, Minnesota, brought an exploratory drill section: 28 per-
cent nickel. The highest in the world. I don’t know if you all knew
that. Talon Metals, Northeastern Minnesota, drill hole, 28 percent
nickel. Nowhere in the world can we do that? Northeastern Min-
nesota is ready, able, and willing to deliver these critical minerals
to this great nation for our strategic national security.
I sit on the Natural Resources Committee. There was a Democrat
witness when we were talking about mining. I said to her, I said,
‘‘You say it is too wet in Minnesota to mine. It is too dry in Arizona
to mine. Where would you like us to mine?’’ And her answer, she
said it out loud, ‘‘Nowhere.’’ We have an anti-mining political agen-
da in this nation that is crippling our security, our strategic na-
tional security. Northeastern Minnesota mines the iron ore that
makes 82 percent of this nation’s steel that helped us win two
world wars. And we continuously have to battle for these good
union jobs in this town. The prior administration was the most
anti-mining administration in the history of this country.
We will follow all environmental and labor standards. Allow us
to do so. And when we do that, we will bring the economic engine
to our communities. We will bring good-paying jobs to the iron
range of Northern Minnesota, which jobs start at $90,000 a year
without overtime, health benefits, et cetera. The median household
income for the district that I represent is under $74,000. One min-
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ing job can make up for that. This is how important domestic min-
ing is to our nation, to our strategic national security, to our econ-
omy.
And, ma’am, you are right. Recycling is part of it. That is part
of the concern. And bring it on. But we are—the demand is so
much more right now.
There are 17 rare earth minerals, right? China just stopped sell-
ing six of their critical rare earth minerals to the world. 15 of the
19 industrial mines in the Congo are owned by the Chinese com-
munist party, who use child slave labor. We can’t accept that any-
more. We should never enter into a memorandum of understanding
with the communist country of China for our rare earths. Never.
Yet the past administration did.
We have the opportunity to mine in this country. We can mine
in Minnesota. We can mine in Alaska. We can mine in Utah. We
can mine in Nevada. We can mine in California. We can mine in
Washington. We can mine in Pennsylvania. And the list goes on
and on. We have to have the political will to do it. It will be an
economic boom for our communities. The jobs. What an opportunity
do we have? Let’s not miss it. And it starts with all of us under-
standing the importance of mining and the value that it can bring
to our economy and our strategic national security, the state of
Minnesota, and Northeastern Minnesota. I want you to understand
the iron range and the Duluth complex, which is the copper, nickel,
and cobalt—we have the opportunity to bring it to the nation.
I am so proud of each and every one of you here to talk about
this opportunity. Mr. Chair, we cannot miss this opportunity. Our
nation is depending on it. Our small businesses are depending on
it. Our strategic national security is depending on it, and our com-
munities and our minors need it. And I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Gentleman yields back. I now recognize
Ms. McIver from the great state of New Jersey for 5 minutes.
Ms. MCIVER. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you to our Ranking Member for convening this hearing today. I
want to thank each witness for being here today with us.
Critical minerals are the foundation of our national security and
economic resilience. And we must ensure that Congress supports
the responsible development, processing, and reuse of these essen-
tial resources. Small businesses, from clean technology startups to
equipment manufacturers to recycling innovators, are the engine of
American creativity. They must be at the center of any National
critical mineral strategy. That means leveling the playing field, en-
suring fair access to capital, and providing consistent federal sup-
port to help them compete with larger and often state-subsidized
global players. We must continue to build on the historic invest-
ments made through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the In-
flation Reduction Act, not roll them back. These programs support
responsible development, promote environmental innovation, and
empower the small businesses driving the next generation of Amer-
ican innovation. America’s energy future, security, and economic
leadership depend on it.
I have two questions, and these are both for Dr. Stoy. Some of
my colleagues from across the aisle argued that repealing clean en-
ergy investments made under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
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and Inflation Reduction Act will save money for our nation and its
small business owners. Can you speak about how repealing the in-
vestments made under these laws will cost us in the critical min-
eral—minerals industry?
Ms. STOY. Absolutely. Thank you so much for the question. I
will say I am not an expert on the Inflation Reduction Act. But my
understanding is that, you know, as we seek to build out the entire
supply chain in the U.S. as we seek to, you know, bolster manufac-
turing, we need to have incentives all the way down the line, espe-
cially given that we are dealing with a non-market player. The IRA
includes many provisions that help bolster that. And if we cripple
the end of the process by removing customer-consumer incentives,
we are terminating the line. And ultimately, what that means is
that our products will not end up being sold in the U.S. They won’t
end up being refined in the U.S. They will go abroad.
Ms. MCIVER. Thank you for that. Given how far behind we al-
ready are in securing critical mineral supply chains, wouldn’t fur-
ther funding rollbacks be a national security risk, in your opinion?
Ms. STOY. Yes, I would agree with that.
Ms. MCIVER. Thank you. With that, I yield back.
Mr. MEUSER. [Presiding.] Gentlelady Yields back. I now recog-
nize myself for 5 minutes.
Folks, we have got a very serious discussion here. I think Mr.
Kaye brought that out very well initially, and it is certainly being
repeated over and over. So we got to figure out what we can do
about it. Something tells me you all have some good ideas and per-
haps a written plan, white paper, on what, not just what we need
to do over the next 10 years, but even over the next 2 or 3 imme-
diately, right? We have one mining company of rare earths ele-
ments in the United States, MP in Southern California, one proc-
essing refinery, I believe owned by MP. Now, China provides 70
percent of the world’s rare earths. What are we doing, right? So
this is a very important meeting, and hopefully, this is just the be-
ginning.
I have a bill, and frankly, looking at it now, I think this just
scratches the surface offering for rare earth elements production,
tax credits $9 within a ton—on a ton of coal for refuse, $20 per kg
on REEs extracted and sold from coal, $3 tax credit per barrel on
brine water that we are about to introduce and et cetera, a couple
of others. Now, I am not sure that is going to do the trick. It might
be a step in the right direction. Mr. Kaye, what are your thoughts
on some of my comments here?
Mr. KAYE. I think you hit the nail on the head. It goes this way.
15 years it has taken for us to do nothing while the Chinese have
dominated. They and their government have been extremely sup-
portive of their ability to create world dominance in this. And it
was part of a strategy because they think in that context.
The first thing we need to think about is creating a stockpile.
Why a stockpile? If we have a strategic oil reserve, then we need
to have a strategic critical mineral reserve. What we intend to do,
just to comment on it, is we intend to deliver a reasonable amount
of gallium by the end of this year. That means that we will stock-
pile the other rare earths, perhaps on a military base, which is part
of an executive order that said let’s use the Pentagon, let’s use
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military bases. We are in discussions regarding a project such as
that today.
Secondly, with a little bit of government support that Idaho Na-
tional Labs has agreed that they can cut a year off the develop-
ment of the plant that we are putting online. That will be a full-
blown demonstration plant, at least 2 tons a day, and we can start
delivering actual rare earths to our Defense Department, to various
other. They talk about the Stargate project. We have allocated $500
billion artificial intelligence, medical applications. Nobody has ever
talked about medical. Well, guess what? You can’t have diagnostic
equipment. You can’t have the new technologies that are coming
out without rare earths.
Mr. MEUSER. So let’s hear now, Mr. Mushinski, I am going to
ask you on the type of tax credits, incentives, and regulatory re-
form, some of your thoughts on what we need to do to springboard
and blast off, if you will, or at least get off the ground.
Mr. MUSHINSKI. Thank you, Congressman. For me and for
RER, and I assume the other businesses here, it is market stability
that is important. We have tried to start up businesses before, and
the Chinese are very aware. The Chinese are very smart people.
They can flood the market and deplete prices and drive us out of
business. You will recall that even MP, Mountain Pass, at the time,
was driven into bankruptcy by that exact point. So, I agree a stra-
tegic stockpile is important. This is a nascent industry in the
United States, and the companies here, mine included, need a foot-
hold. We are not looking for the government to give us a complete
handout. We need a foothold so that we can get investors. So that
we can have bankable contracts. So that we can go to capital mar-
kets and have a business plan that they don’t have to be concerned
about market manipulation.
Mr. MEUSER. All right, quickly, Ms. Stoy, do you agree?
Ms. STOY. Yes, absolutely. The thing that I talk to when I talk
to investors is they say, well, what about China? What about the
market? Like for me to deliver a 5-year financial plan, I need to
have pricing information, and we have an opaque market with non-
market players on non-exchange traded metals.
Mr. MEUSER. Well, as I opened with, this is very, very impor-
tant. Perhaps rather than call it the Manhattan Project, as I am
from Pennsylvania, we will call it something other, maybe the
Pennsylvania Project. But we look forward to continued conversa-
tions very much so. Thank you. I yield back.
I now recognize Mr. Tran from California for 5 minutes.
Mr. TRAN. Thank you so much, Chairman. Welcome, witnesses.
Thank you for being here. Dr. Stoy, in 2024, the Select Committee
on China released a bipartisan report revealing that the Chinese
communist government supplies over 50 percent of the U.S. de-
mand for 24 critical minerals, including 90 percent of rare earth
elements. The report also emphasized that advanced recycling tech-
nologies offer a scalable solution to strengthen the domestic supply
chain for these minerals and reduce our reliance on China. How-
ever, the Trump administration has reduced staffing in the Depart-
ment of Energy’s loan and R&D programs, the various resources
needed to help reduce U.S. dependence on China for critical min-
erals. In fact, over 77 billion in funding at the Department of En-
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ergy remains frozen. How does that affect their capacity to invest
and award contracts to businesses like yours, Dr. Stoy?
Ms. STOY. Thank you so much for the question. This is some-
thing that I think about very often is how, you know, to fund, you
know, the—the projects that we will be building, the projects that
we will be financing. These will take high amounts of capital. The
Department of Energy has been instrumental in putting together
different loan offices, different programs for startups like mine and
many others. Without staff at these agencies, they are not able to
do their jobs. They are not able to evaluate loans. It is a huge prob-
lem for me, especially as I go out to investors, to say, here is my
plan for building a facility. You know, I am going to use this con-
tracting agency, this loan office. If they are not considered reliable,
then my plan is no longer reliable. Thank you.
Mr. TRAN. And are you concerned that these cuts would cede
America’s global STEM leadership to the PRC?
Ms. STOY. Absolutely. I mean, one thing I also think about a lot
is the training that comes from loans just like these. You know,
China has, I think, 80 universities dedicated to mineral processing
and mining. We don’t have any. You know, if we are serious about
building talent, the talent that we need to run our businesses, we
need to have those funding agencies in place.
Mr. TRAN. Yeah. In fact, President Trump’s proposed cutting of
the National Science Foundation staff by half and reducing its
grants awards, which would threaten the agency’s ability to fund
critical R&D nationwide and further advantage the PRC’s techno-
logical competition with the U.S.
Mr. Chairman, I asked for unanimous consent to insert an R&D
World article about the impacts of the proposal and existing Trump
cuts into the record.
Chairman WILLIAMS. So moved.
Mr. TRAN. Thank you.
Next question goes to Mr. Dowd. In September 2024, your com-
pany received a 4.2 million contract from the Department of De-
fense to expand domestic production of rare earth element terbium,
one of the most difficult to obtain rare earth elements from recycled
fluorescent light bulbs. Can you explain how important government
contract like this one are to your business?
Mr. DOWD. Yeah, absolutely. You know, when we talk about
government support and kind of step back, big picture, you know,
35 years ago, the leader of China said that rare earths are going
to be to China what oil is to the Middle East. And that is before
this electrified world that we live in today, right? And so the gov-
ernment of China really instigated a deliberate industrial policy to
systematically capture this market and the U.S. and the rest of the
world now have to turn on all across the supply chain, mine to
metal, so that we are no longer reliant upon China for the sources
of material in any way. And that is not going to happen overnight.
Obviously, that is going to take a decade or two or more. That is
exactly what China has done. But it really needs necessary long-
term policy that will transcend administrations, Republican and
Democrat.
And specifically to us, terbium is only otherwise produced in
China. We are the only other company in the world producing ter-
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bium. The Department of Defense award allowed us to be able to
scale up and produce what is necessary for military applications,
for the U.S. government in the defense sector.
Mr. TRAN. That is amazing. And you would agree that it is im-
portant for us to continue federal investments in promoting recy-
cling and a circular economy for these critical minerals, yes?
Mr. DOWD. I think turning on mining, recycling all sources of
material is vital for the future of the country.
Mr. TRAN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Mr. Finstad from the great state of Minnesota
for 5 minutes.
Mr. FINSTAD. Thank you, Chairman Williams. Thank you for
holding this important hearing today, and thank you to the wit-
nesses for being here. As a Member of this Committee and then
also on the House Armed Services Committee, I am excited to have
you here today to discuss the important role critical minerals play
in our national security interests and our overall economy in this
country.
The state of Minnesota is home to a large majority of our nation’s
domestic critical mineral reserves, including nickel, cobalt, plat-
inum, and copper. And after hearing Congressman Stauber’s com-
ments, I used to think his roads were paved in gold, but I guess
they are going to be paved in nickel here now soon up in Northern
Minnesota. Those Minnesota grown companies have been unable to
renew their federal leases due to both the Obama and Biden ad-
ministrations pulling the rug out from underneath them and put-
ting up roadblocks.
So, with that being said, Mr. Kaye, the United States has the
strictest environmental and labor standards in the world, yet we
have become reliant on China and other adversarial nations to con-
trol a large majority of the world’s global supply chain. In your ex-
perience, what environmental and labor standards do these coun-
tries have in place for their operations?
Mr. KAYE. They are very supportive of their homegrown indus-
tries and China particularly has been extremely robust in making
it easy for it to happen. I believe that now it is an all-hands-on-
deck approach for this. It is regulatory, it is, as my colleagues have
said, support for the offtake agreements. We are in discussions
with multiple country companies both in the defense industry and
the automotive industry for supply even if it takes 3, 4, 5 years to
come on stream.
So what we would need is, as everyone has said, we need support
so that China cannot manipulate the price. We need fast tracking
to permit. Even Mountain Pass is partially owned by the Chinese.
Even some of their concentrate is shipped to China to be processed.
That can’t be good.
So it is, I believe, public-private partnerships. I believe it is regu-
latory relief. You know, as one of my colleagues said, unchain us
and let American entrepreneurialship, let us do what we know how
to do. And it is always now with an environmental concern because
the environment is sensitive. But the pendulum has switched too
far to that side. It can’t take 29 years.
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Mr. FINSTAD. So, Mr. Kaye, just as a follow up, just to be very
clear, so our strictest in the world environmental standards, our
state-of-the-art best that can be labor standards in this country,
China isn’t competing at that same level, correct?
Mr. KAYE. Absolutely not.
Mr. FINSTAD. Okay. So to my colleagues here, I mean, I guess
the question we have to ask ourselves, are we content putting our
head in the sand and pretending that they are playing by the same
rules? And the answer is no. And so it is incumbent upon us and
our government to do better in this area.
I would like to move on to Mr. Dowd. My constituents would
rather rely on our neighbors in northern Minnesota, heck, even Ne-
braska, to extract and refine these minerals for our domestic sup-
ply chain. We trust our neighbors. We can have a healthy discus-
sion about environmental standards, labor standards, and then we
can, through our government and through our policy and through
our process, make sure those standards are met. And we can do
that face to face, neighbor to neighbor.
Given your experience operating and innovating in this space,
what are the biggest challenges preventing American companies
right now from leading the world in critical mineral development?
And a lot of times we in this Committee, you know, people will
come and say, well, it is the regulations or it is this or it is that.
If you were to leave here today and say, I got this off my chest,
here is the four or five things that this Committee and this Con-
gress can help us do, what is it?
Mr. DOWD. Thank you, sir. You know, it is, as I said earlier,
China, 35 years ago, said that rare earths are to China what oil
is to the Middle East, and that is before this electrified world we
live in today. We are literally in the infancy of this industry. It was
referenced, perhaps a Rockefeller moment, where this is oil 100
years ago. I think that is absolutely to be true.
China controls this industry, one, because they made it a delib-
erate policy, but, two, the Chinese government subsidizes the in-
dustry, so there is no ability for this country to be able to compete
on level ground if our government is not also part of that equation.
Mr. FINSTAD. My time is up here. I would just say this, we are
ripe for critical minerals permitting reform 2.0 in our country. Let’s
reimagine the next 50 years and not try to fix broken policies of
the last hundred.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman’s time is up.
Mr. FINSTAD. I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Mr. Olszewski from the great state of Maryland
for 5 minutes.
Mr. OLSZEWSKI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you to our witnesses for joining us today. I appreciate the oppor-
tunity to discuss America’s economic and technological growth
alongside the need for a stable supply of critical minerals.
In addition to my service here, I am honored to serve on the
House Foreign Affairs Committee and in the Africa Subcommittee
in particular, where we have recently also discussed the need to
support Africa’s critical mineral sector as a driver for economic
growth. We know that this conversation must also include con-
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versations about support for families, children, and local commu-
nities. These are groups that are often exploited through forced
labor and small-scale informal mines across the continent, often in
deadly work environments.
So I am concerned both about the action of this administration
working to dismantle the National Institute of Occupational Health
and Safety in terms of our own safety in that work here in Amer-
ica. I also know that we are currently facing a fairly chaotic land-
scape from a President who has unilaterally enacted tariffs on
nearly every import from every country. These tariffs affect 35 of
the 50 critical minerals that we discussed today, which raises
prices for American businesses and consumers and causes higher
prices for mining and for refinery equipment.
The reality is that this is an important conversation, but we can-
not only mine our way out for reliable and ethical critical mineral
supply chain. So I look forward to working with all of you in the
years ahead, as well as my colleagues on this critical issue, while
doing so not backtracking on issues like workers’ rights and protec-
tions and removing some of the barriers to our success.
To that point, I have two quick questions. One is on tariffs and
one is on grants. I will start with you, Dr. Stoy. According to the
U.S. Geological Service, the U.S. has little to no reserves for many
critical materials. So obviously, as we discussed, we are trading to
acquire them. Can you talk a little bit about how tariffs affect our
ability to buy them from abroad?
Ms. STOY. Absolutely. Thank you so much for the question.
I am not an expert on tariffs. I am not an economist. But what
I can say is that when I look for investors, when mining companies
globally look for investors, investors are looking for stable markets.
They are looking for stable capital. Refiners that I think personally
is the most important thing right now beyond just mining, you
know, to build up these facilities, we need stable markets. And tar-
iffs, I think, pose issues to that. And consistent pricing is impor-
tant. We have talked about a lot of different levers that the govern-
ment can use here, you know, stockpiles, ensuring price floors.
There is different things we can use here, but all of them can be
negatively impacted by tariffs.
Mr. OLSZEWSKI. I appreciate that, and I want to make sure I
have it right. As a fellow ‘‘ski,’’ is it Mr. Minishski?
Mr. MUSHINSKI. Mushinski.
Mr. OLSZEWSKI. Mushinski, Olszewski. We got it. Okay. I ap-
preciated your testimony and your calls for unlocking grants for
commercialization efforts. I think that is critically important as one
way to increase capital access for this work. So I just want to, I
guess, pose to you, would you be concerned if very large grant mak-
ers, and in particular, thinking about the federal government,
right, if we froze our grants and other funding sources, that cer-
tainly would be a challenge to that and would erase some of the
capital landscape? Is that a fair assessment?
Mr. MUSHINSKI. Of course.
Mr. OLSZEWSKI. Yeah. And so, yeah, just to that point, to my
colleagues, we are seeing a lot of the dismantling of these kinds of
programs, not just in this space, but across the government. And
I think we want to try to work with our partners across the aisle
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to find ways that here and in other spaces that I think the federal
government actually does have a key role to play in spurring inno-
vation, safety, and success in the private sector.
And so, again, I want to just thank our witnesses to today, Mr.
Chairman, for their insights and their wisdom. Look forward to
working with them and you and our colleagues in the years ahead.
And with that, I will yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlemen yields back.
I now recognize Mr. Bresnahan from the great state of Pennsyl-
vania for 5 minutes.
Mr. BRESNAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and to the Rank-
ing Member, for holding today’s hearing, and especially to the wit-
nesses for taking time out to come and testify today.
Securing our supply chains for rare earth minerals and other
critical resources is not just an economic priority. It is a matter of
national security. These materials are essential components in a
wide range of technologies, from smartphones to electric vehicles
and advanced defense systems. Yet, despite their importance, the
United States has fallen behind over other nations, particularly
China, in both the mining and refining of these vital resources.
China’s dominant position in these supply chains have given them
significant leverage on the global stage, leverage that can threaten
our economic competitiveness and our security. To address this
challenge, we must bring about commonsense permitting reform
that allows us to responsibly develop these resources here at home.
My district lies within the Marcellus Shale region in Pennsyl-
vania. Fracking has been a key driver of our country’s energy domi-
nance and Pennsylvania’s economic growth for the last 20 years.
But fracking can potentially deliver more than just oil and gas. Re-
cent studies by the National Energy Technology Laboratory have
found that the water used in fracking can unlock up to 1,160 met-
ric tons of lithium. That is almost 40 percent of the current de-
mand for lithium, which is 3,000 metric tons per year. This is com-
parable to the lithium produced in the brine ponds in Chile, the
world’s second largest lithium producer.
In Wayne County in my district, there is roughly $1 billion of
natural gas deposits that we cannot tap into because of governors
in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware have
banned it based on some science and under pressure from some en-
vironmental activists. If our country is going to reduce emissions
and have a cleaner grid, we need these rare earth minerals like
lithium to achieve these goals.
Sadly, the prior administration stifled their own green energy
goals with overregulation by trying to ban natural gas exports, try-
ing to ban fracking, the IRA’s methane tax, and use of ESG’s
metrics and investments, and not approving pipelines quickly
enough. Instead of American energy powered by clean American
fuel sources and rare earth minerals processed under the American
environmental standards, we have been forced to rely on Chinese
imports, which are produced under horrendous environments and
labor conditions.
Our goal must be to provide essential raw materials that fuel our
economy, support our national defense, empower the innovative
technologies of tomorrow. We can, we must, and uphold our com-
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mitment to environmental stewardship while advancing economic
growth. The false choice between economic progress and protecting
our environment has held us back far too long.
With that, I am going to start with my first question to Mr.
Dowd. I want to echo on Mr. Finstad’s questions a little bit earlier.
If you can point to just one specific action that Congress can deploy
to help us in the progress, would it be towards workforce develop-
ment? Would it be permitting? Would it be regulation? If you can
point to just one thing, and you had mentioned China in the prior
answer, but is there anything else beyond China that we can be of
assistance with?
Mr. DOWD. Yeah, as a rare earth element separation company,
at least the way we do, how we do our refining, there is no regu-
latory or regulation that is permitting us from doing what we are
doing. The workforce is really not a challenge where we are, fortu-
nately. I would say the big thing is continuing, as the government
has through the Department of Defense and Department of Energy,
funding companies like us to boost the defense industrial base to
have the capability and the capacity in this country to compete
with China.
Mr. BRESNAHAN. What do you mean ‘‘funding’’? Is that through
grant processes? Is that through R&D? What kind of funding do
you reference?
Mr. DOWD. Yeah, sure. Our company has received a handful of
grants and awards over the last handful of years, which have really
furthered us to where we are today. The Congressman earlier men-
tioned we received a Defense Production Act through the Depart-
ment of Defense for $8.67 million back in September. That really
enabled us to be able to produce terbium, which cannot be found
anywhere else in the world other than China.
Mr. BRESNAHAN. So why is that the responsibility of the Amer-
ican taxpayer to provide economic grants to a company like yours?
Mr. DOWD. Yeah, I think it is a real question for the Committee
or for the country in terms of the responsibility of government to
help fund what is necessary to be able to have this capability in
this country. And I think if the government does not compete,
given that the Chinese government is subsidizing the industry, we
will be fully reliant on China for rare earths for a long period of
time. And that is obviously a geopolitical supply chain issue.
Mr. BRESNAHAN. My time has expired. I yield.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Ms. Goodlander from the great state of New
Hampshire for 5 minutes.
Ms. GOODLANDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
to our witnesses for being here today for this important hearing.
You have each testified that the rare earth challenge is a really
critical one to our national security. Our supply chain vulnerability
is core to addressing, to keep our country safe. But it is also an ex-
traordinary opportunity that small businesses across our country
are seizing. And I am seeing it all across my home state of New
Hampshire.
What I would say is our hearing today, the title of the hearing
today, I note is ‘‘Securing America’s Mineral Future: Unlocking the
Economic Value Beneath Our Feet.’’ The economic value I think is
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more than just beneath our feet. And I saw this firsthand in vis-
iting an extraordinary service-disabled, veteran-owned small busi-
ness in the Monadnock Region of my state that more than 6 years
ago predicted that we would have a germanium crisis in this coun-
try. Germanium is used, as many of you know, in high-speed com-
puter chips, plastics, and a wide range of military applications from
night vision devices to satellite imagery sensors.
My constituents started a company, they self-funded the research
and development costs of a cost-effective, ecofriendly germanium
recycling effort and they began production. They have encountered
a lot of challenges in getting the support that they need for small
businesses to actually tackle this. And I wanted to ask you, Mr.
Dowd, can you speak to your experience?
I also serve on the Armed Services Committee and, knock on
wood, we are going to have a National Defense Authorization Act
this year where we have an opportunity to really take a look at
ways in which we can improve the way that the Department of De-
fense does business with small businesses in our country. Can you
speak to your experience contracting with the Department of De-
fense and what challenges you encountered?
Mr. DOWD. Yeah, our experience with the Department of De-
fense and, specifically, receiving funding through the Defense Pro-
duction Act has really been incredibly positive. I really don’t have
a negative thing to say about that.
Ms. GOODLANDER. Really?
Mr. DOWD. I can only speak from the award that we are cur-
rently in and our experience in receiving that award in the last
year.
Ms. GOODLANDER. Dr. Stoy, could you tell us a little bit about
the challenges you have encountered in contracting with the fed-
eral government and getting the kind of investment that small
businesses like yours need to bring us to the next generation of re-
cycling critical minerals?
Ms. STOY. Absolutely. My experience has largely been very posi-
tive in applying for funding. I will say there were—there have been
a handful of Department of Energy grants that required really an
extensive amount of paperwork for small businesses to apply. As
an example, I think there was a grant that was for $500,000, which
is not—it is a sizable amount of money, but not huge, that I think
I ended up writing, you know, 100 pages of content for on, you
know, economic development. And, you know, 500K for a 3-year
grant is not really enough money to have an outsized impact on,
you know, your local community. So I think there are ways to
streamline grant processes that would make it easier for small
businesses to take advantage of.
Ms. GOODLANDER. Well, we welcome any and all ideas that
you have on this front. We are all about cracking down on waste,
fraud, and abuse, and making it easier for small businesses like
yours. Just note that the funding cuts that we have seen across our
federal government have made it very difficult for these important
programs to reach their intended small business recipients.
I want to ask you about the impact of the President’s unilateral
trade wars, which have impacted 35 of 50 critical minerals, 10 of
16 rare earth elements. You have each spoken to just the time that
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it takes to build up our domestic manufacturing base. Many on our
Committee have supported an exemption for small businesses. But
I wanted to ask you to the President’s unilateral tariffs because
they threatened to put so many essential small businesses out of
business. I want to ask you about the uncertainty that you are see-
ing across the industry and the markets and the customers who
you work with in this moment of absolute uncertainty for our coun-
try.
Ms. STOY. Yeah, you know, customers, investors, everyone is
looking for stability and these tariffs add uncertainty. One of the
big things—I have been a little bit insulated because I have been
housed at Argonne National Lab, which has been a tremendous op-
portunity that—you know, it is a very small program. There is
maybe five innovators per year. This is not—it is not a big enough
program for many small businesses to benefit from that if they
have to buy their own equipment. I mean, I am deeply impressed
that someone from your state was able to self-fund a recycling
project. So I think that that is something that we need to work on
is adding that stability.
Ms. GOODLANDER. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize Mr. Downing from the great state of Montana for
5 minutes.
Mr. DOWNING. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the
witnesses. I come from Montana, the Treasure State. If you want
it, we can probably grow it or mine it or produce it. So we are
blessed with incredible reserves in critical minerals.
So I am going to start in my backyard with Mr. Kaye. You are
on the front lines of critical minerals discovery and extraction in
Montana. Your company, U.S. Critical Materials, is set to develop
the Sheep Creek site in Ravalli County into a major producer of
rare earth elements. In your testimony, you note the remarkable
nature of the mineral concentrations at the Sheep Creek site. Can
you explain to us more about the unique abundance of rare earth
elements at the site?
Mr. KAYE. Thank you for your question. We have concentrations
that range about 9 percent and in some cases higher. That means
as a comparative to Mountain Pass, they average about 5 percent.
It literally, as confirmed by Activation Labs, the blue chip lab for
evaluating purity of the product, and Idaho National Labs who did
extensive work in our (phonetic 25:29) ore, which, by the way, is
very low in thorium and very high in grade. That means we are
below the standards required to seek nuclear regulatory authority,
which is a boon to us in being able to get our product online quick-
ly.
It is an extraordinary deposit because it is carbonatites. And
carbonatites, geologically, 150 million years ago have come up from
the earth, have penetrated through dikes and fissures and have ex-
tended above the surface within just three adits, which are hori-
zontal tunnels that have been drilled into the side of the mountain
35 years ago, there are 62 carbonatites. We have sampled them all.
They all show mineralization down at depth. And there is a theory
going right now that we are working to prove this summer that
there is a continuous source that lies below. So while——
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Mr. DOWNING. Hey, just in the interest of time, the critical,
and I appreciate that, the critical minerals mined at Sheep Creek
support—how do they support the manufacturing of technologies
critical to national security?
Mr. KAYE. The answer to that is samarium, which is not found
in the United States. We have an abundant supply. Gallium,
which, as mentioned earlier, has 3,800 military uses. The Chinese
have banned it to export about a year ago. We have 180 to 380
parts per million. We are working with Idaho National Labs now.
We expect that we will be able to extract gallium and be able to
present it for the use of this country within this year.
Mr. DOWNING. So on that note, how are small businesses
uniquely positioned to initiate American critical mineral independ-
ence from China?
Mr. KAYE. We have the entrepreneurial spirit that has grown
this country. We are entrepreneurs. We understand risk-reward
and we have the attitude of it has to happen, we will make it hap-
pen. And with the support of the regulatory authorities, state gov-
ernment, and the like, it will occur.
Mr. DOWNING. Thank you, sir. In my district, we have experi-
enced firsthand the difficulties of competing with mineral dumping
by foreign adversaries. The Sibanye Stillwater Mine in Stillwater
County is the United States’ only platinum and palladium mine.
Unfortunately, Russia’s dumping of cheap minerals into the inter-
national market forced the Sibanye Stillwater owners of the mine
to scale back its operations and lay off 700 workers at the end of
last year.
I am going to move to Mr. Mushinski. In your testimony, you
outline how your company, Rare Element Resources, experienced
similar hardships from Chinese dumping. Can you elaborate on to
what degree you believe this dumping effort by Chinese producers
was coordinated and deliberate?
Mr. MUSHINSKI. I think it was 100 percent coordinated and
100 percent deliberate. If you go back to the 2016 timeframe, when
there were restrictions on—I am sorry, it may not be before 2016,
the Chinese deliberately put restrictions on exports of rare earths.
That spiked the price. As with any mining business, when the price
goes up, the exploration goes up, the technology goes up, and it is
a continuous curve.
The mining companies, Mountain Pass at the time, took off.
Their stock went over $100 a share. A mere 4 years later, the Chi-
nese absolutely flooded the market. The prices cratered, Mountain
Pass went bankrupt. That is when our company almost went bank-
rupt in the middle of our permitting process.
Mr. DOWNING. Unfortunately, I have run out of time. Mr.
Chair, I yield.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I recognize Mr. Cisneros from the great state of California for 5
minutes.
Mr. CISNEROS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As a Member of the House Armed Services Committee and pre-
viously serving at the Department of Defense, I deeply care about
our national security. And I understand and agree with the impor-
tance of securing our critical mineral supply chain and I support
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the small businesses helping address this vital need. However, this
hearing is not focused on what we can actually do to help these
small businesses, but rather it is another attempt to infomercial
the President’s agenda to deregulate.
The House Natural Resource Committee already had a hearing
on domestic mining for U.S. national security on February 6. The
House Energy and Commerce Committee already had a hearing on
enhancing our critical mineral supply chains on May 21. If we want
to stretch the bounds of the House Small Business Committee to
also talk about critical minerals, let’s talk about federal funding op-
portunities like the small business research grants that help com-
panies like Rivalia. This hearing is not talking about SBA pro-
grams to help these small businesses. It is not talking about fund-
ing from other agencies for these small businesses. It is not diving
into federal contracting to support these businesses. I urge my col-
leagues to engage with us in meaningful discussions on how to bet-
ter support small business, not just rubber stamp an agenda.
So, Ms. Stoy, could you kind of go into detail a little bit more
about SBIR, how it helped you get started, and really the impor-
tance of programs like this to encourage investment in other busi-
nesses like yours that could help, like you said, recycle these min-
erals instead of them just going to waste after they have been
used?
Ms. STOY. Absolutely. You know, I founded Rivalia using a
blend of government funding, SBIR funding, and private venture
capital. I think, you know, to prove that you should be a company
in the market, you need to have that kind of buy-on from, you
know, a private group. But, you know, programs like the SBIR help
front load some of the high capital costs that come with hard tech
startups. I mean, we are all in mining. You know, this requires
equipment, this requires labs, this requires resources.
The SBIR program has been incredibly helpful to me. There is
also some programs offered alongside the SBIR program, including
a business boot camp where they help you do customer discovery,
engage with your customers and the partners. You know, we are
dealing with very complex supply chains here. And learning how
to have those conversations was something I learned through the
NSF SBIR program.
The Chain Reactions Innovations Program that I am a part of at
Argonne National Lab, the LEAP program is also, I think, incred-
ibly useful as a tool to help small businesses access resources that
they otherwise wouldn’t have access to.
Mr. CISNEROS. Thank you very much for that. And again, I
think the importance of research and funding these grants in order
to help small businesses like yours get started is of vital impor-
tance and something that we should be discussing today more than
about how regulation is getting in the way.
Mr. Mushinski, hopefully I said that right, I hear your company
is exploring training and education programs with universities in
conjunction with the Bear Lodge Project. Can you speak to the im-
portance of a strong STEM workforce in career and technical edu-
cation programs for projects like that?
Mr. MUSHINSKI. Thank you for the question. We do, we cur-
rently have three interns from the University of Wyoming and
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South Dakota, the School of Mines, which is dedicated to minerals
and mining. And we live—our process and our facility is in a very
small town of Upton, Wyoming, 800-and-something people. We are
relatively close to other population centers. But the ability to re-
cruit STEM employees is difficult in that area and that is a very
important issue for us. Where do we locate our final plant because
of those issues?
We fortunately live in a very pro mining state, which is Wyo-
ming. And the governor and the University of Wyoming and all the
Members within that legislation are very supportive to us. You
know, it is junior colleges, it is colleges, it is technical trades. A
mining and processing facility is not just STEM. You need all the
blue collar work as well, and that is a very important concern.
Mr. CISNEROS. No, thank you for that answer. I am a big be-
liever in education and training and everything that we need to put
into it. You said this isn’t a field that most people probably grow
up thinking they are going to get into, but it is vital importance
to make sure that we invest in the technology and the training for
that.
So with that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Mr. Patronis from the great state of Florida for
5 minutes.
Mr. PATRONIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all
for participating in speed dating. It is kind of back and forth and,
you know, the input that we are getting is really helpful.
For the last 8 years I regulated mining and blasting in the state
of Florida. And I have learned of the proponents and the opponents
and specifically understanding, at least in the case of the state of
Florida, whenever we have what seems to be good policy or good
proposed legislation, how it dramatically could potentially change
your cost of business or where your customers may do their busi-
ness. I look at what you are providing. You are providing quality
jobs in a heavily regulated environment with a sensitivity to supply
chain needs and also what you need to do to balance the environ-
ment. And I don’t envy what you do, but I am glad you are able
to find a margin to make you want to continue pursuing it.
I have always been a big proponent for predictability in the
timelines when it comes to permitting. I don’t want to belabor this
because I know it was kind of touched on a little bit by you, Mr.
Kaye, but I am going to ask you to elaborate more on it and maybe
even a little bit of a comparison of the timeline of how China has
the ability to bring goods to market versus the United States and
how much of a difference there is in that timeline because does this
create an advantage for China?
Mr. KAYE. I have a couple of comments that I think would be
relevant. One of which is that to the former—the congressman over
there who said, how do you attract young people? Okay, the answer
is technology. Technology makes it a lot more glamorous than a
pick and a shovel. We are using artificial intelligence, predictive
analytics for fast tracking exploration. It brings a whole other kind
of person to the table.
Secondly, today we made an announcement that retired four-star
General Steven Townsend has become a senior advisor to us. He
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testified in front of the Senate some years ago about the need for
critical minerals. He told us that in Africa when he was running
AFRICOM, he wanted to find out how many mines, rare earth and
critical mineral mines, were owned by the United States versus
China. He found none owned by the United States, all owned by
China, except for one, a Canadian company, which turned out
when he put his intelligence team to it, to be a front for the Chi-
nese. So somebody asked earlier about Africa.
As to your question, fast tracking is everything right now. Okay.
Speed and time. Speed is most important. Time is our enemy. And,
therefore, the ability to have access to the decision-makers, to be
able to have a meeting such as this, to be able to understand what
their requirements are and how we can fast track application for
DPA grants or Department of Defense or the movement of money
from, you know, environment to defense is critically important.
How can we manage the bureaucracy so that it makes it easier for
us instead of cutting the red tape and drowning in the things that
all my colleagues have just talked about, years and years of going
through these things? It is getting better.
Mr. CISNEROS. And it is not—the technology’s not going away
and the demand is not shrinking. I guess my also concern is just,
if you can just expand on it a little bit is the national security con-
cerns we have about being beholden to China on our pipeline.
Mr. KAYE. Yeah. Thank you. The F-35 requires 920 pounds of
rare earths. A submarine is 5,000. The new F-47, which is now
being proposed, requires large amounts of rare earths. The newest
radar that we are working on requires rare earths. The missiles,
we expended a tremendous amount of our armaments with Israel,
with the Ukraine war, et cetera. You got to rebuild the stockpiles,
and yet they require rare earths.
So it is got to be domestic supply, and it is got to happen now.
We don’t have 5 more years. And so, therefore, that is why we are
focused so hard on being able to deliver gallium by the end of this
year, because it is required in 3,800 different defense systems that
our government requires.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman’s time is up.
Mr. CISNEROS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. KAYE. Thank you.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Next, I recognize Dr. Morrison from the
great state of Minnesota for 5 minutes.
Ms. MORRISON. Thank you, Chairman Williams and Ranking
Member Velázquez, for holding this hearing. And I want to thank
our witnesses for being here and taking the time to testify and
share your expertise about the critical mineral industry.
This is a topic we will return to again and again as demand for
critical minerals continues to grow during the coming decades. The
International Energy Agency projects that growing investments in
clean energy will double global demand for minerals by 2040.
Growing demand for electric vehicles could increase the need for
minerals such as lithium and graphite by as much as 4,000 percent
over the next few decades.
And by the way, I am thrilled by the enthusiasm for mining crit-
ical minerals I have heard here. So I assume that everyone on this
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Committee will be voting against clawing back the IRA and clean
energy tax credits.
One of the mines that my colleague from Minnesota, Mr.
Stauber, referenced, is on public lands in the watershed of the
Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, the most visited wilder-
ness in the United States and a major economic engine in North-
eastern Minnesota. One point I want to make regarding proposed
hard rock mines in Minnesota is that this kind of mining has never
been done in Minnesota before. We have a proud tradition of iron
ore taconite mining. It is very different kind of mining that carries
very different risks than copper, nickel, and other hard rock min-
ing.
And the proposed mines, respectfully to my other colleague from
Minnesota, are not Minnesota grown. They are owned by Glencore,
Rio Tinto, and Antofagasta. These are not small businesses. These
are not homegrown, and they are not American companies. They
are international mining conglomerates with some of the worst
labor and environmental records in the world.
I would like to point out a study that found that the proposed
mine in the watershed of Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe
Area Wilderness would cause a net economic loss in the long term,
due in part to the job and revenue losses, for the thriving outdoor
recreation industry that that area depends on.
So, Mr. Chairman, I request unanimous consent to insert the
study into the record.
Chairman WILLIAMS. So moved.
Ms. MORRISON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Stoy, can you comment on some of the tradeoffs of unre-
stricted, minimally regulated mining in terms of environment im-
pacts? Are there any negatives or is it just all upside?
Ms. STOY. Thanks for the question. Wouldn’t that be wonderful
if there were only upsides? You know, as we discussed securing a
domestic supply chain for rare earths, you know, we have to talk
about these trade-offs. There are benefits. You know, we can in-
crease our domestic supply long term. We can reduce our depend-
ence on foreign sources. We can support national security. We
might bring jobs and investment to rural areas that didn’t have ac-
cess to that before. But, of course, there are significant costs. You
know, there is the timeline. We have to consider what is going to
happen environmentally here.
The environmental impact, you know, we are talking about dis-
turbing large areas of land. We are consuming water, we are pro-
ducing hazardous tailings that include radioactive elements, like
thorium, uranium. This is, you know, especially concerning and
sensitive ecosystem or near indigenous lands or, frankly, anywhere
where people live.
There is also, you know, community opposition. Many proposed
mines face strong pushback from Tribal Nations, environmental
groups, and local residents who are simply concerned about the
place they live, you know, water quality, land access, the long-term
plan for these sites. These projects carry legal, social, and
reputational risks.
In contrast, recovering rare earths from existing industrial waste
avoids new land disturbance. It leverages materials already above
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the ground and offers a faster, cleaner pathway to supply security.
So while I think new mining may play a role in the long term and,
of course, in the entire economic picture, we have to be clear-eyed
about the costs and pursue lower impact alternatives when they
are available.
Ms. MORRISON. I appreciate that perspective. Thank you.
I want to just take a moment before my time expires to brag
about a Minnesota company that is doing innovative work to re-
duce our dependence on critical minerals. Niron Magnetics is the
world’s only producer of high-performance rare earth-free perma-
nent magnets, which are used in everything from cars to audio sys-
tems to medical devices. Niron Magnetics uses technology that was
developed through research at the University of Minnesota and
they received an SBIR award in 2024 to explore the use of their
magnets in DOD applications, exemplifying, I think, how well-de-
signed innovations system can support our small businesses and
address pressing issues.
Mr. Dowd, we have talked a little bit about SBIR and STTR pro-
grams. Can you just speak to how federal grants and awards can
be mutually beneficial to both small businesses and government
agencies?
Mr. DOWD. Yeah. For my company, who has been in business
for about a dozen years, we have had a handful of grants and
awards with the Department of Defense and with the Department
of Energy, which has really helped further us to where we are
today. And I am not sure without the support of the government,
we would have been able to achieve what we have achieved. Be-
cause what we do is not easy. If it was, we wouldn’t be having this
issue today, this conversation today. A lot of R&D goes into getting
to where we are today. Thank you.
Ms. MORRISON. Thank you, Mr. Dowd. Thank you, Mr. Chair-
man.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I recognize Mr. Alford from the great state of Missouri for 5 min-
utes.
Mr. ALFORD. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for our
witnesses for being here today.
Rare earth minerals, elements like neodymium, cerium, lan-
thanum are critical for modern technology from smartphones to
electric vehicles to defense systems. Missouri’s role in their mining
has a rich history and untapped potential, but government over-
reach is holding us back. In the mid-20th century, Missouri was a
leader in rare earth exploration. The Pea ridge Mine in Wash-
ington County, operational since the 1960s, revealed significant de-
posits of rare earths alongside iron ore. And by the 1980s, studies
confirmed Missouri’s geological potential with deposits in the
southeast region rivaling global hotspots.
However, low prices and foreign competition, mainly from China,
stalled development. China now dominates, producing more than
60 percent of the world’s rare earths, leaving the U.S. dependent
on imports for more than 70 percent of our supply.
Today, Missouri stands at a crossroads. The Pea Ridge Mine,
now dormant, holds an estimated 600,000 tons of rare earth oxides,
enough to bolster domestic supply. This is just outside my district.
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Private companies are eager to restart operations, but progress
is slow. Why? Excessive regulation. Permitting for new mines can
take over a decade in the United States of America compared to
just a year in competitors’ nations. Environmental reviews, while
important, are often redundant, delaying projects without code
clear benefits. Meantime, communist China tightens export con-
trols, threatening our supply chains.
The government must act decisively. First, streamline permitting
under the National Environmental Policy Act to cut timelines with-
out sacrificing safety. Secondly, offer tax incentives for rare earth
processing facilities as refining is a bottleneck. Third, fund re-
search into cleaner extraction methods to address environmental
concerns. These steps will unleash Missouri’s potential, create jobs,
and secure our national interest. Missouri’s rare earths are a sleep-
ing giant. It is my intent to help them wake up by getting govern-
ment out of the way.
Mr. Kaye, critical minerals are not only essential for the long-
term economic success of the U.S., but also for its national security.
Could you please explain the importance of the resources in your
minds to our national security, sir?
Mr. KAYE. Thank you for your question. We spoke about
gallium. Gallium is critical. There is no supply here in the United
States. The Chinese have embargoed it. Our gallium is in a very
pure mineralized form found in the carbonatites themselves, which
means it is relatively easy to bring them out and properly refine
them.
Samarium, there is no supply here in the United States. And so
we have the same situation with that.
Third is our government understands now, particularly the De-
partment of Defense, and the reason that General Townshend has
become an advisor to us is exactly that reason. He understands
what the problems are. He understands what national defense
means. And the Chinese are betting that we are going to keep slow
like we have been. But that is not going to happen anymore.
And so we believe that the 17 rare earths and natural and crit-
ical minerals that are important to all aspects, artificial intel-
ligence, chips, new radar, new aircraft, new ships, new technologies
leading to the future, have to be domestically sourced. And we and
our colleagues are determined to make that happen. Our attitude
now these days is while we are all friendly competitors, we are all
Americans. And whatever we can do to help each other, whether
it is technology, whether it is cooperation, whether it is working to-
gether to make us critically mineral independent again and, there-
fore, critically mineral sovereign again, is our number one mission.
And so we are all working toward accomplishing that goal. And
thank you for your question.
Mr. ALFORD. Thank you, Mr. Kaye, Mr. Dowd, Mr. Mushinski,
and our other witness, we really appreciate you being here today.
This is a national security issue.
And with that, I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlemen yields back.
I now recognize Ms. Simon from the great state of California for
5 minutes.
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Ms. SIMON. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is an honor to be sitting
by you. And I do believe that you have the best tie in the room
today, sir. It is amazing. Yes, sorry. I apologize.
I am so happy to be having this conversation with you all. In
fact, as you all were talking, what came to me was a writing from
Bernice Johnson Reagon, Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon. And she
was one of the leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee during the Civil Rights Movement. And one of her
writings was called ‘‘Battered Earth.’’ And one of the stanzas in the
piece said, ‘‘If the earth could run away, she would be running for
her life.’’ And I really appreciate this very timely conversation.
I also appreciate, Dr. Stoy, you talked about being supported in
your graduate studies as a young scientist. And it is not missed on
me or anyone on this dais that you are the only woman on the
panel. My daughter is in the biological sciences. My eldest, go
Aggies at UC Davis, and she told me she was one of the few folks
who crossed the stage an undergrad focused again on our earth, on
biology.
I wonder what we would be talking about if, in fact, the United
States paid homage to young scientists and fully supported their
educations. And once they got out of grad school, fully nurtured
their labs, fully nurtured your staffing process, provided support
for your insurances. I wonder what we would be thinking about as
we try to juxtapose where we are in terms of earthing rare min-
erals with our adversaries like China. It is hard to compare and
contrast when you have countries around the world that fully sup-
port young people advancing in the sciences. But like Bernice John-
son Reagon says, our adversaries don’t care about the earth. And
if she could run away, she absolutely would.
You know, just a few months ago, I was able to visit an amazing
small business in West Oakland, where I am from. A small com-
pany that has developed fascinating technology to extract lithium
directly from brine using significantly less land and water than
conventional evaporation methods. And in talking to the founders,
young, brilliant, scrappy, they don’t wear suits, they wear Con-
verse, they are amazing and super smart and they have PhDs and
they are physicians. That is crazy smart, amazing folks, right,
again, in a low-income community in the Bay Area doing every-
thing that they could to create a sustainable model moving for-
ward. They talked to me about how difficult it was not just in the
last administration, but also in this administration to acquire re-
sources. In fact, they are waiting on money right now to keep their
staffing levels up.
We are talking not just about rare minerals, we are talking
about a finite Earth. And so when you have innovators, like some
of you all on this panel, committed, committed to sustainable prac-
tices, committed to new opportunities and innovations that will lit-
erally save, save the lands of our dear country, you can’t go in a
gazillion times, right? The Earth is, in fact, finite.
I am curious, Dr. Stoy, when you talk about—well, you talked
about, I would say in your testimony rather beautifully, how, in
fact, it was difficult in this moment, and it has been, and a number
of you have also repeated this, to receive the resources that you
need and deserve to move forward. Dr. Stoy, can you talk to me
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about, in the perfect world, how would, whether it is SBA or other
government agencies, truly support young innovators like yourself?
So that instead of sitting at a computer writing 100 pages for
$500,000 divided by 3, and those of us who staffed institutions, we
know that that is only a couple of staff with a little bit of health
insurance and not for their kids, maybe just for them, what would
it be like if you could truly be the scientist that you were trained
to be? What would you need?
Ms. STOY. So I think I have talked about a lot of visions I have
had. You know, in a dream world I am running a team of a dozen
people. We are all in the lab. We have folks dedicated on building
out the rest of the supply chain, talking to all the partners, build-
ing out the network. You know, this is something that I, instead
of using government funding, I will go out and fundraise later this
summer, you know, a couple million dollars to start building out
that team. And I am trading that for equity, and I am trading that
for, you know—that is betting against the money I will need in the
future to build a plant. You know, there is—for startups, you know,
you can be scrappy, but you can only do so much with so little
money.
So I appreciate your question and I think, you know, betting on
young innovators is a win for us.
Ms. SIMON. I appreciate you and I appreciate all those who
came out today to listen, and those are folks who came to testify.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I would like to thank our witnesses for their testimony and for
appearing before us today. Without objection, Members have 5 leg-
islative days to submit additional materials and written questions
for the witnesses to the Chair, which will be forwarded to the wit-
nesses. I ask the witnesses to please respond promptly.
So if there is no further business, without objection, this Com-
mittee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:02 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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APPENDIX
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File and source
- File
- CHRG-119hhrg60853.pdf
- Size
- 22,370,158 bytes
- SHA-256
- f9207358cd7ff306c06cca6e4a718d51adc430197fb8b2b9b57c0de00d7a45a6
- Our copy
- CHRG-119hhrg60853.pdf
- Original
- www.govinfo.gov