Today, Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Perdue and Interior Secretary Zinke on mineral withdrawals.

The letter states, “[U]nder the prior administration, mineral access on Federal land was regularly and systemically blocked, harming our nation’s economic and strategic potential. Indeed, millions of acres of Federal lands were inappropriately withdrawn from mineral access due to false premises of environmental protectionism and the intentional misuse of statutory authority.”

It continues, “[I]n the waning hours of the prior administration, an order was published in the Federal Register withdrawing over 100,000 acres of Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands from mineral entry for 20 years. The two projects affected by this illegal withdrawal are believed to hold significant quantities of several strategic and critical minerals including nickel, scandium and cobalt. Today, the United States imports 100% of our scandium (mostly from China), 76% of our cobalt and more than 90% of our nickel requirements thus making this withdrawal inconsistent with national security interests.”

Chairman Bishop asked Secretaries Perdue and Zinke “to conduct a comprehensive and expedited review of all mineral withdrawals executed in the past eight years to determine those of merit and those whose purpose served only to block appropriate development under FLPMA.”