Today, the House Committee on Natural Resources passed H.R. 520, the “National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act.” Introduced by Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV), the bill improves and streamlines the federal permitting process to promote domestic production of critical minerals.

“Critical and strategic minerals are essential to the technologies that make our daily lives and economy work. Unfortunately, when it comes to mining strategic and critical minerals domestically, duplicative regulations, bureaucratic inefficiency, and lack of coordination between federal agencies unnecessarily threaten our economy and jeopardize our national security. In Nevada, permitting delays stand in the way of good-paying jobs and revenue for local, often rural, communities. By streamlining the permitting process, this legislation would leverage our nation's vast mineral resources, while paying due respect to economic, national security, and environmental concerns. If history is any indication, I fully expect this bill to successfully pass out of the House when it comes to the Floor for a vote – as it has the last three Congresses in a row. I applaud my colleagues on the Committee for taking action to move the ball toward the goal line on this issue, and urge the Senate to follow our lead once this legislation comes its way,” Rep. Amodei said.

“With H.R. 520, my friend and colleague Mr. Amodei has come up with a package of smart fixes to many of the barriers standing in the way of our country fulfilling its strategic and critical minerals potential. Right now, convoluted and overlapping agency processes doom even the most qualified mining projects to literal decades of bureaucratic purgatory. Accordingly, this bill centralizes the agency process and streamlines permitting for those projects that demonstrably further the nation’s renewed focus on infrastructure and national security. I thank Mr. Amodei for his efforts and look forward to making continued progress on these issues,” Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources Chairman Paul Gosar (R-AZ) stated.

Click here to learn more about the bill.