The Chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations said last week in a hearing titled ‘Unleashing America’s Mineral Potential’ that critical minerals are a national security concern. We have to get as much production and processing in the United States “as quickly as possible,” committee Chairman Paul Gosar (R-AZ-9) said. The creation of Project Vault makes that a consensus statement on Capitol Hill these days. For many in the metals and mining space, action is being taken.
Although not debated, one of the gaps Democrats and Republicans are trying to fill but have not defined it yet, is how critical minerals are essential to industrial policies. Congress generally shies away from industrial policies out of concern they are picking economic winners – and leaving other sectors to fend for themselves against similar rivalries. Still, the ‘CHIPS Act,’ a Biden-era signature industrial policy, was held up by a witness as the best example of why the mining and metals industry is foundational industrial policy. They are key to everything from cars to quantum computers.
“The very security of our nation relies heavily on the steady input of critical and valuable minerals,” said Gosar. He talked about copper a lot; mainly because of the Resolution Copper project getting underway near Superior, Arizona. That’s a joint venture between two Australian multinationals, Rio Tinto and BHP.
Copper was recently added to a government critical minerals list because of the build-out of AI data centers.
“Lithium, cobalt, manganese are fundamental to rechargeable batteries that energize our drones, radios, vehicles, and radar systems. Advanced semiconductors critical to communications hardware and radar, infrared and thermal imaging systems could not exist without gallium. Even our military’s core munitions rely on minerals like antimony,” continued Gosar. “But poor policy decisions over the last few decades have left us vulnerable to the supply chain manipulations as our adversaries like China, and now China has sped past the U.S. in terms of mining and processing capacity. To truly ensure our national security, the United States needs to on-shore as much mineral production and processing as possible, and quickly.”
Last week, CPA joined the Responsible Battery Coalition (RBC) in releasing a new report, “Wartime Footing: How the United States Can Reverse China’s Dominance of Battery Minerals Processing,” warning that U.S. national security vulnerabilities in critical minerals stem not from resource scarcity but from China’s control of refining and chemical processing. The report finds that China has consolidated global dominance in the midstream stages of battery supply chains—refining and chemical conversion—giving the Chinese Communist Party significant influence over pricing, supply availability, and industrial investment.
Project Vault was announced on February 2. It makes this topic a slam dunk in Washington. The roughly $12 billion initiative was developed to lend money to miners and entice investment in metals processing in order to build a strategic reserve of critical minerals to protect industry from supply shocks and price volatility.
The Democrats only complaint about it was that some of funding was going to groups aligned with business interests of Donald Trump, Jr. But even Canada, whose leader Mark Carney has taken the role of being the anti-Trump of the West, has committed $175 million to a mining project of rare earths owned in part by private equity firm called Cerberus Capital Management. Stephen Feinberg, Cerberus’ former CEO who worked with President Trump in 2018 and again as Deputy Secretary of Defense in this current second administration.
House Committee Discusses Project Vault And Need To Onshore The Critical Minerals Supply Chain
The Chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations said last week in a hearing titled ‘Unleashing America’s Mineral Potential’ that critical minerals are a national security concern. We have to get as much production and processing in the United States “as quickly as possible,” committee Chairman Paul Gosar (R-AZ-9) said. The creation of Project Vault makes that a consensus statement on Capitol Hill these days. For many in the metals and mining space, action is being taken.
Although not debated, one of the gaps Democrats and Republicans are trying to fill but have not defined it yet, is how critical minerals are essential to industrial policies. Congress generally shies away from industrial policies out of concern they are picking economic winners – and leaving other sectors to fend for themselves against similar rivalries. Still, the ‘CHIPS Act,’ a Biden-era signature industrial policy, was held up by a witness as the best example of why the mining and metals industry is foundational industrial policy. They are key to everything from cars to quantum computers.
“The very security of our nation relies heavily on the steady input of critical and valuable minerals,” said Gosar. He talked about copper a lot; mainly because of the Resolution Copper project getting underway near Superior, Arizona. That’s a joint venture between two Australian multinationals, Rio Tinto and BHP.
Copper was recently added to a government critical minerals list because of the build-out of AI data centers.
“Lithium, cobalt, manganese are fundamental to rechargeable batteries that energize our drones, radios, vehicles, and radar systems. Advanced semiconductors critical to communications hardware and radar, infrared and thermal imaging systems could not exist without gallium. Even our military’s core munitions rely on minerals like antimony,” continued Gosar. “But poor policy decisions over the last few decades have left us vulnerable to the supply chain manipulations as our adversaries like China, and now China has sped past the U.S. in terms of mining and processing capacity. To truly ensure our national security, the United States needs to on-shore as much mineral production and processing as possible, and quickly.”
Last week, CPA joined the Responsible Battery Coalition (RBC) in releasing a new report, “Wartime Footing: How the United States Can Reverse China’s Dominance of Battery Minerals Processing,” warning that U.S. national security vulnerabilities in critical minerals stem not from resource scarcity but from China’s control of refining and chemical processing. The report finds that China has consolidated global dominance in the midstream stages of battery supply chains—refining and chemical conversion—giving the Chinese Communist Party significant influence over pricing, supply availability, and industrial investment.
Project Vault was announced on February 2. It makes this topic a slam dunk in Washington. The roughly $12 billion initiative was developed to lend money to miners and entice investment in metals processing in order to build a strategic reserve of critical minerals to protect industry from supply shocks and price volatility.
The Democrats only complaint about it was that some of funding was going to groups aligned with business interests of Donald Trump, Jr. But even Canada, whose leader Mark Carney has taken the role of being the anti-Trump of the West, has committed $175 million to a mining project of rare earths owned in part by private equity firm called Cerberus Capital Management. Stephen Feinberg, Cerberus’ former CEO who worked with President Trump in 2018 and again as Deputy Secretary of Defense in this current second administration.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve has survived 50 years and 12 presidents, precisely because it was created with a statue. Project Vault deserves the same protection.
Dr. Gracelin Baskaran, Director of the Critical Minerals Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) told the Committee metals were missing from industrial policy. That does seem to be changing, however.
For example, despite allocating $280 billion to semiconductor manufacturing via the ‘CHIPS Act,’ there wasn’t a dollar allocated to securing the minerals needed to manufacture those semiconductors. So in December 2024, China restricted the export of gallium, germanium and antimony, key minerals for semiconductor production. This was followed by further announcements in early 2025, including restrictions on seven heavy rare earth elements. “We funded the factory, we forgot the feedstock,” Baskaran said.
China exports the majority of the world’s critical minerals and accounts for 85% of the world’s mineral processing and refining. China produces 72% of the global refined cobalt, 98% of global gallium, 85% of the global refined rare earth elements. These are the numbers that get under the skin of lawmakers; which is a good thing because it is this national security frame that entices them to prioritize and protect the heavy metals industry – the foundational element of any reindustrialization goal.
“Our reliance on China for critical minerals is dangerous and indisputable,” said full Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-AR-4) during last week’s hearing.
Mining also contributes significantly to America’s GDP.
In 2025, the total value of non-fuel mineral production in the United States was $112 billion, which was an increase from $106 billion in 2024 for fiscal year 2025. Those non-fuel mineral production products went into our GDP and provided over $4 trillion of value, or 13% of GDP that can be traced back to non-fuel minerals.
Mining is a significant domestic employer. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics noted last year that approximately 1.82 million people were employed in non-fuel mining and related sectors. According to the National Mining Association, these jobs average weekly earnings of around $1,900, which exceeds the domestic average earnings by around $700. According to the USGS’s Earth Mapping Resource Initiative, the U.S. has reserves of almost every mineral listed on the critical minerals list.
Other than Executive Branch actions, what can Congress do?
The ‘SPEED Act’ (H.R. 4776) is a project-neutral piece of legislation designed to add certainty to the permitting processes. Its goal is to modernize and streamline the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321), allowing investment decisions along the critical mineral supply chain to be made faster and with more certainty.
The bill passed the House on December 18, 2025, by a 221-196 vote. It is pending in the Senate as of early 2026.
Copper Goes to the Front of the Line
Likely thanks to Chairman Gosar’s Arizona interests, copper was the one metal everyone spoke about most.
“Copper is a pillar of national security. The demand for reliable copper supplies continues to grow,” said Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ-2). He was invited to attend the Committee hearing, but is not a member.
“The United States has an opportunity to strengthen domestic mining and build a more secure and resilient internal supply chain for one of the most critical materials in our country,” Crane said about Resolute.
“If we are to get serious about building that mine-to-manufacture goods supply chain and mobilize as many of the benefits here at home, we’re also going to have to think of innovative financing solutions for copper smelting, which isn’t currently a profitable endeavor,” Baskaran said.
Every mining and metals supply chain the U.S. develops also means more well-paying jobs, added employment, added tax revenue, and added knowledge base on how to do everything along that supply chain, shared Simon Jowitt, Director of the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology and one of the four witnesses.
“It’s far better mining it here, processing it here, refining it here, and then using it for manufacturing here rather than relying on people outside. Friendly sources are one thing, but the fact is that, at the moment, China is dominating the market,” she said, falling short of saying that they are the only game in town for a number of these critical minerals mentioned earlier.
“We are sitting on a surplus of copper here in the United States. Japan has over a million tons of excess copper smelting capacity; our copper could go there, and then it could come back for manufacturing,” Baskaran said.
There are some problems with Baskaran’s idea. If we sent domestically mined copper to Japan for smelting, it could come back into the U.S. in many ways that compete directly with companies making copper derivatives here. Some items would be fine, but others – like semi-finished copper products, would be a disaster and undercut the goals of the Trump administration’s Section 232 copper tariffs.
For further background information, CPA has published a number of staff economic reports and nationally-syndicated articles recently in the metals and critical minerals space, including:
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