Washington, D.C. — National Mining Association President and CEO Hal Quinn called on members of the U.S. House of Representatives today to pass the “National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act of 2013” (H.R. 761), a bi-partisan bill to streamline America’s outdated permitting process and heighten access to minerals essential to U.S. manufacturing and national defense.
“America’s leadership in critical minerals production has fallen victim to a protracted and inefficient permitting process, which has reduced investment in domestic minerals and increased our import dependency,” Quinn said. “Minerals are vital to U.S. economic growth because they are the basic building blocks of modern manufactured products for the agriculture, defense, aerospace, construction, electronics, energy and auto sectors.”
Quinn commended Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) for introducing H.R. 761, emphasizing that the legislation is “essential to meeting the nation’s infrastructure, security and manufacturing needs. It will allow our nation to unlock its full domestic minerals potential by incorporating best practices into the mine permitting process that will better coordinate permitting, clarify responsibilities, avoid duplication and bring more accountability to the process.”
“In a world in which the competition for mineral resources is increasingly fierce,” Quinn said, “America can no longer afford to ignore a permitting process that stalls investment—threatening raw material shortages and downstream economic activity. We need sound policy measures, such as those provided by H.R. 761, to reverse a 30-year trend of increasing import reliance for materials we have here at home and lend a much-needed hand to the industries that will put Americans back to work.”