The Biden administration is clearly showing its incompetence when it comes to energy security and the reliance on foreign nations for critical minerals.
During a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on the Biden administration’s budget request for the U.S. Department of the Interior for Fiscal Year 2024, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland was unable to answer questions from Republican Sen. Josh Hawley on which country dominates the production of critical minerals that are utilized in the manufacturing of electric vehicles.
“On the subject of the sweeping mandates related to electric vehicles that the Biden administration has imposed, including now for our military, the metals needed to make the lithium-ion batteries in those vehicles are of course lithium, nickel, graphite, and cobalt,” said Hawley. “Now, can you tell me what nation is the largest producer of refined lithium in the world?”
Haaland didn’t know. It’s China.
China refines 60% of the world’s lithium and 80% of the world’s cobalt, according to a 2021 Department of Defense report. But this didn’t stop the Biden administration from pushing forward with its goal to have half of all light trucks and passenger vehicles be electrically-powered by 2030, calling for all heavy and medium trucks to be “zero-emission” by 2040.
This goal has led to the Biden administration blocking efforts to start mining for copper and nickel near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in January, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency making a determination in January that would block the mining of 1.4 billion tons of copper, gold, molybdenum, silver and rhenium in Alaska in order to protect salmon.
In response to this, Hawley said, “In all of these instances, these mandates, your decision to trade off our energy security in favor of a radical climate change agenda is making us more and more dependent on China, and at the same time, you are denying mining, blocking mining, blocking permits for mines in this country that would allow us to develop nickel and copper and cobalt. Why? Why block the development of these resources in our own nation in favor of making us dependent on China?”
Haaland’s response was that environmental concerns were the justification for blocking mining near the Boundary Waters area.
It’s clear that the Biden administration’s goal of electrifying the transportation sector is a noble one, but the failure to recognize the need for domestic sources of critical minerals that are necessary for electric vehicle production shows a serious lack of knowledge and understanding of the issue.
The administration’s decision to prioritize environmental concerns over energy security is a mistake that could lead to greater economic and geopolitical dependency on China.