Rep. Duncan Hunter introduced a bill Tuesday to help restart American production of rare metals that are essential for high-tech defense gear.
China currently dominates the mining and production of “rare earths,” metals like neodymium, cerium, scandium, yttrium and 13 others that are essential producing magnets, lasers, batteries and metal alloys.
“The U.S. must no longer be wholly dependent on foreign sources of strategic and critical materials,” said Hunter. “The risk of this dependence on national security is too great and it urgently demands that we re-establish our depleted domestic industrial base.”
The Republican who represents east San Diego County noted that the last major American producer of rare earth metals declared bankruptcy in 2015, shuttered its California mine and processing plant and sold a portion of the assets to the Chinese. The U.S. dominated the market as recently as the mid 1980s.
Hunter’s METALS Act would allow domestic companies to access five-year, interest-free loans to develop advanced, environmentally friendly technologies for the production of strategic and critical materials.
The act would also prohibit the foreign sourcing of ammonium perchlorate, a chemical used as a rocket propellant.
