Biden Admin Deals Blow to Mining Industry – Gives Initiative to China

For the next two decades, a wide swath of resource-rich land crucial to our national defense will be tantalizingly out of reach.

The Department of the Interior recently announced a 20-year mining ban for the entire Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness watershed. The watershed extends well beyond the already protected Voyageurs National Park.

Officials in Minnesota had hoped to reopen parts of the Iron Range to mining. They argued mining activities there would have been done in an appropriate manner following an environmental review.

The Biden administration disagreed. Its decision will no doubt exacerbate the rare earth mineral crisis facing America. China already controls 80% of the global supply.

Fox Business has more on the 350-square-mile ban:

On Sunday, the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of Agriculture under President Biden announced the 20-year withdrawal of more than 225,000 acres of northern Minnesota forest land, which is home to some of the largest domestic mineral reserves.

According to the House Committee on Natural Resources, this ban includes the Twin Metals mine, which taps into vast domestic supplies of minerals like copper and nickel that are necessary for renewable energy, computer systems, defense applications and essential household products.

The committee wrote in a press release that the announcement represents the Biden administration's intent “to block access to those resources.”

Most of our complex weapons systems require rare-earth minerals to function correctly.

Still, the fallout won't end there, as House Committee on National Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., lamented:

We cannot have a future of renewable energy without minerals, period — not to mention their necessity to our defense systems, satellites, cellphones and virtually every other advanced technology. While Democrats play political ping pong with American industries, China and Russia are laughing straight to the bank.

Minnesota's increasingly conservative Iron Range is represented in Congress by Republican Pete Stauber, who was unsparing in his condemnation:

Today is an attack on our way of life. Joe Biden banned mining in 225,000 acres of Minnesota's Iron Range, and locked up development of taconite, copper, nickel, cobalt, platinum-group elements, and more. Unfortunately, this harm to our country and our future has become the norm, as this president's goal is to put America last. Not even one month ago, Joe Biden signed an agreement to fund mining projects in Chinese-owned mines in the Congo, where over 40,000 children work as slaves in forced labor and inhumane conditions with no environmental protections. Meanwhile today's mining ban nullifies a Project Labor Agreement with the local building and construction trade unions. America needs to develop our vast mineral wealth, right here at home, with high-wage, union protected jobs instead of continuing to send American taxpayer dollars to countries like the Congo that use child slave labor. The only winner here is China, as Joe Biden continues to hand our foreign adversaries every advantage possible. I can assure you that this administration, from the president to the Forest Service, to the Interior Department, will answer for the pain they elected to cause my constituents today.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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