Help or Hindrance? The impact of U.S. Environmental Laws on Critical Material Supply Chains, National Security, and Economic Growth
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House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment U.S. House of Representatives
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 2
The chair now recognizes the ranking member of the subcommittee, the general from New York, Mister Tonko, for five minutes for an opening statement.
Speaker 3
Thank you, Mister Chair, and happy Earth Day to everyone. I can remember that first Earth Day in 1970, when Americans, especially young people, came together to celebrate our shared home and to raise awareness for the need to better protect it. Back then, we had big problems threatening our public health and our economy. Rivers on fire, thick smog poisoning our lungs, and PCBs dumped into our waterways. It is not hard to understand why bipartisan majorities in Congress have worked together to address these issues, and no one can deny the success of the laws born out of that moment.
But today, we face another generation of environmental threats: climate change, PFAS, and plastic waste, to name a few. So as we gather together on this Earth Day, rather than examine how we can work together to solve these challenges, the majority would prefer to discuss how our successful legacy environmental laws are failing us. That is the completely wrong approach, I believe, to frame a conversation that I truly believe is worth having. Critical materials are indeed important. We need more of them.
We should be seeking to reduce our reliance on unreliable foreign supply chains that may have security or ethical concerns. We should be promoting ways to raise the bar for environmental, labor, and human rights standards to ensure that these materials are sourced responsibly, regardless of where the extraction and processing occurs. When we enter into bilateral mineral agreements, we should be requiring foreign nations to raise their standards to match ours, rather than having Congress consider how to lower our standards to match these competitors. It is why I have long called for increasing the transparency and traceability of our critical material supply chains, to identify problems with overseas minerals and to hold bad actors accountable. I have no reason to doubt the motivations of members of the majority.
I believe that they believe promoting more secure critical mineral supply chains is a national security and economic competitiveness imperative. But if that is true, then those members should be much more willing to embrace policy priorities supported by House Democrats, meeting us halfway on areas where we can agree to legislate meaningful and, yes, durable policy. Unfortunately, over the past 16 months, we have witnessed congressional Republicans and the Trump administration repeal major incentives and regulations that were already working to induce demand for domestic critical materials. That includes the Republicans' repeal of the 30 d clean vehicle tax credit, which derived up to one-half of its value from a vehicle's use of an American-made battery with compliant mineral components. Additionally, the Trump administration has terminated hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to domestic battery manufacturers.
The uncertainty that has been created by these decisions has resulted in the cancellation of tens of billions of dollars of private sector investments intended to build a domestic clean energy industry to compete with China. These ideologically driven actions are making our supply chain vulnerabilities worse. Plain and simple. Instead, we will still consider this majority's preferred solution to every industrial challenge, repealing our nation's environmental and public health laws. It is tiresome.
It is not getting us any closer to enacting meaningful or durable federal policy. So instead, I would recommend that we have a conversation about how federal laws can play a constructive role in achieving our shared goals. In my view, that could start with a national extended producer responsibility program for lithium-ion batteries and e-waste. Every expert agrees that recycling can address a significant part of our needs. Once we have gone through the troublesome efforts of importing critical materials by imposing collection, reuse, and recycling requirements, we can ensure that those materials stay here in the United States and displace the need for additional imports in the future.
I will not suggest that negotiating such a bill would be easy. Doing serious legislative work never is, but we need to start somewhere. And the sooner we can move past the notion that simply waiving environmental protections will single-handedly unleash our domestic critical mineral industry, the sooner we can begin work on policies where we may be able to find common ground. So on this Earth Day, I want to again encourage us to consider just how the next generation of environmental laws can play a role in addressing some of the biggest public health and economic threats facing our nation, just as those members did back in 1970 and the seventies that followed. With that, I thank you, Mr. Chair, and yield back.
Speaker 2
Thanks, gentlemen. The chair will recognize the chairman of the health subcommittee, Mr. Morgan, to give an opening statement on behalf of the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Guthrie.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. Chairman Guthrie is tied up on the floor, so I will be reading his opening statement to the committee that he previously drafted. Good afternoon, and thank you to our witnesses, and thank you, Chairman Palmer, for holding this hearing. I just wanna take a minute to recognize my friend, and I can say this along with Brett, my friend, the gentleman from Alabama, for his leadership on critical mineral issues and for sounding the alarm that our national security and economic prosperity are at risk if we do not have reliable domestic sources for these important materials.
Winning the race to AI dominance will depend not only on having access to critical minerals that go into semiconductors and other advanced technologies, but also on access to the chemicals needed to manufacture, refine, and recover these critical minerals in the United States rather than having to rely on China. Many of our nation's environmental laws were enacted more than 50 years ago and have not kept pace with the current economic and geopolitical conditions. The Energy and Commerce Committee is leading the way in working to modernize the Toxic Substances Control Act, TSCA, and other environmental laws so that we can meet the challenges posed by China and other countries while also continuing to protect our environment. Even though TASCO was updated 10 years ago, it has become clear that the law is not working as needed. We need to maintain a strong manufacturing base in the United States, and that includes the ability to manufacture our own chemicals and produce other critical materials, all of which are essential for national defense and economic security.
I look forward to hearing from our panel of witnesses on their experiences navigating these laws and their ideas for how we can regulate, how we can reduce regulatory burdens and continue to have a healthy environment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
Speaker 2
Thanks, gentlemen. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, doctor Ruiz, to give an opening statement on behalf of the ranking member for the full committee, mister Palom. You're recognized for five minutes.
Speaker 4
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. These are the remarks of ranking member Frank Palon. On this Earth Day, I would like to take a moment to commemorate our bedrock environmental laws that keep our air clean, our drinking water safe, and our lands free of contamination. Despite what the title of this hearing implies, we do not have to choose between growing our economy and preserving the planet. Our country's most fundamental environmental and public health laws help us lower energy costs and boost our economy, all while combating pollution and the climate crisis.
As it relates to the topic of today's hearing, it is possible to shore up our critical material supply chains without compromising those same environmental and public health protections. Democrats support the responsible and sustainable build-out of our domestic critical material supply chains. It's important for our energy, economic, and national security, and necessary for the clean energy transition. That is why Democrats secured important down payments in the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act. Together, these laws included billions of dollars in federal investments to strengthen our critical material supply chains, create jobs, boost American manufacturing, and lower costs for hardworking families.
For example, the bipartisan infrastructure law included $7,900,000,000 for battery materials processing, manufacturing, and recycling. It also directed EPA to develop best practices for battery collection and voluntary labeling guidelines to help grow our circular economy for critical minerals. Materials. The Inflation Reduction Act included tax credits for electric vehicles, domestically or ally sourced critical materials for batteries, and domestic battery manufacturing to expand our capacity and boost our supply chain resiliency. Instead of building on this important work, Republicans have taken a wrecking ball to many of these important demand drivers.
They have canceled clean energy projects, programs, and incentives, and in the process destroyed downstream manufacturing that is an essential facet of bolstering critical material supply chains. For example, due to the Republican attacks, clean vehicle and battery projects accounted for more than $21,000,000,000 in lost investment in 2025. Needlessly, dampening demand for critical minerals would jeopardize our ability to attract and grow domestic critical materials operations. Republicans continue to talk about the very threat from China, but their policies are misaligned. The rest of the world, particularly China, is investing in the clean energy economy more so now after Trump's war in Iran.
China has created a vertically integrated model centered on supply and demand for clean energy technologies like solar and batteries, giving them a stranglehold over the world's downstream, midstream, and upstream supply chain for critical materials. If we wanna get serious about combating China's dominance over the critical material supply chain, Republicans and the Trump administration need to stop their assault on homegrown clean energy. Their clean energy rollbacks undermine our efforts to lead the global clean energy transition, leaving the world to rely on China for critical minerals, and exposing us to geopolitical supply chain risks. To change this dynamic, we need a strong domestic market for clean energy technologies, so that companies are willing to make long-term investments in this sector. Instead of scapegoating environmental laws, Congress must build on democratic investments to create a domestic market for critical minerals, bolster domestic supply chains, create jobs, and fuel a clean energy economy.
We must also strengthen our domestic capabilities to reduce our reliance on foreign sources. We must grow and cement our relationships with our friends and allies abroad to develop and access new critical mineral supply chains, also known as friend shoring. The United States must invest in the processing of critical materials and battery recycling to increase the domestic supply of these resources, and we must rely on and invest in American ingenuity in creating innovative solutions that reduce the need for extraction, like innovative battery chemistries. I welcome a productive conversation today about strengthening our critical materials supply chains, but Democrats will not entertain the idea that we must roll back important environmental protections to do so. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And with that, I yield back the balance of the time.
Speaker 2
Thank you, gentlemen. We now conclude with member opening statements. The chair would like to remind members that pursuant to the committee rules, all members' opening statements will be made part of the record. We want to thank our witnesses for being here today and taking the time to testify for the subcommittee. The witnesses will have the opportunity to give an opening statement, followed by a round of questions from the members.
Our witnesses for today are Chris Lehman, chief development officer, principal mineral doctor Baya Spiller, fellow and transportation program director, Resources for the Future, Jane Neal, senior vice president, AMG of vanadium, and Josh Gupkin, associate general counsel, Redwood Materials. We appreciate you being here today. I now recognize Mister Lehman for five minutes to give an opening statement.
Speaker 5
Chairman Palmer, ranking member Tomco, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I serve as chief development officer of Principal Mineral, a mission-focused strategic materials platform dedicated to forging resilient US supply chains. I have the privilege to work with a team of patriots operating at the intersection of capital markets, scaled industrial development, and strategic material supply chains essential to our national and economic security. My motivation to execute our mission at Principal Mineral comes from my prior service in the government at the Pentagon. I served as the director of the Defense Production Act Title III program focused on addressing key shortfalls in the domestic industrial base.
I also served as the deputy director of the Office of Strategic Capital, which utilizes debt-based investment tools to attract and scale private capital investment into critical supply chains for national security. In both of these jobs, strategic material supply chains and the strategic risks posed to our nation by the glaring gaps within them were front and center. The first point I'd like to make is that strategic materials, be it critical chemicals, rare earths, copper, or a multitude of others, are not only foundational for the defense industrial base, but for the entire modern economy. US leadership in these markets will be essential to shaping our nation's long-term economic competitiveness and resilience. Strategic materials are embedded in nearly every sector driving growth today.
Energy infrastructure, advanced electronics, telecommunications, transportation, and artificial intelligence. The scale of dependence is significant. According to the US Geological Survey, the US relies on imports for over half of its supply of more than 40 critical minerals and is fully import dependent for at least a dozen. Inputs like copper, rare earth elements, and specialty metals are essential across everything from data centers to grid systems, to consumer technologies. At the same time, global markets for these materials are often characterized by concentrated production, limited transparency, and periods of significant price volatility.
In industries where projects require billions of dollars and years to develop, that volatility has real consequences. When future pricing and supply conditions are difficult to model, the cost of the capital raises, investment slows, and production capacity does not get built. Second, strengthening these supply chains requires a coordinated system-wide approach, not isolated policy actions. The core challenge is not simply resource availability. It is whether the US can create the conditions under which capital will be committed to building industrial capacity across the value chain and at scale.
That depends on alignment across several interconnected factors. Regulatory clarity and permitting timelines, aligning policy tools to support long-term investment, access to long-duration patient capital, coordination across supply chain segments, and consistency in environmental and operating standards. When these elements work together, investment becomes viable, timelines compress, and capacity grows. When they are misaligned, projects stall even when demand is strong, and technology is proven. Third, regulatory clarity and consistent environmental standards are central to enabling that system and to attracting long-term investment.
The United States should maintain strong environmental protections. That is essential for public trust and long-term sustainability. But from the perspective of developers and investors, the defining issue is predictability. Today, regulatory processes are often fragmented across agencies. Timelines are uncertain, and outcomes can vary.
When regulatory pathways are clear and consistently applied, investors are willing to commit long-duration capital. When they are not, projects are delayed or do not move forward at all. At the same time, consistent environmental and labor standards, both domestically and across allied supply chains, ensure that growth does not come at the expense of responsible production. They also help prevent a shift of activity to jurisdictions with weaker protections, which ultimately undermines both environmental and economic objectives. Finally, innovation and commercialization will determine whether the US can compete at scale in these markets.
The US has competitive advantages in research and development, and the deepest, most trusted, and liquid capital markets in the world. The markets that can fund the transition from R and D to commercialized innovation and industrial capacity. Policymakers have the opportunity to set positive conditions that will unleash these competitive advantages to build the strategic material supply chains our nation needs. In closing, leadership in strategic materials markets will be determined not by any signal project or initiative, but by the strength and coherence of the overall system. The US has a clear opportunity to lead.
If the system is aligned, capital will flow, capacity will be built, and the US can establish durable leadership in these sectors for decades to come. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
Speaker 6
Chairman Palmer, ranking member Tongo, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Bea Spiller. I'm a fellow and transportation program director at Resources for the Future. The views I'm expressing today are my own. Building a domestic critical mineral supply chain is challenging, and the difficulty is not explained by any single factor.
In my remarks today, I'll cover four key barriers to scaling domestic key domestic supply, address why weakening environmental safeguards won't solve them, and discuss four policy options that can support the domestic industry while still protecting communities. So let's talk about the barriers to building a domestic critical mineral supply chain. First, it's more expensive to extract and process minerals in the United States than in other regions, in part because key inputs like labor, electricity, and construction materials cost more here. And while environmental regulations can raise costs, they're generally not the primary cost driver. Second, domestic producers face global prices that are often low and frequently volatile.
This creates an investment risk that domestic producers cannot control. And importantly, low prices are often artificially low because they reflect unpriced environmental and labor harms of production. When those harms are not internalized, the global price signal undercuts firms that are trying to operate responsibly. Third, permitting times are long, but the evidence suggests that eliminating community engagement to speed up the timelines is not a shortcut. In fact, reduced engagement can increase the likelihood of litigation after permits are issued, potentially lengthening timelines rather than shortening them.
And fourth, we have a workforce and know-how challenge. After decades of limited domestic activity, we have gaps in trained labour and institutional expertise. Capacity constraints show up in industry, and recent staffing shortages in federal agencies reduce the government's ability to support mapping, permitting, regulatory review, and innovation. Given these barriers, weakening environmental protections will not create a viable domestic supply chain. The binding constraints are larger and more structural, and these include cost differentials, price volatility, missing skills and capacity, and long development timelines.
But beyond that, environmental safeguards are part of the competitive advantage of producing here, and that they help ensure that the supply chain is sustainable and socially legitimate. And well-designed environmental rules can encourage innovation, including process improvements that can reduce emissions and sometimes even reduce costs. Strong standards can support workforce recruitment and retention because people are more likely to live and work where air and water are clean, and safety risks are managed. Finally, healthier environments mean a healthier workforce, reducing illness and absenteeism, and increasing company productivity. But for these laws to support rather than hinder the development of the supply chain, we need strong governance.
And that means a well-staffed and well-funded public workforce that can implement the rules consistently and without unnecessary delays. So the question really comes down to what are the policies that can most effectively move the needle to support the development of a domestic mineral supply chain? So first, let's focus on improving permitting efficiency, not by skipping steps, but by running better processes. And this can include stronger interagency coordination and more concurrent reviews. Second, let's invest in workforce and technical capacity.
This includes things like state and regional training initiatives, targeted support for higher education, and ensuring federal agencies have the staffing they need to support the industry and to implement laws effectively. Third, let's invest in R and D and commercialization. Innovation can lower costs, reduce environmental impacts, and make the US more competitive. And finally, let's focus on connecting the upstream with the downstream demand in the supply chain. If downstream manufacturers have stable expectations of demand, they can invest and enter into offtake agreements that provide long-term price and demand certainty for upstream mineral producers.
Those agreements reduce risks on both sides of the supply chain, helping to stabilize domestic markets, and supporting manufacturing jobs nationwide. In short, building a domestic mineral supply chain requires recognizing its true constraints. Policies like permitting improvements, workforce investment, innovation support, and strong demand linkages are likely to do more to grow domestic supply than weakening environmental safeguards, and they can do so while protecting communities and supporting long-term competitiveness. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify. I look forward to your questions.
Speaker 7
Thank you, Chairman Palmer, Ranking Member Tonko, and members of the subcommittee for the opportunity to testify today. I'm Jane Neal, senior vice president at AMG Vanadium, an Ohio-based manufacturer. AMG Vanadium is the only domestic producer of ferrovanadium, supplying approximately 40% of the US market for this critical mineral that is essential to steelmaking for infrastructure, energy, transportation, and defense. The balance of US demand is imported, with 75% of global production concentrated in Russia and China. AMG recycles petroleum refinery waste to reclaim vanadium, but we are not merely a waste processor.
We are a critical minerals company and a strategic domestic manufacturer. In 2022, AMG commissioned a $300,000,000 facility to expand capacity to upwards of 75% of the US demand. Meanwhile, others are exporting the same material for vanadium reclamation overseas, including Asia. Despite this, current interpretations of the RICRA regulations threaten AMG's ability to operate after 2031. Approximately 90% of vanadium is used in steelmaking, which is AMG Vanadium's principal market.
The remaining 10% is used as vanadium oxide, including in growing applications as an electrolyte in large scale energy storage that supports renewable energy. The rigorous language that AMG operates under uses vague terms such as legitimate recycling, leaving regulated companies subject to the interpretation of the regulators. For more than 20 years, Ohio EPA has issued variances recognizing AMG's operations as legitimate recycling. Those variances have long enabled AMG to operate safely and lawfully in this environment of duplicative and vague regulations. The issue arose when EPA region five staff adopted interpretations that differed from the past 20 years.
In 2019, AMG received a variance issued by Ohio EPA after US EPA Region Five review. This allowed AMG to begin construction on the $300,000,000 expansion facility. After operations commenced, US EPA reversed its position, advising the Ohio EPA that AMG's operations did not represent legitimate recycling. They directed Ohio EPA to revoke AMG's variances, which would have left the company unable to operate. Under pressure from then senator Brown and Ohio EPA, region five settled on a position not to allow renewal of the variances after 2031.
The core problem is a lack of clarity in the RICR regulations, not a lack of environmental controls. Ohio has ensured that the variance is as protective of human health and the environment as a permit is. Yet changing interpretations by federal staff now threaten AMG's operations. RICRA needs clarification and modernization, not weakening. The law should clearly allow the safe domestic recycling of spent petroleum catalyst for critical mineral recovery and distinguish legitimate domestic recyclers from disposal operations.
And it should remove duplicative regulations where other programs, including the Clean Air Act, already provide protection. The principle is simple. RICR should favor recycling when human health and environmental protection are maintained. While AMG's position is supported by the region five administrator, administrative interpretations are not durable. National interests cannot depend on shifting agencies' views.
Endurance comes from statutory clarity. AMG has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to recycle hazardous waste into valuable materials without environmental harm, processing over 500,000 tons of spent catalyst, and recovering over 50,000,000 pounds of vanadium. Modernizing RICRA would protect environmental goals while advancing strategic, economic, and national security interests. Congress should ensure that legitimate recycling is encouraged, valuable materials remain domestic, and ambiguous language cannot be used against responsible recyclers. Rickers should allow variances and exemptions to work together and eliminate duplicative overlap where other environmental programs already impose protective controls.
The spent catalyst recycling and critical minerals and metals recovery act introduced earlier this year by representative Troy Balderson and senator John Hoeven provides such language. Thank you again for this opportunity and for your consideration of the impact of these regulations on the companies operating under them.
Speaker 2
Thank you. The chair now recognizes Mister Gibbkin for five minutes for an opening statement.
Speaker 8
Chairman Guthrie, Palmer, ranking member Tonko, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Josh Gupkin. I serve as associate general counsel at Redwood Materials, founded by JB Straubel, cofounder and former CTO of Tesla. Redwood is building the first fully integrated US-based battery supply chain. Roughly 90% of all domestically recycled lithium-ion batteries are processed through our facilities, making us the largest lithium-ion battery recycler in North America.
We recover on average 98% of critical minerals from end-of-life batteries. Our operations represent the first commercial scale nickel mine to open in the US in a decade, the only new commercial scale domestic lithium in decades, and the largest US source of cobalt. Our operations set the standard for what domestic recycling should look like. Redwood's approach spans the full battery life cycle. We repurpose batteries that still have useful life for grid-scale energy storage.
We recycle batteries that have reached the end of life to recover their critical minerals, and we refine those minerals and manufacture new battery components, including cathode active material, the most expensive component in a new battery. That's done with zero fossil fuels, zero industrial discharge, and with an air emission permit that's akin to those at hospitals and hotels. End-of-life batteries are not an environmental problem. They are a strategic resource that can be reinvested into the next generation of American industry. The title of this hearing asks whether our environmental laws help or hinder critical mineral supply chains.
These laws were differently written for a different era before the lithium ion battery industry existed. Applied to today's materials and processes, they are producing outcomes that no one intended, pushing investment, manufacturing, and critical mineral recovery offshore rather than keeping them within our borders. Two EPA legal frameworks are at the center of this problem, RCRA and TSCA. Both need to be modernized to reflect current technology and market realities, and to align with the goals this committee and the administration are pursuing. Under RCRA, EPA classifies used lithium ion batteries as hazardous waste.
That classification forces domestic recyclers into a permitting process that can take years to complete. It's a death knell for innovation. Or it requires us to store batteries at a physically separate location from where we process. Batteries must be unloaded and reloaded and trucked on a public road from one property to the next. This creates more risk, not less.
China reclassified these same materials as non-waste raw material last year, and now controls more than 80% of global lithium-ion recycling capacity. The EU went the other direction, classified black mass as hazardous waste, and is already seeing investor flight and canceled projects. The United States is on track to make the same mistake. Under TASCA, the EPA treats each modified cathode material as an entirely new chemical substance, triggering a review process that's supposed to take 90 days, but in practice takes over a year. It's followed by a second rulemaking that adds months or years more.
Total time to market regularly exceeds 3 years. The message to manufacturers is simple: build overseas and import the finished product. Tosca also punishes recyclers. Restrictions imposed by EPA under Tosca prevent new variants of battery materials from domestic distribution. Consequently, a domestic recycler cannot distribute the material it recovers within the United States.
As a result, critical minerals are exported. That is the exact opposite of what this committee is trying to achieve. These batteries also impact energy storage. Many end-of-life EV batteries retain up to 80% of their usable capacity. Through Redwood Energy, we deployed the largest second-life battery material installation in the world.
But EPA's framework creates uncertainty about these batteries, whether they're waste when they first leave a vehicle, hindering the entire repurposing industry, when demand from data centers and AI is surging. Our ask is straightforward. First, enact a national lithium-ion battery management act that creates a unified federal framework. Second, use EPA rulemaking to exclude lithium-ion batteries and battery materials destined for repurposing or recycling from the definition of solid waste. Third, reform Tosca's treatment of cathode materials so domestic manufacturers and recyclers are not penalized for operating in the US.
And fourth, mandate interagency alignment so EPA works towards the same goals as other agencies on this committee. The materials are in the US. The technology is in the US. The investment is ready. What we need is a regulatory framework that prioritizes these critical materials for what they are: strategic assets.
Thank you. I welcome your questions.
Speaker 2
I thank our witnesses for their opening statements. The chair now recognizes the chairman of the full committee to distinguish gentleman from Kentucky, Mister Guthrie, for five minutes for his questions.
Speaker 9
Thank you. Thank you for calling me. I appreciate the recognition. And I wanna start with, I know we're talking about critical minerals and mining. One of the great mining engineers to serve in Congress was a dear friend of all of ours, David McKinley.
And David McKinley passed away last week, and I think his funeral is on this Monday. He was a colleague, and he loved this subcommittee. He was very important to this subcommittee. And he's someone that we'll all miss. His dear wife, Miriam, who was here with him quite often, and so we got to know her as well.
I'll just think I can speak for everybody on the committee and the subcommittee that he was a dear man, and his thoughts and our thoughts and prayers are with him and his wife and his family because we're certainly gonna miss him. He still kinda kept in touch with a lot of us, so we really appreciated that. And, you know, the earth's a little less today because Dave McKinley is not with us anymore. And he certainly loved West Virginia. He loved what he did, and he knew that the minerals of this world were important and were important to what we are able to use for our country.
So, God bless them. God bless the McKinleys. So, mister McKin, in Gupkin? Is it Gupkin or Gupkin? In your testimony, you describe a complicated regulatory framework for your company.
Redwood Materials has to navigate in order to recycle and recover critical minerals from batteries. One of the challenges we've heard about Tosca is that even slight variations of an existing chemical have to undergo a full risk review. So the question is, how do you think allowing EPA to group together similar equivalent chemicals for expedited risk reviews would improve the process and provide more certainty to manufacturers?
Speaker 8
Thank you for your question. And, I think it will speed things up, first of all, because, to use an analogy, you have various shades of green. You have deep green, light green, emerald, sea green. These are all green. They're just slight variations of the same thing.
And so if instead, Tosca were to group these and work through the science to determine the protections for them as green, they can do this as a class. It should be a quicker one, and so a quicker process closer to the 90 days that they're supposed to. And in addition to that, once they've made that determination for green, it covers all green. So you don't have to go through it again for each process. This is actually similar to what they do in Europe under REACH.
So this isn't something that's new or novel, but it is something that makes sense.
Speaker 9
As that is an avid recycler myself, I am known to pull aluminum cans out of the garbage. Not because I collect them to sell. I turn them in because either they go in the ground or then go back in the stream of commerce. And why don't we want them back in my family's in the aluminum business. So I figured the more aluminum that exists, the cheaper aluminum's gonna be for everybody.
And so, it saves from putting them in the ground, which is a waste. And so we need to make it easier for people to recycle. We need to make it, and particularly these critical minerals that we have. So, also, mister Gupkin, in your testimony, you discussed how EPA requirements are often not aligned with safety standards issued by OSHA and other regulatory bodies. Can you briefly describe your workplace safety practices and how conflicting regulatory requirements can present challenges for your workers and potentially impact? I think both agencies want them to be safe, but sometimes they conflict. And how could you give us an example?
Speaker 8
Yeah. So, you know, I think the example to use really is between going back to Tosca, what you have from that organization going and putting restrictions for safety on one company versus another and them not being aligned even though it's the same materials. And that can be different from what OSHA has done, who has the delegated scope for protecting employees. And so you have three different things that possibly you're looking at. And just as an example with LFP, you have restrictions that come out based on TOSCA, where the filter protection that you have for the manufacturer of it is one tenth the protection for the recyclers using the same material from the same company.
There's really no rationale beyond that. It doesn't provide any added protection for the workers. It just provides added cost, added problems for the recycler. And so, why aren't these aligned? And, moreover, why isn't OSHA, who has the ability and the mandate to go and find these levels of protection, have them do the work on that, so that we have a consistent framework from state to state across the nation for how we protect our
Speaker 9
Employees? Thank you. I don't have much time left. So I'll just leave it at this, that I was just on the floor of the house and they announced the passing of David Scott. I think all of us are aware of that now.
And, again, just like with our dear friend David McKinley, David Scott, his wife was Hank Aaron's sister. So Hank Aaron was his brother-in-law, and he used to, I was growing up for Brace family. That's kind of our connection. He would talk about all the issues that Hank Aaron had to go through, and I can tell you, took when he moved to Atlanta to play baseball. And I tell you the whole world was cheering for him in 1974.
So it's amazing what that family has brought into our country, and particularly David Scott and his service. So our thoughts and prayers are with Miss Scott and the Scott family. So, thank you.
Speaker 2
Thanks, gentlemen. The chair now recognizes the ranking member of the committee, mister Tonko, for five minutes.
Speaker 3
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Doctor Spiller, I wanna associate myself with your testimony that securing our critical mineral supply chains is a complex, multifaceted issue. It does not need to come at the expense of our environmental laws. We heard from a few witnesses that the recycling of critical minerals can play an important role in securing domestic supplies. And there may be, may very well be definitional and regulatory barriers that make recycling more challenging.
Doctor Spiller, as a first order issue, can you give us a sense of the potential for recycling to play a role in reducing our dependence on foreign supply chains?
Speaker 6
It's a great question. We have limited material here right now in terms of just the quantity of, you know, batteries and black mass to really make a huge dent currently. Obviously, as EV demand ramps up, the more electric vehicles we buy and, in turnover. Over the years, we will have the ability to reduce our dependence on foreign sources. But, currently, we don't have a huge amount of, you know, mass to really make a dent in it right now.
Speaker 3
Thank you. And your testimony mentioned that there were incentives and regulations in the forms of the 30 d clean vehicle tax credit and EPA's GHG tailpipe rule, which have now been repealed, that were structured to further induce investments in and demand for domestic critical minerals, including recycled minerals. Is that correct?
Speaker 6
I'm sorry. I'm having a hard time hearing you. Could you repeat the question?
Speaker 3
Sure. The incentives and regulations that were in the form of the 30 d clean vehicle tax credit and EPA's GHG tailpipe rule, which have now been repealed, were structured to further induce investments in and demand for domestic critical minerals, including recycled minerals. Is that correct?
Speaker 3
So is it fair to say that well-designed federal policies, whether that's incentives or environmental regulations, can actually promote our domestic critical mineral goals?
Speaker 6
Absolutely. These the 30 d tax credit, I think, was a really great option and was a really great policy because what it did was, at the same time that it created this really increased demand for the electric vehicles, it tied the sourcing of the minerals. It's tied to the demand for the electric vehicles to domestic sourcing of the minerals themselves. So in order to be able to get the tax credit, the minerals in the batteries had to come either from domestic sources or from friendly nations. So that led to a lot of, you know, offtake agreements with domestic lithium producers.
So by tying the demand side to the upstream, it created, you know, a really strong base for our supply chain.
Speaker 3
Well, the national extended producer responsibility, the EPR requirement, the safe repurposing, recycling, and disposal of batteries, was a good strong incentive. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act required EPA to develop such a framework, and I have been pleased that this effort has continued under the current administration. So, doctor Spiller, could a national program like this where battery manufacturers are responsible for a standardized system supporting the collection, recovery, repurposing, and recycling of batteries help achieve our goals of reusing critical minerals and reducing risks of exporting minerals that have already entered the US economy?
Speaker 6
I'm not an expert on that policy. I don't really know much about that, so I can't speak to that directly. But any sort of policy that requires the collection of the batteries themselves for recycling, I think would be probably a pretty good policy to help, you know, ensure that we're continuing to collect the material needed to, you know, shore up the supply chain.
Speaker 3
And, mister Gupkin, I believe Redwood Materials has been part of those conversations. Am I not correct that led that have been led by the EPA to inform the development of this framework?
Speaker 8
You're referring to the extended producer responsibility. Yes. Definitely, we have been involved in those discussions, I believe, both at the state and federal level. And, we continue to be involved in those, seeing that when there is an advantage to increasing recycling, we're interested in being a.
Speaker 3
Part of that. And what's your impression of the effort? And what are some of the elements that may be included in the forthcoming framework?
Speaker 8
I think the issues right now, mostly are that it is on a state-by-state level, and that poses challenges for anyone when you have to change what you're doing from one state to the other, especially for something like an EV battery that can be bought in one state, moved to another. So that is something that needs to be looked at. Beyond that, I have to admit that I'm not the one who's most directly involved in those conversations for it. But, again, if, you know, we have something where it helps to promote recycling, see that these batteries have an extended life possibility through second purpose or afterwards, if they don't have that life possible, that they can be used for recycling to recover critical minerals. Generally speaking, but what's in favor?
Speaker 3
I thank you for that. I've exhausted my time. And with that, mister chair, I'll go back.
Speaker 2
Thanks, gentlemen. The chair now recognizes the chairman of the energy subcommittee, the gentleman from Ohio, mister Lata, for 5 minutes for his questions.
Speaker 11
Well, thank you very much, mister chairman, and thanks to our witnesses for being here. If I could start, Mister Gupkin, with you. In your written testimony, you discussed potential for used lithium batteries to be repurposed for grid scale energy storage, supplying electricity for utilities, manufacturing facilities and data centers, among other facilities. How would repurposing these batteries support our efforts to make sure our important infrastructure has access to reliable power, while also protecting ratepayers from price increases resulting from increased demand?
Speaker 8
What I can tell you is, you know, as I'd said in my verbal testimony, Redwood Energy has deployed the largest second-life battery installation in the world. So that's a 63-megawatt-hour microgrid powered by repurposed EV batteries that's operating right now on our campus. It was completed in under six months and at up to 50% lower cost than conventional systems. So just using that as a quick example of what can be done with the resources that we have. Same materials can be provided, and given for the infrastructure, for industry.
We recently announced a partnership with Rivian to help provide energy storage systems for their manufacturing plant. So there's wide applicability where we have this resource available, and we can use it right away in a quicker, cheaper deployment for both utilities and the private sector.
Speaker 11
You know, what countries are or what country or what countries out there are doing the most in battery repurposing right now?
Speaker 8
Honestly, I'm not sure who else is. I'm, you know, we seem to be doing some of the first initial work on this. We're an innovator. Each battery company makes different types of batteries, and they speak different languages. And we've learned how to crack the code and have that happen so that we can use different type batteries and have this function.
But we wanna see that it's used on a large scale. Obviously, it's a very important part.
Speaker 11
You know, you also noted that EPA's framework creates uncertainty around battery repurposing. It may subject reuse batteries to the RCRA if classified as waste. What alternative approach would Congress be considering right now to support reuse while ensuring safe handling?
Speaker 8
So there's two parts to that. First, as far as how you could change the regulations so that they're not considered waste, there's already a process for this. It's 40 CFR 261.4, which is exclusions for certain materials if they are recycled. You could simply add batteries, battery materials to that list, the same way that shredded circuit boards are listed there. That takes it out of the waste category and makes a more streamlined approach for recyclers or others.
It still requires, as was mentioned by my counterpart, the need for legitimate recycling. So there's still protection there. There's also, you know, other protections from other agencies. So we're not giving up anything. We're not reducing the environmental.
It's just a pathway to go ahead and do it in a better way, and it says to the world that these materials are feedstock, not waste.
Speaker 11
Well, thank you very much. Mister Lehman, what national security or economic benefits will result from repurposing batteries low domestically? And would there be a private sector interest in expanding this industry domestically with a clear regulatory environment?
Speaker 5
Yes. Absolutely. And I would expand the aperture further, as well as broader electronic scrap. The vast majority of it is exported today. The vast majority of that is going to China.
So the opportunities for recycling and reclamation to supplement what, you know, primary means we'll have to scale production is gonna be absolutely essential. And, you know, we have mountains of material under our feet with the, on the electric motor side, you know, the initial vintages of electric vehicles are reaching end of life. We have a mountain of that coming in terms of drive motors. So the opportunity to scale domestic capabilities for recycling is significant, and a major unlock would be clarity and a regulatory framework that has, you know, certainty, clarity, and Yeah. Clear timelines.
Speaker 11
Yeah. You know, that's gonna be a quick question to follow-up. When you talk about, especially with the EVs today, and, you know, reclaiming the critical minerals and those, are those being exported right now to, let's say, China?
Speaker 5
For dry butter specifically, I don't have specific knowledge on that, but e scrap more generally, absolutely. But there's limited, you know, ability for current recyclers to extract rare earth elements. There are other aspects that are done domestically today at scale, you know, platinum group metals, catalysts related items, things like that, where there are, you know, recycling capabilities, but needs to be extended for, you know, broader critical minerals that we need.
Speaker 11
Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My time has expired. Now yield back.
Speaker 2
Thanks, gentlemen. The chair now recognizes the distinguished member from California, Doctor Ruiz, for five minutes for his questions.
Speaker 4
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The framing of today's hearing, help or hindrance, is deeply frustrating. It reinforces a false choice between protecting public health and securing America's critical mineral supply chain. Today, lithium is primarily extracted through evaporation ponds or hard rock mining, both land- and energy-intensive processes that can put the public's health at risk. That said, California's 25th District is home to Lithium Valley, a region defined as much by its potential as by its resource base.
What makes Lithium Valley unique is both what it holds and how it can be developed. It sits atop one of the largest known lithium reserves in the Western Hemisphere, in fact, the fifth largest in the world. And Lithium Valley uses the cleanest way to extract minerals in the world. You see, it is a closed loop circuit, where you draw geothermal brine extracted, goes up, creates geothermal energy produced, releasing vapor, water stream. And as it goes back to the brine, reinjected underground, critical minerals are filtered and extracted out, including lithium and manganese, and this will generate the battery manufacturing that we need and the clean energy that our nation needs.
No large salt lakes or deep cavernous mines emitting pollutants in the air. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab estimates 3,400,000 metric tons of lithium could be recovered in Lithium Valley, over 5,000 times current US annual production. This could shift America's critical mineral supply chain away from China, and it goes beyond lithium. Lithium Valley also holds manganese, vital for batteries and defense, a mineral we have had zero domestic production of since 1970. What makes this powerful is that it is operational, not theoretical.
Companies are already extracting lithium, manganese, zinc, and cesium from geothermal brine while producing clean energy. Doctor Spiller, in developing critical mineral manufacturing projects, why is it crucial for developers to secure community trust and support?
Speaker 6
Well, from an investor perspective, a community trust is a material risk factor. I mean, projects that fail to secure it are much more likely to face permitting delays, litigation, cost overruns, or even cancellation. And all of this is going to undermine the project economics and even deter capital. And it's important to note, right, many critical mineral projects are located near communities that have a history of exposure to really severe mining harms, in particular indigenous communities. And so investors really need to pay close attention to whether developers can manage this risk credibly.
Speaker 4
I agree. Fostering community trust is non-negotiable. What does effective, meaningful, and equitable community engagement look like, and how does community engagement also benefit developers?
Speaker 6
Well, I mean, that can be defined as sort of community-led engagement that takes place across all phases of project development. So it requires companies to bring in communities as sort of partners to the development project process, and, you know, communities are sort of involved in decision making processes around development that's happening in their neighborhood and where they live. And so it creates the social license to operate, communities feel. Thank you. That they are part of the process.
Speaker 4
Thank you. Some of my colleagues point to environmental laws as the chief obstacles to domestic development. I see it differently. The National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Air Act do not hinder development. They structure it.
When implemented efficiently, these laws reduce risk for developers and give communities a meaningful seat at the table. So, doctor Spiller, how would weakening or undermining our environmental regulations remove our ability to have the upper hand against foreign adversaries?
Speaker 6
Yeah. Well, you know, weakening our standards really undermines two major things that we compete upon, which is trusted supply chains and high value markets. You know, one of the big issues is that our global buyers and allies are moving towards cleaner procurement standards and carbon based requirements. So if we don't meet those standards, we're gonna be locked out of premium markets and partnerships.
Speaker 4
Thank you. You see, this is not about help or hindrance. It's about doing the right thing. Lithium and the right way, Lithium Valley shows what responsible domestic permitting can achieve when science, communities, and national security align. This is how we compete with China, not by cutting corners, but by building something better.
I yield back.
Speaker 2
Thanks, gentlemen. The chair now recognizes the chairman of the health subcommittee, the distinguished gentleman from West Virginia, mister Guthrie.
Speaker 1
I was Mr. Guthrie. I played Mr. Guthrie earlier today, but I know it's been a long day.
Speaker 1
Play Mister Guthrie earlier today in the opening statement, so I understand the concern.
Speaker 2
Yesterday on the Ford, I introduced representative Heard, and it was actually representative Crank. Yeah. I'm on a roll.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Mister Lehman, researchers at Virginia Tech, which is located in my district, like my friend doctor Yoon, have carried out research to analyze and separate rare earth elements in coal and in gold piles or coal waste. How can state and federal coordination incentivize the identification of other sources of waste that may also contain critical minerals?
Speaker 5
Thank you for the question. There's been a, you know, stiffened amount of research and development and project work done specifically on coal tailings and the ability to extract. You know, I think looking at the broader aperture of waste streams and applying a similar level of rigor is certainly merited on the research and development front. But I'd say at the same time, you know, there's a need to move forward with what is most immediately deployable and scalable and has a pathway to being economically competitive. But that innovation has to be a core part of the solution set at scale, I mentioned in my statement.
So continued research and development on extractive methodologies for a broader aperture makes sense.
Speaker 1
And I guess as a follow-up, are there particular industries or operations that lenders and venture capitalists are hesitant to invest in because of a lack of regulatory consistency?
Speaker 5
Yes. As I mentioned, when there's, you know, uncertainty with regards to timelines, the regulatory pathways, you know, it's much more challenging to underwrite a given project if there's a track record of uncertainties, delays, stops, starts. So, really, the only point I'm making is that, you know, one consideration would be a prioritized regulatory pathway with clearly established timelines, requirements upfront so it's clear to the market, clear to the counterparty executing the project what that.
Speaker 1
And oftentimes, if I'm understanding you, that's what we call shot clocks on certain things, is to say that you've gotta say yes or no by a certain time so that people know what's going on or say you didn't give us enough information and reset the so-called shot clock.
Speaker 5
And I know it's been a focus of both congress and the administration, you know, applying fast 41 towards critical projects, you know, considering strategic materials projects as a classification to be bucketed and allocated towards priority regulatory pathways like that makes a lot of sense to me, because there's the scope, scale, complexity of the gaps resident within this broad complex of strategic materials is significant and vast, and there's gotta be a way to, you know, I had an experience from COVID response when I was running the DPA program. We need to with leadership and urgency and resourcing, we can attack this problem, and private capital will deploy at scale, you know, if some of the barriers are removed. Are reduced.
Speaker 1
Right. Mister Gupkin, in your written testimony, you suggested adding used lithium-ion batteries and battery materials intended to be recycled to the list of materials excluded from the definition of solid waste. Why do you believe excluding these materials would address your concerns with how battery recycling is regulated?
Speaker 8
So currently, with recycling, the way that things are, as I said, there are two pathways basically that we're forced to go. Either you go through a RICRA part a b permitting process, which can take somewhere around 2 years to complete. If you wanna make any modifications, you're looking at several months more for those to be approved and incorporated into your permit. You know, if you're an innovator, if you're a startup, this is not really helpful. The other path, as I'd said, was you wind up categorizing materials as universal waste, again, calling them a waste, but there's a weird spot within these regulations that says you have your destination facility where you process.
You can't keep the materials that you want to process on the property. You have to store them somewhere else. And that, again, does not make sense. And from an environment and safety perspective, it doesn't make sense, as well as a logistics perspective. You now have to handle the material more, move it again, put it on a public road, load it, and unload it.
It's ridiculous, quite frankly. And I don't see the reason why it's there. By contrast, if you go and exclude these materials, recognize them as material feedstocks similar to other materials, like I mentioned before, shredded circuit boards, very analogous, and say, these are important. EPA has recognized the importance of these and said these are recycled, they're not waste. You don't have to deal with either of those frameworks, so you're able to move forward.
You still have to prove that you're legitimately recycling. So you don't lose anything from the environmental protection.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And my time is up. I would say, Miss Neil, I'm gonna have some questions for you for the record. And, as the old song said, one woman's trash is another woman's treasure. I yield back.
Speaker 2
Gentleman yields. The chair now recognizes the distinguished representative from the state of California, Mr. Barragán, for her questions.
Speaker 12
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Critical minerals are essential for our phones, our semiconductors, clean energy, electric vehicles, and the grid. One area where we can make real progress is expanding battery recycling and reuse, so we can strengthen domestic supply chains while reducing the need for new mining. Mister Gupkin, I want to start with you. Your testimony highlighted that many batteries can still be used for energy storage when they come out of vehicles, but current rules often treat them as waste, which makes reusing them more difficult.
At the same time, we need to make sure that reused batteries are safe and reliable. They can pose a fire risk if not handled properly. What standards for battery use, collection, and labeling would help strike a balance so that we can increase reuse without creating new safety or environmental risks?
Speaker 8
Yeah. Thank you for that question. And what I'd say is there actually are standards to help address this. The National Fire Protection Association and the International Fire Code, they develop standards for batteries that include storage, handling, and these are standards that are developed by a group, both from industry, from government, private sector, national interests. And they take a lot of time to go figure out what the best standards are for these protections.
They look at them both from a used battery perspective, and they also have regulations that they develop for energy storage and when used in that aspect. I'll add as well, for something like second life batteries where we're trying to repurpose for energy storage, there are requirements for testing, UL testing, Underwriting Laboratories that we have to go and meet. We've recently announced passing a series of those tests, so I'm very proud of it. And that, again, is something that's out there that we have to do to make sure that we are making sure as these are out there, they are safe for people.
Speaker 12
Great. Thank you. Mister Lehman, in your testimony, you support strong environmental standards, and you stress the importance of consistency with our regulations and our permitting timeline. Are there ways to improve coordination across agencies like DOE, EPA, and others to reduce delays and uncertainty for critical minerals projects?
Speaker 5
Thank you for the question. Yes. I mean, I think that's been a focus of the current administration with some of the recent executive orders, specifically around enhanced coordination with the EPA and relevant agencies. Is there likely still room for improvement? Of course.
But I think, you know, specifically taking the Department of War as example, there's an opportunity to systematize and bring automation, clarity, timelines to the process to be able to handle the extent of the portfolio of projects that would need to get appropriate monitoring and attention and treatment on, you know, priority regulatory pathways and have sufficient crosstalk and make sure that they understand the given agency's priorities, requirements as it relates to materials and the projects that they're sponsoring. Okay.
Speaker 12
Thank you. Doctor Spiller, we also need consistent federal policies. In 2025, the Trump administration took a 5% ownership stake in Lithium Americas to support domestic lithium production. Now Lithium Americas has an agreement with General Motors to supply lithium for its EV batteries. At the same time, the Trump administration has ended federal support for electric vehicles.
What happens when the government supports building more domestic critical mineral supply, but at the same time, you know, weakens demand for the products that use those minerals and materials?
Speaker 6
Yeah. Well, in this specific case, this was really problematic because when that happened, General Motors was already backing out of that specific offtake agreement. So it exposed the American public to downside risk at the same time that the government was taking this equity risk. The lithium Americas deal was, you know, really problematic because, right, the government was not able to, you know, provide that sort of demand certainty in terms of, you know, providing more and more demand for the lithium, in terms of, you know, having greater demand for batteries, and it exposed the American taxpayers to greater downside risk.
Speaker 2
Gentle lady yields. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, the distinguished member, Mr. Carter, for five minutes for his question.
Speaker 13
Thank you for getting my name right. Appreciate it. Thank y'all for being here today. This is very important. And, you know, I'm not gonna repeat everything that we all know, and that is how China is dominating the rare earth minerals.
The rare earth elements like graphite, lithium, cobalt, and copper. We all know that, and we all understand how important it is for us to be competitive there. However, to develop the domestic capacity to process and refine critical minerals domestically, we need a more efficient permitting process, and that is why I have introduced HR 3059, the streamlining critical mineral permitting act. And it actually passed the House as part of the Lower Energy Cost Act last Congress, and is still pending again this Congress. That it will allow processors and refiners of critical energy resources to operate under an interim permit under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act subtitle.
Mister Gupkin, I wanna ask you, how would allowing these facilities to operate under an interim hazardous waste permit support efforts to build up domestic refining and processing capacity, while still ensuring that hazardous waste is managed properly?
Speaker 8
So I'll say it's a path that could be taken, and it's better than the current situation. I would not say that it's the most preferred path to go, quite simply.
Speaker 8
Well, you're still going through this permitting path. It's interim, which means, to some extent, you're operating at your own risk, and you still have to go through, in the end, full permitting, getting everything done. So there's still that time frame before it is formalized. You still have to go through every time you make a modification, the full permitting process for a modification, which takes time. So, I respect the idea of going through that.
But if we really wanna treat these materials as critical and as a feedstock, again, I go back to putting them as a feedstock and going through the exclusions allowed that EPA has followed as well to do that, and have it go back.
Speaker 13
Okay. Mister Lehman, let me ask you. How did delays in obtaining permits to open refining and processing facilities deter investment in the United States?
Speaker 5
It differs in investment, doesn't come through when there's uncertainty. Right. There's not predictability to the process.
Speaker 13
Right. I would agree with you. You know, it doesn't matter what sector of the economy we're talking about. When I have groups in my office, whether it be health care, technology, or even processing there, it's always the same. We need as much certainty as we can get.
We need to, in order to invest, in order to plan for the future, we need that certainty. So, I appreciate that. Let me ask you also, do you have any recommendations for the committee in keeping permitting timelines more predictable?
Speaker 5
I do. In terms of, you're considering a prioritized and expedited regulatory pathway for strategic materials projects. You know, I know there's been some projects where FAST 41 has been applied to it, clearly delineating timelines, accountabilities, and providing, you know, specific prioritized attention to making sure that those gates and timelines are satisfied, and making sure that they're enforceable.
Speaker 13
Good. Mister Gublin, in your written testimony, you explained that facilities that want to recycle lithium-ion batteries have two options, both of which drive investments overseas. One of these is in the RCR, a part a and b permitting process. You described some of the challenges with this process and how its timeline is unworkable for the fast-growing and constantly evolving industries. Why is this?
And are there opportunities to make this permitting process more efficient that Congress can consider?
Speaker 8
So why does the permitting process take as long as it does? I can't answer that as well as the folks over at EPA, to be quite honest with you. You know, it's a matter of, I suppose, they want more information, you know, for whatever reasons that they do. The permitting process was developed for, really, chemical treatment plants as opposed to something like a battery recycling plant. And so, again, you mentioned the interim permitting as an option instead, but really, what you wind up having is for batteries, lithium ion batteries, they can be classified as a subcategory of hazardous waste, universal waste, which doesn't require the permit so long as you don't store the materials on site.
And that's what you drive people to. But then you have the problem, as I said before, of having the material feedstock at a different site from where you're processing it, which, from a logistics and safety standpoint, doesn't really make sense. So I'd say, again.
Speaker 13
Well, I'm out of time, but I really do feel like the legislation that I have, the streamlining critical mineral permitting act, will help modernize this process and will be productive and helpful. So thank you, and I appreciate it. And I yield back.
Speaker 2
Gentlemen, Yields chair now recognizes the stingless gentleman from Ohio, mister Lansman, for five minutes for his question.
Speaker 14
Thank you, mister chair, ranking member. Thank you all for being here. I wanna talk about the batteries first. Yeah. Obviously, the critical minerals work that we do has huge implications for our economy, you know, for individuals, household spending, national security.
It is one of the most significant things we've gotta solve and win on. The domestic production piece is a challenge. There are some doors that we can go through. One is the production, recycling, and batteries. I just wanna start with you, mister, Gupkin.
How does investing in battery recycling help us as it relates to critical minerals?
Speaker 8
Well, first off, it keeps the materials here within US soil. Right? We can do the full life cycle and have it here. So you can have the production of batteries, put it into the vehicle, or wherever else those lithium ion batteries go. They go through their life.
We can repurpose them and keep them here, and then we go through and take those and recycle them, and keep the critical minerals here. So instead of having any of that flowing outside the US, we have it all here. In addition, it's a way of using what we call an urban mine. The materials are here. They're well-packaged.
They're in the same location, nice and easy, as opposed to going to several different mines, whether they're in the US or outside.
Speaker 14
Right. It's one thing that we're, you know, buying all of these batteries from all over the world, critical minerals coming from all over the world. Once they get here, though, we're in a position to keep them. Absolutely. And that is through the battery recycling efforts.
In the bipartisan infrastructure law, there was about $6,000,000,000 in battery manufacturing, recycling, and processing. Trump has targeted these efforts, canceling $700,000,000 in grants, including support for a 1 billion dollar recycling battery facility in Kentucky. Doctor Spiller, can you speak to the importance of certainty and what this does when these dollars get pulled out of the market?
Speaker 6
Yeah. Thanks for that question. Market certainty is really important. You know, projects are really expensive and take years to build. And there are three specific aspects of certainty that we have to think about.
The first one is regulatory and policy certainty. Right? And thinking that the policies are going to maintain, fixed, and not flip-flop over time as we saw. The second one is demand certainty, and this has a lot to do with policies. Right?
Policies drive demand. So understanding whether or not the demand for the products is gonna grow over time. And then finally, price certainty. So being able to know whether or not, you know, are you gonna have a price of minerals that is going to, you know, not be subject to massive price volatility. And so, this is where offtake agreements are so hugely important.
And so this is why, you know, when we're talking about connecting the upstream with the downstream, it is so important because the ability to enter into long term, fixed price offtake agreements is gonna be really key for market certainty.
Speaker 14
Thank you. I appreciate that. I think it's incumbent on this congress, both sides to hold the administration accountable to say, look. We passed these investments in battery production, recycling. They have to go out the door.
There has to be consistency. We have to make these investments. With the time I have left, part of getting to the domestic production piece also includes the permitting reform that my colleagues have talked about. My frustration is that there are two ways to do this. You can do it in a partisan way where you just say, we're gonna pass a permitting bill and, you know, may not pass the Senate.
In fact, it won't pass the house, won't get us anywhere. Or you can get a bipartisan deal done, which requires, in my opinion, just the following. You gotta put the environmental folks in a room with the industry folks and figure out that way forward where Democrats and Republicans can come together and say, look. We are going to go find these resources, but we're gonna do it in a way that protects the environment. If you had to put folks in a room, who are the key environmental and industry folks?
We'll start with mister, and just very quickly.
Speaker 8
I'd say have us sit with deputy administrators, administrators, directors from EPA.
Speaker 5
Industrial operators of these businesses and investors. By the way, if you.
Speaker 14
Put those folks in a room, and you say, look. We gotta get to permitting reform, get a couple Democrats, a couple Republicans. There's a bipartisan bill that probably includes everything that you mentioned, doctor Spiller. I believe you had a few ideas. Mister Gupkin, all of that gets done, and then done in a way that makes a lot of sense, gets to the floor, and passes.
Thank you. I yield back.
Speaker 2
Gentlemen, yields. I now recognize myself for 5 minutes. Mister Lehman, there are no major rare earth refineries in the entire Western Hemisphere. There's only nine in the world, later in China. The other one is in Malaysia.
Cobalt, China controls up to between 75-80% of the cobalt process and refining. 94% of the rare earth refining, 90% of high value, graphite. Would you agree that this represents a significant threat to our national security and our economic security?
Speaker 2
Would you agree that we're in a time frame, a window of opportunity to correct that, and that I often compare it to our space race, this generation space race. Would you agree with that assessment?
Speaker 2
Can we do this? Can we secure our own supply chain, not just by building these critical infrastructure that we need here in The US, but, working with allies, to build out this process? Would you agree that we could do this and maintain the environmental quality that we have always expected and continue to expect?
Speaker 5
I think we can, and we have to. Requires a sense of urgency, requires leadership, and requires resourcing. And the one thing I've you need to solve the full value chain before the problem is solved. And it was very good to see in the president's budget a significant increase in resourcing for the DPA program, for the office of strategic capital for, you know, several industrial base oriented programs that
Speaker 2
I'm well aware of this and been very involved. Can we create a marketplace that we can put a wall around where if China wants to participate, they can participate, but can set a floor for prices.
Speaker 5
That's a vitally important point, to have a western index, you know, particularly in the rare earth space. That is a perpetual challenge, something that I know congress and the administration are considering options for and executing against, but that's foundational, to have a, you know, a functioning marketplace with, providence of supply, clarity on price, and a functioning market is gonna be critical.
Speaker 2
Miss Neil, the process that my colleague described for closed loop process for lithium processing that was described earlier, can that be applied universally to all critical mineral and rare settlement processing and refining? Is it that simple?
Speaker 7
I'm sorry, but I'm probably not the right person to answer that question. I know that, you know, in our case, we are taking spent catalysts. Has recovered vanadium from the refining industry. That's a different recycle it and recover the vanadium. There are similar catalysts that are cobalt based.
So similar recoveries, but I don't know about there's a wide, you know, swath of elements that I wouldn't know how.
Speaker 2
Well, for instance, with rare earth elements, some of those are radioactive. Thorium, for instance. So if we're going to have to have different processes, but we can still do everything that we need to do and maintain the environmental quality that we wanna have. On the batteries, I thought mister Lammon raised some good issues there. And we've had this discussion about China buying up spent lithium batteries, but that's not all they're doing.
The regular lead batteries that are critical to our supply chain for providing lead, which is now on the critical minerals list, but also antimony, which we have to have. Mister Gupkin, we're at a point now where China is setting up false companies and other countries to buy up these batteries to the degree that just about three or four weeks ago, US battery recyclers had to shut down operations because there were no batteries. Would you consider that a problem?
Speaker 8
I do believe it's a problem if our feedstock is going to China. You know, I would say Redwood Materials is in something of a lucky position. As far as the domestic supply of batteries for recycling, we're taking in the majority that stays here. So I suppose we're also a reason for other companies having a problem. But the vast majority of materials that are going over to China and them taking them, that is definitely a significant issue.
And, you know, the reason we're here, believe, is partly to make sure that that doesn't become a growing issue, and so that there is retained within this country enough feedstock in those batteries to go in so that we can recycle and we can recover those critical minerals.
Speaker 2
Thanks, gentlemen, for his response. My time has expired. I now recognize the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Menendez, for five minutes for his questions.
Speaker 15
Thank you, chairman. American leadership in the world should reflect our commitment to protecting public health and creating economic opportunity for the people we represent. Yet Republicans have once again chosen to focus our time on rolling back environmental safeguards that protect our communities. I agree that we need urgent action to address Chinese dominance in the critical mineral sector. And as we build out domestic critical mineral capacity, it is vital that the US pursue alternatives that reduce our dependence on China.
Collaborating with our allies is a faster, more efficient, and more cost-effective way to secure critical minerals than expanding domestic industry alone. Doctor Spiller, how will shifting our supply chains away from our adversaries and to our partners diminish China's market dominance?
Speaker 6
Thanks for that question. I mean, quite frankly, we're going to need to forge and work with our allies to chip away at China's market dominance. Given the major challenges that we've been discussing today and that I presented in my testimony, the US isn't going to be able to do this alone, particularly not in the time frame that, you know, the federal government is hoping to be able to, you know, achieve market independence or, you know, get away from China's market dominance. So we're going to need to ally with as many countries as possible and leverage our comparative advantages along the supply chain.
Speaker 15
Right. And the Trump administration has said repeatedly that America first does not mean America alone. We need to engage with our allies. And, doctor Spiller, how can cooperation with those allies help reduce the need for domestic extraction and processing?
Speaker 6
Well, we can rely upon other countries that have, you know, maybe already started extraction. They may already have projects that are ongoing. They might be able to expand those projects. They might have better ore qualities, for example, or might have more resources than we do in certain minerals. They might be able to expand those at cheaper prices than we.
So it might actually reduce the cost of actually getting the minerals that we need, and be able to do it faster and cheaper than we could do here. And so that would avoid us having to build new mines. That might take us many years, and at higher cost. But I think it's really important that, you know, we don't just focus on, you know, finding the least cost partner, but that we find the least cost partner that also has really strong governance and really good environmental regulations so that we're ensuring a sustainable supply chain.
Speaker 15
I appreciate it. And you mentioned reliability, but that's a two-way street. Right? So not just with our allies, but how the allies perceive the United States, because we need long-term cooperation. But the president continues to cause instability throughout the world.
He has enacted historically high tariffs, intervened in Venezuela, gone to war with Iran, and threatened a military takeover of Greenland. It's difficult to achieve the cooperation and predictability needed for new industries to build capacity over time, especially as the Trump administration makes the world less stable and less safe. Doctor Spiller, how do rising tensions between nations weaken our ability to sustain collaboration on critical minerals?
Speaker 6
It makes it very challenging. And just as one very clear example, the country, right, or, you know, The United States right now is pursuing a multilateral agreement to try to, you know, have a price floor that's supported by import tariffs against China. But in order to be able to have this price floor actually work to support new entrants, of investors, the investors need to believe that this price floor is credible over a long term period. And that means that the allies and that this, that this, you know, group of allied countries is actually gonna be able to hold for a long time. And with more and more geopolitical tensions, the credibility of that allyship is not going to be able to hold.
And so, you know, unless there's significant confidence, this is going to fall apart, and there's not gonna be a true sign of market certainty, and we'll need to increase.
Speaker 15
Right. And so Politico reported on State Department cable signaling in the lead up to a, I think, a 50-nation summit, that there's, quote, weariness among some countries about signing on to a framework agreement pledging joint cooperation in sourcing and processing critical minerals, especially certain European diplomats quoting the story specifically expressed concerns over Trump's request that NATO member Denmark allow the US to take over Greenland, because the volatility makes these partnerships harder to maintain. I'm concerned the president's actions contribute to that volatility, strain our alliances as you've seen already in the last several weeks and months, and could ultimately undermine our ability to lead a durable critical mineral strategy to counter China. Because I think everyone here agrees that on French shoring, that's something we need to pursue. Right?
But I think we need to be cognizant of the lack of credibility that this administration has given to its own actions. And I would love my Republican colleagues to join in this choir of people saying we need more from this administration, and our allies should expect more from us as an ally. So thank you so much.
Speaker 16
Gentleman yields back, and, chairman, recognizes Doctor Joyce of Pennsylvania for five minutes.
Speaker 10
Thank you, mister chairman, for holding this important meeting, and to our panel for being here today to testify. Securing domestic critical material supply chains has been a key focus for both the Trump administration and this committee. This is not an abstract concern. China currently controls the global critical minerals market and has already shown a willingness to place export controls on materials that are needed in national defense and manufacturing sectors. Not only are we not significantly mining or processing these minerals domestically, but our current regulatory schemes are also making it harder to recycle the materials that we have already imported and could potentially reuse.
Instead of crafting regulations to keep these materials in circulation domestically, the current framework often pushes the recovery of these materials right out of the country, only to be sold back to The United States again, failing to update our regulations to address this issue as both economic and national security ramifications. We need to work toward a regulatory scheme that acknowledges the reality of how important certain materials and chemistries are to US interests. Mister Lehman, from your time at the Pentagon and now working in the critical mineral industry, what barriers have you seen to the EPA considering the national security implications when creating environmental regulations?
Speaker 5
Personally, I didn't experience any direct engagement or roadblock. But from colleagues, there's challenges sometimes with regards to the exclusions or treatments at the federal level versus state and local. But for the EPA, I think there's a need to continue to look at legislative reforms, but also faster priority regulatory tracks that these projects can take. There's clarity around the requirements and the timelines to provide certainty for timeline execution. And I know there's been, you know, sponsorship coordination for specific projects already with regards to that and, applying FAST 41 to those.
That makes a lot of sense to me. But all four, any other additional reforms or regulatory changes at the EPA that would facilitate market speed for going through the permitting and regulatory process?
Speaker 10
Mister Gubkin, earlier, you talked about the life cycle of batteries and how the batteries and the parts that we need, the critical materials that we need, are imported, and we utilize those. And then they leave our country, only to be imported again. Can you discuss how the reuse and recycling goals of the Resource Reuse and Recovery Act of 1996 are hindered by EPA's continued presumption of batteries as hazardous waste, putting the burden on recyclers like you to prove otherwise? Yeah.
Speaker 8
So, as I mentioned, when you go and have a presumption of waste, then you wind up having to go through two different avenues. Right? The one avenue being this RICRA AB permitting process, which is timely and burdensome, and, you know, it's very problematic for a start up and for an innovator. The other option that you wind up having is that you have storage in different areas between the processing and where you hold it. In addition, you have, through something like Tusca, these areas where, you know, when you're trying to manufacture something, you're trying to move it, you produce something, you have these requirements, and you're not able to distribute it within the country.
So all these wind up combining and saying, we don't want to really have the materials here. It doesn't make sense. And it all pushes things so that you move it out.
Speaker 10
It does not make sense. I agree with you completely. And as we see those materials go right out of our hands, returning to our adversaries, only to be purchased back again, the recycling of batteries in that life cycle that you discussed, what should we be doing to appropriately classify re regulations? And should there be additional legislation to protect and incentivize that recycling to create that life cycle to begin and end here in the United States?
Speaker 8
Yeah. I definitely believe, you know, one of the things that we are promoting is the lithium-ion battery management act. Having something in that form so that you have the designation of these materials as the feedstock that they are, have the regulations that cover them basically under one roof, so that it covers all these different aspects, and you don't have EPA at odds with other agencies like DOW or
Speaker 10
So would you agree with me that inaction is not an option, that our adversaries are in control of the critical supply chain right now, and we in Congress need to craft legislation that allows the US to once again level the playing field?
Speaker 16
Gentleman yields back. Chairman, I recognize the gentleman from Florida for five minutes.
Speaker 17
Thank you, chairman. Rare earth metals, rare earth minerals are in just about every technology we could use nowadays, whether it's electric vehicles, hybrids, computers, cell phones, just about every tech you could imagine. And in the Inflation Reduction Act, we incentivize new and used EVs and domestic battery manufacturing. And we finally saw domestic battery manufacturing growing again. That was before Trump's war on clean energy.
Since then, the president canceled $700,000,000 in battery manufacturing incentives that were already awarded. Under the Big Ugly Law, it eliminated the EV tax credits and the battery manufacturing tax credits as well. And since Liberation Day, we've seen literally almost two years in a row of declining U.S. manufacturing. So it's rich that a lot of my colleagues who literally voted to destroy the manufacturing incentives for batteries are now going to blame environmental laws. And then on top of it, the president demanding government ownership shares of private companies.
That is literally the socialism people are warning about. Add in the tariffs in the Iran war, and it's not the environmental laws that are a threat to our supply chain. It's the president's disastrous policies. And then we see a current trend that's really disturbing. We only have one US rare earth element mine in the country, Mountain Pass, Mojave Desert, which had some shutdowns already.
We've seen closed mines in the Gervoir, Gervais, Cobalt Mine in Idaho, US Magnesium in Utah, Magnitude Seven Metals in Missouri. Doctor Spiller, why are all these mines closing even though we need these types of metals?
Speaker 6
Well, a big reason for that is low global prices. Right? So the Javois Mine closed because of sustained low cobalt prices. So, right, this is not something that the mining companies can control.
Speaker 17
So we're either gonna have to subsidize those mines, or we're gonna have to build on domestic demand. Would that be two of the ways to help handle that?
Speaker 6
There are other ways. Right? And this is something I talk about in my testimony. We can invest in innovation. So there are new approaches to innovating that, you know, we could try to identify approaches to extraction that are lower cost ways to extracting minerals that doesn't require continued subsidization indefinitely.
Speaker 17
Miss Deal Neal, why do you think that some of these mines are closing or barely hanging on?
Speaker 7
I'll be honest. Mining is not my area of expertise. We are recycling refinery catalysts to recover vanadium, as opposed to people having to go mine that out of the earth.
Speaker 17
Okay. Well, thank you for your opinion on that. Next, we see a bunch of battery plants closed over the last year or two. Ford Eskew canceled a $210,000,000 EV battery factory in Detroit, Blue Oval SK, a $250,000,000 battery production in Kentucky, SK Battery America in Georgia, the Hyundai LG plant in Georgia as well. Miss Spiller, why are the battery plants also closing?
Speaker 6
Well, battery plants are closing mainly because demand for electric vehicles is crashing. And I would argue that a big reason why demand for electric vehicles is crashing is because the policies at the federal level have reversed, and all of the policies that the Biden administration had put in place supporting electric vehicle demand have now been, you know, removed by the Trump administration.
Speaker 17
You know, it's not a tough time too, because about 20% of new vehicles last year in Florida were either electric or hybrid. So we're seeing demand go up, and that's actually still kinda steady even after the IRA is gone, but we're losing the manufacturing to help produce these vehicles. Mister Lehman, how do the tariffs in the Iran war affect our critical material supply chain?
Speaker 5
For the Iran war, speaking from an industry perspective, chemical processing being a critical input material has been referenced a few times during this hearing. Yes. Sulfuric acid is a critical component, not just for critical minerals processing, but also for the oil and gas industry for fertilizer. You know, the shutdown in the strait has, you know, created a disruption in that supply chain that has been further exacerbated, underscoring China's position with regards to critical minerals and materials. They shut off exports of sulfur and sulfuric acid directly after hostilities were initiated.
So that is just underscoring the fact that these supply chains are critical, and China's going to weaponize its position in these markets.
Speaker 16
Jim will yield back. General recognized generally from Iowa for at least 5 minutes.
Speaker 19
Thank you, mister chairman, and for holding this important hearing on critical mineral supply chains. The United States certainly finds itself in a perilous position when it comes to critical minerals which have nothing to do with this administration. China has pursued a long-term strategy for dominance across the entire supply chain from mining to processing to manufacturing, while we were slow in the United States to respond. That began to change during the first Trump administration, which directed the federal government to develop a strategy for securing reliable mineral supplies. Congress built on that foundation through the Energy Act of 2020, and today, the federal critical minerals list stands at 50 commodities, with more than 10 added just this past year.
We have made promise to identify progress identifying the problem. Now we need solutions. One area where I focus my efforts is building a stronger secondary market. My bill, the Recycling Infrastructure and Accessibility Act, establishes an EPA pilot program to expand collection and recycling capabilities, including in rural communities. And in one of my first terms in congress, I was able to navigate a bill through that required the DOD or now Department of War to send its hard drives scrubbed and cleaned to the Ames National Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, to have the critical minerals, elements, and magnets removed in a safe process, and that is now ongoing.
So the goal is simple. Collect more, recycle more, feed those materials back into domestic refining and processing, rather than sending them overseas. These industrial processes are deeply interconnected. The byproduct of one process is often a critical input for another, which means if we lose the ability to manufacture at any point in that chain, the ripple effects cascade through the entire economy. That's not theoretical.
The Biden administration learned it the hard way, prioritizing regulations that burdened or shut down American refiners without accounting for what we lose downstream. Miss Spiller, just on a comment you made earlier, are you saying that without government subsidies, since we are talking about government subsidies, the demand for electric vehicles decreased?
Speaker 19
Thank you. I just wanted that question answered. I appreciate it. Miss Neil, I come from an ag state. And since the beginning of the Iranian conflict, the price of sulfuric acid has increased by 30%.
I think this was mentioned just a moment ago. Directly increasing the price of fertilizer during the key planting season. Most people don't connect those two things. Phosphate fertilizers depend on sulfuric acid, which is a byproduct of refining oil. So if less oil is refined, we have less sulfur, which means we have less sulfuric acid.
And even though sulfur is not on a critical minerals list, we see that there is a reduction in sulfuric acid. So from your position inside the refinery supply chain, how severe do you expect the sulfur shortage to get, and how long could it last?
Speaker 7
Thank you for the question. I really appreciate it. I've not focused on sulfur supply, but, you know, we are receiving catalysts from the oil refining, and the oils that are being processed that recover the vanadium also tend to recover sulfur. So, I have not seen a significant decline in that arena.
Speaker 19
In contrast to our farmers. Mister Lehman, how have federal critical mineral list influenced decisions about locating processing or recycling capacity domestically versus abroad, and are our current policy incentives sufficient to shift that calculus meaningfully?
Speaker 5
It's informed by your requirements, detailed analysis around where we have the most, you know, strategic shortfalls, and then taking a look at what is available today. It is never an isolated domestic only approach. Partners and allies absolutely need to be part of the solution. But if you're talking about the rare earths value chain and, you know, obviously, very healthy magnet making industry in Japan, but geographically, that presents concern in scenarios where there's conflict. So that's why I get back to the point around, you know, the issue is not solved until the full value chain is solved.
And it's not just raw material to finished goods. It's the capital equipment and the things that we need to source to have the full system operate.
Speaker 19
Thank you. Mister Govkin, federal policy often frames domestic supply security in terms of new extraction. If you would answer this, in written form, but I want to state it. How well do current critical mineral programs recognize recycled feedstock as a legitimate and scalable component of that supply base? And then battery cyclers operating in the United States face a regulatory framework under RCRA that's largely originated.
And how would we classify that? If you could answer that for us, for the record, in writing, I would appreciate that. And my time's expired. I yield back.
Speaker 16
General Lady yields back. The chair now recognizes the general lady of North Dakota for at least 5 minutes.
Speaker 20
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate it, thank you all for sharing your expertise with us today. This is an interesting hearing and a subject that we're spending a lot of time on, over and over, on critical minerals and critical materials. Mister Gupkin, am I saying that correctly?
Speaker 20
Thank you. I was interested in your testimony when you said by 2030, enough end-of-life EV battery packs will exist in North America to supply roughly half of the projected energy storage market. And then you list out the two barriers to that being some EPA regulations, the Resource Conservation Recovery Act and TOSCA. Can you speak, just provide some more color on that. What do we need to be doing to prevent, to enable that recycling?
Speaker 8
I mean, basically, we need to promote the idea that these materials are not waste.
Speaker 8
And that they have a purpose, second life purpose in energy storage, and that that is put as a priority for EV packs over recycling, certainly over shipping them outside the country. We get that priority straight by going in and classifying them as not being waste, but as the critical feedstocks that they are. Then, you know, it makes the market there so that they're recognized by those who produce them to supply them for second life repurposing, for energy storage. And then there's still the recycling market once they no longer have that second life to go and recycle them, and keep the materials there to keep the lifecycle going.
Speaker 8
I think there that's a large part of where it starts in terms of energy storage. Yes. If you start out with a classification, EPA's 2023 memo on lithium ion batteries, they recommend that companies classify these materials as universal waste, a subset of hazardous waste. Right? When you start there, it starts the whole ball rolling in the wrong direction.
So treating these as what they are changes what the regs are for them. It treats changes the mindset form. It changes what those who are manufacturing and producing these materials, what they're gonna do with them when they no longer need them in the vehicle, and put them on the right path so that they can use them for second life energy storage and then eventually for recycling in this country.
Speaker 20
The mindset change is something I want to explore a little bit more. This morning, we had a hearing with a different subcommittee of the nuclear energy regulatory commission. All five commissioners were here. They talked about that, agency changing from being a regulatory mindset to having an enabling mindset, and that it has been a sea change in the agency by all the employees. I'd like each of you to just briefly, I have two minutes.
You each get about thirty seconds to talk about if you were to advise the EPA to become an enabling agency. What would that mean? What would that look like? Where should they start? And we'll just go down the line.
Speaker 5
Prioritization for what's important with a regulatory pathway that's got clearly defined timelines, responsibilities. And I agree that culture change is really important. And streamlining on permitting NEPA reviews, that's another one.
Speaker 6
I think, you know, cross agency collaboration is probably gonna be really important, making sure that there isn't, you know, really focusing in on some of the issues that Redwood was talking about, you know, that there isn't cross agency issues that contradict each other, basically.
Speaker 7
Speaking in the framework of recycling, I think it's very important for the agency to really think about what the recycling process is trying to accomplish and focus on the realities of the situation. We'll say, not go from over function, but really try to promote, you know, the recycling and the reclamation that's available to us. Very good.
Speaker 8
Mister Kevin? I'd echo a lot of what's been said. You know, the agency and interdivision within the agency alignment, prioritization of those materials that are critical to this country. I'd also say, you know, looking towards that end goal by comparison, in the state where I operate, Nevada, we've worked with the NDEP over there and had them adopt the federal hazardous secondary materials exclusion, which they did not have before. We did that in concert in recognizing, hey.
You get all the protections you want, but we get more flexibility from it. So we need more of that on the federal level.
Speaker 20
Excellent. Thank you. Thank you all again for being here. I yield back.
Speaker 2
Chairman, I recognize the distinguished representative from the state of Texas, Mister Weber, for five minutes for his questions.
Speaker 16
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I'm gonna fuss at Miss Vadorcak because she stole some of my questions. So now she came up, you had some good ones. And so I wanna come to you, mister Gupkin, first. Of the 50 critical minerals I didn't find in 2022, 49 are essential to the energy sector.
My District 14, the Gulf Coast of Texas, provides a lot of energy, obviously. Unfortunately, we rely on China for 26 of those minerals. The US once led the world in producing rare refining and rare earth mineral elements. So today, China controls nearly 90% of the global rare earths. We've all talked about their processing has become demonstrated a willingness to restrict airports, exports.
In your opinion, exactly how dependent are we on China for critical minerals to secure energy infrastructure and national security? A. And, b, if you can wave a magic wand, how would you fix that?
Speaker 8
Alright. Let me pull up my magic wand here. Okay. You know, as to how reliant we are, I think I mentioned before that China controls more than 80% of the global lithium-ion recycling capacity. So I think that says it there, and you were talking about much more than just lithium-ion batteries.
So it is definitely an issue right now. It's critical, and it's critical that we change it for our minerals. As far as waving the wand and what do we do to change that, I think it's, again, going and putting the regulations and the policies in place that say, hey. We have some of these materials here in the instance of the critical materials like cobalt and lithium and nickel. They're all packaged within the batteries.
So if we go and have those policies and regulations that say, we prioritize batteries, keep them in the US, recycle them in the US, create the new critical minerals coming out of them, and then keep the cycle going within the US, that's how you do it.
Speaker 7
I absolutely agree with what he said. I'd like to expand on it just a moment, if I could.
Speaker 7
Really, I would like to look at what we should not be doing, and that is in large part.
Speaker 7
That is in large part what's happened to AMG Vanadium. Now mister Gupkin was talking about the challenges of securing the permits. AMG went through that process 20 years ago. We've been operating for 20 years under the RICR regulations with our permits and our variances. And now we've got members of the region five staff who have decided to interpret the regulations differently.
So his challenges are upfront. Our challenges are when we're well-founded.
Speaker 16
Doctor Spiller, I'm going to jump over to you. If we could wave that magic wall on the way they're describing things, what one single thing would you do upfront very quickly?
Speaker 16
Well, that's part of it and bring all the agencies together so that we can actually, for ex, make America first. We'll use that term. What would you do the first thing?
Speaker 5
Untenably reliant. And the first thing is just doubling down on the projects that are underway. And in particular, you know, the midstream for the industry, you know, the rare metal making is a key shortfall that we see. You know, that's why we've partnered to commercialize technology out of Ames National Lab.
Speaker 16
Thank you for that. I saved you last for a reason. Your testimony outlines the complex challenges for future investments within the current regulatory framework. Limiting federal overreaches that restrict gains in capital investments is critical to incentivizing investments in essential sectors like critical mineral extraction, for example. How can we navigate the current burdensome regulatory environment to free up investors willing to deploy capital to reassert our dominance in that global supply chain?
What would you do?
Speaker 16
We wanna get those real. We're willing to make investments to feel comfortable, and they have to know that that money is safe.
Speaker 5
It's also a signal of commitment and importance. It's both, you know, commitment from the government, a patient capital provision to a given project that's gonna induce additional private capital investment that would have otherwise not invested given those timelines that we were referencing.
Speaker 16
So as they described bringing all these agencies together, would you be there and lead the capital investment discussion? I would be happy to
Speaker 2
John, the chair now recognizes a distinguished gentleman from Colorado, Mister Evans, for five minutes for his questions.
Speaker 18
Thank you, chairman. Ranking member, of course, thanks to the witnesses for coming. My first question will be to Mister Lehman and Doctor Spiller. We got studies from the US Geological Survey that highlight the untapped potential of mine waste as a domestic source of critical minerals, especially from Superfund sites. My home state of Colorado, we have a ton of significant deposits of critical minerals: niobium, rare earth elements, titanium, tungsten, uranium, vanadium, tellurium, which is essential for defense and for new technologies.
A recent study by researchers at the Colorado School of Mines found that more efficient processing of existing waste streams from US mines could supply much of the critical minerals that The United States currently imports. And so, doctor Spiller, how can we what recommendations do you have for the federal government in looking into mine waste streams as a source of critical minerals while also encouraging the remediation of these sites?
Speaker 6
Well, this is a great opportunity, but, unfortunately, this is really uneconomical to extract. So I think the question is, you know, what are the approaches to increase the economic potential for extracting these resources? You know, what are the innovative approaches to reduce the costs? We also don't have a good sense of what the costs are. So more research, think, into quantifying those costs, and, you know, investing in innovative techniques to be able to extract them.
Speaker 18
So, mister Lehman, similar question. How can we support the EPA both through regulatory burden and then also the cost component of this by being able to address some of these legacy sites that already have to be cleaned up under Superfund and be able to make use of those waste streams in a better manner.
Speaker 5
The labs have done a lot of work as it relates to reclamation on sites like that. But, again, the concentrations and what's gonna be economic is one of the falling points. But, you know, if there is a scalable approach, I think there's a key need to leverage the R and D complex that we have in our labs and commercialize technologies that are gonna innovate and leapfrog. Because the current state of the technology is forty years old from when we offshored originally. But in terms of helping the EPA, the ask would be if we have a clear business case here to commercialize the technology, work expeditiously with us to get that done.
Speaker 18
And so let's say, for the sake of argument, you have that compelling business case. And so we're gonna be facing, it sounds like, two barriers: the cost barrier. Assuming the cost barrier could be addressed, how fast could we overcome that, given the appropriate permitting and regulatory environment? And are there any changes that would be needed in the regulatory space to help make it more cost-efficient?
Speaker 5
I mean, I've highlighted a couple but getting into the fastest, most expedient track possible and giving it the strategic prioritization that these types of projects deserve is really important. Like, I'm not suggesting skipping key steps. I'm suggesting prioritizing and allocating the accountabilities, timelines, and responsibilities to get it done.
Speaker 18
Thank you, Mr. Gupkin. So I'm gonna come to you next. Batteries. We gotta make more batteries. We gotta make more batteries in the United States.
I have one of the last all US-sourced battery manufacturers in my district. I'm happy to work with some of my colleagues across the aisle. Rep Ruiz, we've got the Critical Minerals and Manufacturing Support Act to make sure that we're doing work to continue to promote this critical industry here. From Colorado, we also have lots of, unfortunately, wildfires in the state of Colorado. So what sort of policies can we do to make sure that if there are battery components or batteries themselves, whether small scale or grid scale batteries, that are damaged in wildfire or other natural disasters.
What sort of policies or recommendations do we need to do to be able to recover those better?
Speaker 8
So if I understand your question directly, it's about batteries impacted by wildfires, and how we address those. Currently, my understanding is, you know, when that's happened, California and Hawaii have both had some incidents where there's been issues with battery fires. And EPA comes in and treats those sites as a Superfund site. They take control of it, and they tightly control what happens with those batteries, who they go to, how they're recycled. There's a full process that they go through of auditing the sites and what not.
You know, understanding that for the most part, frankly, I don't think all that is necessary. You know, a burnt battery actually for a recycler has the same critical minerals as a brand-new battery. And so the process is the same. Redwood materials helped out with the Maui fires. We are looking to get involved, I believe, to help out with the Moss Landing material that's there.
And so just by, again, cutting through some of the red tape and letting these materials go to those facilities that are able to take them, then we can go and quickly ramp up the amount of feedstock that those facilities need to go and recover those critical minerals.
Speaker 2
Chair, I now recognize the distinguished gentleman from Ohio, Mister Balderson, for five minutes for his questions.
Speaker 21
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being here today. I'd also like to welcome my dear friend, Jane Neal, a constituent of Ohio's 12th Congressional District. Miss Neal, thank you very much for participating in today's hearing and telling AMG's story. We've had many discussions over the years about how Congress can help expand domestic manufacturing and processing of critical minerals and materials.
Can you discuss some of the ongoing regulatory hurdles AMG is facing and how my bill HR 7523 will help provide long-term certainty for the domestic production of these critical minerals?
Speaker 7
Congressman Paulson, thank you for the opportunity to talk about this, and thank you for your support in the bill that you have taken to the house. As I said a few minutes ago, AMG Vanadium has been processing spent catalyst and reclaiming the vanadium and nickel molybdenum from it for over twenty years. We've been doing this under a recurrence, and it has been determined, through that entire time, as a legal process. Recently, members of region five staff have started interpreting the regulation differently and have now determined that or decided that our process is not legitimate recycling, but rather it is something more akin to trash disposition. They've made this change without any change in the regulation, and without any change in our process.
So, what we have requested, and your bill is going to deliver, is some certainty for us. It is clarifying the existing regulations. It's not deregulating. It's not weakening the safety and environmental stewardship the AMG is required to provide. But it'll provide us with long term certainty that will allow us to continue this process, which allows us to be the domestic source of ferrovanadium for The United States.
So we talk about, you know, the challenges of China. China manufactures over 60% of the global vanadium production. And without AMG, everything else gets imported. So you're helping us protect against that risk.
Speaker 21
Thank you. The resource, Miss Neil, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act was passed to promote resource recovery while protecting human health and the environment. How does AMG's process fit into these purposes?
Speaker 7
So spent refinery catalyst was listed as a hazardous waste because it does present significant risk to human health and the environment when it's landfilled. But when it comes to AMG for reclamation, recycling, it is not landfilled, and so we are able to alleviate those risks. Additionally, our process has been designed, our facilities have been designed to be mindful and protective of the environment. So we spent $300,000,000 on our facility in Zanesville, and of that, over $100,000,000 was for emission controls. So, you know, we're very, quite frankly, proud of that.
We like being stewards of the environment. On the other side of this, as far as resource recovery is concerned, as I said, we're recovering vanadium, providing about 40% of the domestic market. Additionally, we have found beneficial use markets for every other product and byproduct from our process. So we have over 99 conversions from hazardous waste to salable finished goods.
Speaker 21
Thank you. And I'm glad that you brought up the investment. That's my last question. AMG did invest $300,000,000 to build its new plant in my hometown of Zanesville, Ohio. Ohio.
How will a clear regulatory framework help companies like AMG continue to expand and bring jobs to rural communities? You've got about 20 seconds.
Speaker 7
Well, speaking directly to AMG, we are contemplating another expansion into the vanadium oxide and vanadium electrolyte that will supply electrolyte to grid-scale batteries to support the energy market. So we need regulatory certainty in order to contemplate that investment.
Speaker 2
Gentlemen, Yields, I would like to thank our witnesses for being here today. Members may have additional written questions for you. I'll remind members that they have 10 business days to submit additional questions for the record, and I ask that the witnesses do their best to submit their responses within 10 business days on receipt of the questions. As she announced, consent to insert in the record the documents included in the staff hearing documents list. Without objection, that will be the order.
Without objection, the subcommittee is adjourned.
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