OPINION:
Much has been written about the impossibility of developing America’s rich natural resources given the opposition of the Obama administration, radical environmentalists and actively empathetic judges; it has been a horror show for oil pipelines, energy on federal lands and coal anywhere. What happens, however, when the minerals at issue are deemed critical to national defense, key to green technology innovation and crucial to contesting Chinese combativeness and therefore: the stars align, the White House gives its support and environmental groups eschew the courthouse? Sadly, as an essential rare earth elements mine in Wyoming reveals: death by a thousand bureaucratic paper cuts.
In 1980, Congressman Jim Santini, Nevada Democrat, warned of America’s risky reliance for strategic and critical minerals on foreign sources, primarily Africa. Gov. Ronald Reagan, in his 1977 radio address, decried a “campaign” by the Soviet Union and Cuba “to achieve strategic dominance over Africa with all its mineral riches.” In his landmark study, Santini — who died in September at 78 — listed: cobalt, chromium, manganese, platinum, and titanium, the “metallurgical Achilles’ heel of our civilization.” President Reagan made Santini’s report policy, in part by vetoing the lockup of mineral-rich land in wilderness areas, for which he took a beating from environmental groups, their Democratic allies and the media.
There are no dissenting views from the left about developing today’s key strategic and critical minerals — rare earth elements — like dysprosium, praseodymium, terbium, europium and yttrium. Popularly unknown, they are crucial to high-technology and transportation industries, telecommunications, America’s military, and future wind and solar projects. China produces about 95 percent of the world’s rare earths; meanwhile, former Chinese premier Deng Xiaoping declared provocatively, “The Middle East has oil; China has rare earths.”
So does Wyoming. In its sparsely populated northeastern corner, nine miles north of I-90, within the Black Hills National Forest, lies the Bear Lodge Project. First identified by the U.S. Bureau of Mines in the 1940s, explored privately over the decades, in 2004, Rare Element Resources, Ltd. of Lakewood, Colorado, bought the claims and began planning development. The company’s novel technology for processing the ore yielded five patent applications and a 99.99 percent pure, thorium-free, total rare earth oxides (TREO) powder containing four principal magnet elements (neodymium, dysprosium, terbium, samarium) as well as the remaining suite of rare earth elements.
Little wonder the Departments of Defense and Energy are excited — these elements are vital to missile defense, protection against IEDs and advances in wind and solar technology. In fact, Energy and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy co-chair a critical minerals interagency task force that includes Defense, Commerce, Interior, Justice, State, and Treasury. Rare Element Resources has made frequent appearances at White House, Defense, and Energy offices, and was asked to be a member of Energy’s Critical Materials Institute.
With all this support, the Bear Lodge Project ought to be ready to begin production; after all, it submitted a plan of operation to the U.S. Forest Service in November, 2012. Regrettably, that agency, citing personnel issues, lost 29 months fiddling with its mandate under the National Environmental Policy Act to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement. Its ineptitude continues: the draft environmental impact statement due last January is still pending. Meanwhile, Wyoming’s Department of Environmental Quality — with 90 days to notice a “completed” mining permit application — responded in one day.
Despite the declaration by six federal agencies (Defense, Energy, U.S. Geological Survey, National Academies of Science, Congressional Research Service, and the Government Accountability Office) that rare earths present a “crisis,” the bureaucracy plods along. In response, Senate and House legislation is pending to require timely action by federal agencies — not on all major projects — only those involving critical minerals, including rare earths. Ironically, there will be no testimony on the Bear Lodge Project. Congress told the company that its experience is a “success story.” If that is success, going toe-to-toe with China, America cannot afford failure.
• William Perry Pendley, a lawyer, is president of Mountain States Legal Foundation in Denver and author of “Sagebrush Rebel: Reagan’s Battle with Environmental Extremists and Why It Matters Today” (Regnery, 2013).
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