The National Mining Association (NMA) reports “China’s voracious consumption of minerals and its determination to secure global supplies of them to feed its growing economy worries policymakers in the US David Menzie, Chief of the US Geological Survey’s (USGS) global minerals analysis division.” He told a federal commission last week that the lack of a responsive US resource policy “keeps him up at night.” Contrasting US and China’s mineral policies, Menzie said the unfocused US policy for securing minerals and other resources is worrisome in the face of China’s aggressive efforts to stockpile and produce the minerals for its own use. “If you don’t have secure supplies…then you have vulnerabilities,” he said in testimony before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. “I think that’s an indication of a problem at the front end of the supply chain.” The commission, charged by Congress with monitoring mineral and resource utilisation by the US and China, especially noted the disparity in rare earth mineral development between the two countries. China is a monopoly supplier of minerals such as lutetium, terbium and dysprosium needed in smart phones and hybrid car batteries. China recently imposed export quotas on many of these mineral elements.Commissioner Richard D’Amato agreed that China’s use of rare earth minerals as a strategic weapon was obvious from its denial of exports to Japan in a diplomatic dispute last year. Japan is heavily reliant on imported mineral elements. “Obviously, the Chinese are willing to use it as a political tool,” he said, and faulted the Obama administration for the “sleepy pace” of its mineral policy response. Jeff Green, a rare earth industry witness, concurred that the administration should take more seriously the “economic and security” risks in its “ad hoc” approach to building a robust domestic mineral supply chain.In a Washington hearing, also last week, hosted by the Department of the Interior for stakeholders, NMA and other organizations strongly objected to the secretary’s proposed merger of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). NMA’s Associate General Counsel Bradford Frisby noted that rarely has a proposal been so comprehensively opposed by industry and environmental stakeholders. “It’s very unusual for every witness to come down against a proposal like this and still have it more forward,” said Frisby, who testified against the proposal.Among other objections, Frisby noted the proposed merger appears illegal on its face, given clear congressional direction in the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) that OSM’s authorities over coal mining are not to be delegated to other agencies or subordinated under other authorities. He also urged OSM to withdraw is proposed substitution of the Stream Buffer Zone Rule with new rulemaking, saying it was a waste of taxpayer money and harmful to jobs in coal mining communities.Other witnesses also objected to the merger. “Simply stated,” said Ed Grandis, a Washington lawyer who helped develop SMCRA, “the implementation of that order will be illegal.” Grandis noted “a bipartisan Congress over the course of many years” has prohibited the co-mingling of OSM responsibilities with any federal agency that “promotes the development or use of coal.” Jim Lyon, representing the National Wildlife Federation, called the merger “bad for land, water and wildlife.”The department had originally set December 1 as the date for the merger by Executive Order, but in the face of stakeholder and congressional opposition, delayed the consolidation pending the results of a report on its impact from senior department officials due February 15. read more