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committee will come to order the chair notes the presence of a quorum pursuant to committee rules members of the committee may submit written opening statements for the record asset members may revise and extend their remarks on the bills to be considered as this markup and have those remarks included in the record without objection so ordered without objection i'm authorized to declare recess of the committee at any time pursuant to committee rule 3i the chair announces that I may postpone further proceedings today on the question of approving any measure or matter or adopting an amendment on which a recorded vote is ordered. And I recognize myself for an opening statement. Good morning and thank you for joining us today for our full committee markup. Today, we're considering important legislation that will unlock our mineral resources and help codify President Trump's executive orders. during our committee's travels and in conversations with americans across the country a common theme has emerged the need for certainty and clarity in a permitting process that works effectively and efficiently and results in projects moving forward to production now this applies to a full range of projects whether it's infrastructure projects like roads and bridges and ports and navigable waterways or energy projects, even projects that have to do with management of our forest, but it particularly applies to mining projects, and that's what we'll be focusing on here today, because the American people are telling us we must stop depending on foreign sources of minerals, and instead produce more of what we need domestically. We must unleash America's resource potential and decrease our reliance on foreign adversaries for minerals that are critical to our supply chains and our very own way of life. Both bills we are considering under regular order today address this concern. H.R. 1366, the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act of 2025, introduced by Representative Amadei, will restore certainty to the permitting of mining support activities necessary for mineral exploration and production across the country.
Empowering domestic mining operations will help us meet the high demand for minerals needed for manufacturing, energy, and infrastructure security, all of which are vital to our economic and national security. Importantly, H.R. 1366 will provide clarity by addressing the 2022 ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals known as the Rosemont Decision, which uprooted more than four decades of regulatory and legal precedent for mineral development. It does so by creating a new category of mill sites so that operators can use federal lands for mining-related activities. Lastly, the bill would create the Abandoned Hard Rock Mine Fund, which would facilitate the remediation of abandoned hard rock mine lands. H.R. 4090, introduced by Representative Stauber, codifies many of President Trump's executive orders for domestic mining and hard rock mineral resources. by codifying key parts of three of President Trump's executive orders, unleashing American energy, immediate measure to increase mineral production, and ensuring national security and economic resilience through Section 232 action on process critical minerals and derivative products. This bill will help provide clarity and certainty in mineral production and mineral supply chains. Specifically, it will address the bottlenecks facing domestic mining by directing the Department of the Interior to change agency actions hindering domestic mineral production, streamline current mining laws, and conduct a nationwide review of state and local laws impeding mineral exploration and development. This clarity in agency actions will open the door to certainty for those looking to invest in mining projects across the country. HR 4090 will also require the Department of Interior to report annually on the economic impact of each mineral we are import reliant on and identify federal lands that may be suitable for expanded production of hard rock minerals. Finally, we will consider six UC bills on which we have reached bipartisan agreement. These bills encompass a variety of important issues, including reauthorization
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before I begin, I do have a unanimous consent request. This is the latest report from Climate Central on people exposed to climate change just this summer. It is the latest global analysis showing where people are feeling the heat of human-caused climate change in their daily lives. This is what it looks like in the United States. Twenty-one million people this summer experiencing 30 days of risky heat, and that's defined as hotter than 90 percent of the recorded weather data in that local area over the previous decade. So I would ask that we enter that in the record, Mr. Chairman. We're on a disastrous path. We refuse to normalize it. Without objection. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, last week in this room, we heard a lot of what I believe is hollow griping about how old the National Environmental Policy Act or NEPA is. It's a law that was passed in 1969. Clearly, it was an attempt by Republicans to put our most important environmental law out to pasture. And I reminded my colleagues, I'll do it again today, that we have updated NEPA many times. We did it just two years ago. But that doesn't seem to stop them from complaining. And if we're going to reform laws going by how old they are, how long they've been on the books, today's an interesting conversation because I want to introduce you to the mining law of 1872, the core tenets of which have never been meaningfully reformed by Congress. And I would dare you to tell me that the world of mining is the same today as it was 153 years ago. The mining law of 1872 codified the practices of the California gold rush of the early 1850s.
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