“With an eye on its growing assembly lines of EVs, China has moved quickly to gobble up stocks of cobalt. According to the CRU Group, a mineral consultancy, China controls 62 percent of the world’s cobalt supply, with 90 percent of that coming from the Congo.”
Does this answer your question? Would you be surprised to find that California politicians would cater to the desires of China? And thank you for the intelligent inquiry.
And how much cobalt is in California? There are considerable rare earth resources in California that can not be mined thanks to environmentalists.