From the article that Sacajaweau posted at 25:
- Executive Order 13817 (20 Dec 2017) “called on agencies across the federal government to develop a strategy to reduce the nation’s susceptibility to disruptions of critical mineral supplies.”
- The National Defense Authorization Act, passed late in 2019, seeks to wean the government and defense contractors away from seeking their supply of rare earth minerals from hostile countries such as China, Russia and Iran.
- The U.S. Army is talking with American mining companies about domestic options for “heavy rare earths” to be used in weapons programs. (DoD has new mandates to buy American for critical supplies).
More actions to secure our supply chains generally (pharmaceuticals specifically) are coming out from the Coronavirus fiasco.
In addition to the USA restarting mining REEs in California, and building processing facility in Texas, Australia has stepped up its capacity for both mining and processing as well (since the Trump Administration raised the issue).