Mining Regulatory Clarity Act

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 951 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the Committee on Rules met last night and reported a rule, House Resolution 951, providing for consideration of six measures.

The rule provides for H.R. 4776, the SPEED Act, to be considered under a structured rule, making in order six amendments. Additionally, it provides 1 hour of debate, equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources, or their respective designees, and it provides for one motion to recommit.

Further, H.R. 1366, the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act, and H.R. 845, the Pet and Livestock Protection Act, will be considered under closed rules, with 1 hour of debate, each equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources, or their respective designees, and provides each with one motion to recommit.

Additionally, H.R. 3616, the Reliable Power Act, and H.R. 3632, the Power Plant Reliability Act of 2025, will each be considered under closed rules, with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, or their respective designees, with one motion to recommit.

Finally, H.R. 4371, the Kayla Hamilton Act, will be considered under a closed rule, with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary, or their respective designees, and provides one motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and in support of the underlying legislation.

The rule before us gives this House an opportunity to finally begin undoing the damage caused by years of reckless regulatory overreach and economic mismanagement driven by Democrats' failed policies.

Joe Biden may no longer be in the White House, but American families are still paying the price for his administration's failures. Under President Biden, this country experienced the worst inflation spike in 40 years, and we are still paying the price. Groceries costs were more, housing costs were more, transportation costs more, and working families were left wondering how much further their paychecks could stretch.

Mr. Speaker, that pressure didn't stop there. Under Democratic leadership, electricity prices surged by more than 20 percent in many parts of the country, including my own in New York.

Families opened their utility bills and asked a simple question: Why is this getting so expensive so quickly?

The answer is clear: Democrats chose ideology over affordability. They chose mandates over reliability, and they chose Washington control over simple, plain common sense.

Mr. Speaker, the rule provides for consideration of H.R. 4776, the SPEED Act. For years, Democrats have taken the well-intentioned National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, and twisted it far beyond its original purpose.

NEPA was meant to be a commonsense safeguard for our environment, not a tool to block projects indefinitely, but that is exactly how it is being abused today. NEPA is now one of the most litigated statutes in Federal law, not because projects fail environmental standards but because a small group of activist organizations exploit the process itself. They file endless lawsuits to stall infrastructure, energy, and conservation projects for years and years, sometimes decades, with little regard to the real-world consequences for workers, families, communities, and progress.

Those consequences are real. Projects get shelved. Costs skyrocket. Jobs disappear, and families pay more for energy, housing, and basic infrastructure.

We see this broken system clearly in upstate New York. Take Micron, a company and a project too big to fail. This historic investment to bring advanced semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States is critical for our country, for our national security, and for the upstate economy. This project means thousands of good-paying jobs and a stronger domestic supply chain. Yet despite meeting some of the most stringent environmental review requirements in the country under New York law, Micron is still being forced through duplicative Federal reviews that reach the very same conclusions as the State reviews.

As a result, Micron is the only semiconductor project in the country held up, pending a full environmental impact statement, not because of environmental risk, but because of bureaucratic delay and regulatory duplication.

This is not environmental protection. This is regulatory paralysis, and it is costing us jobs and a brighter economic future.

Time and again, Democrats defend this broken system because it gives Washington more control and activist groups more leverage. Because of this process, the result is gridlock. Nothing gets built. Nothing gets fixed. Nothing gets cheaper.

The SPEED Act restores balance. It reins in duplicative reviews. It requires the Federal Government to make timely decisions and stop endless delay from becoming the official policy of the government.

If Democrats are serious about infrastructure, clean energy, and environmental progress, they should support fixing the permitting system that they helped break. They should have no problem supporting things like the SPEED Act.

Mr. Speaker, the rule also provides for consideration of H.R. 3632, the Power Plant Reliability Act.

Years of Democratic energy policy have put our electric grid under real, significant strain, and Americans are feeling the consequences in real time.

Demand is rising rapidly. Manufacturing growth and electrification are pushing this system harder and harder every single year. At the same time, Democrats are forcing reliable baseload generation offline, without a serious plan to replace it. Instead of coordinating policy, they regulate in silos. Instead of planning for reliability, they react after the fact.

The Power Plant Reliability Act forces accountability. It ensures regulators cannot quietly retire critical power plants without fully understanding the reliability consequences on our Nation.

Americans don't need a white paper to understand what happens when reliability is ignored. They see it when the power goes out. They feel it when their energy bills spike. They pay the price when Washington refuses to plan for real-world demand.

Keeping the lights on should not be controversial. It should be something we should be able to get 435 votes on, but Democrats chose politics over reliability. The families in this country are the ones paying the price right now. Premature plant retirements are only part of the problem.

The rule further provides for consideration of H.R. 3616, the Reliable Power Act.

This bill addresses another uncomfortable truth that Democrats don't want to admit. Federal agencies are finalizing regulations that directly threaten grid stability without fully accounting for the consequences, and it is just purely reckless.

The Reliable Power Act requires a long-term reliability assessment that ensures that when serious risks are identified, regulators cannot simply ignore them and press ahead anyway.

Quite simply, this legislation is about ending, once and for all, the implementation of asinine regulations that only harm our grid's reliability. Reliable electricity underpins everything: public safety, economic growth, hospitals, schools, and national security. Republicans are treating that responsibility seriously, and that is why we are bringing this legislation forward today. Unfortunately, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are not.

Mr. Speaker, the rule also provides for consideration of H.R. 1366, the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act.

Democrats talk endlessly about supply chains and national security, but their policies undermine both. Domestic mining projects are stalled, not because they fail environmental standards, but because Democrats have once again allowed endless regulation and regulatory ambiguity to choke them off.

That means fewer American jobs. It means greater dependence on foreign adversaries that are getting rich in the process. It means higher costs across our economy.

If Democrats want secure supply chains and fewer imports from hostile foreign powers, this is exactly the kind of bill that they should support.

Mr. Speaker, the rule also includes consideration of H.R. 845, the Pet and Livestock Protection Act.

It is impossible to deny that the recovery of the gray wolf is a success story. Population goals were met years and years ago, yet Democrats refuse to trust the science and acknowledge the clear success of saving the gray wolf population in this country. Why? Because it would mean betraying the radical environmental groups that want to see laws like the Endangered Species Act weaponized rather than work as intended, to save these animals.

Instead, bowing to their base and ignoring the science, Democrats have kept the future of gray wolf management trapped in endless litigation, leaving farmers and ranchers to deal with the real consequences that they face on their ranches and farms every single day.

What are those consequences? Livestock are attacked, and livelihoods across rural America are threatened, all to satisfy the whims of a radical left activist base that thinks their food comes from the grocery store and their energy comes from a socket in the wall when you plug something in.

The Pet and Livestock Protection Act puts an end to this endless litigation and weaponization of the ESA. It recognizes science, acknowledges success, and restores balance, something our colleagues on the other side of the aisle seem unwilling to do.

Mr. Speaker, finally, the rule provides for consideration of H.R. 4371, the Kayla Hamilton Act.

The bill exists because of a tragic failure, one that my Democratic colleagues, who supported the last administration for 4 long years of open borders, would rather continue to ignore. As the first Trump administration recognized, the Unaccompanied Alien Children Program has been exploited by criminals, including gang members, who come to this country as wolves in sheep's clothing. These individuals use the UAC system not for protection but to recruit and traffic new members and to wreak havoc on American communities.

Under the Biden administration open-border, no-consequences policies, policies my Democratic colleagues wholeheartedly supported, that exploitation exploded. During the Biden years, approximately 465,000 unaccompanied alien children were released to unvetted sponsors. The program lacked basic safeguards to prevent illegal aliens from serving as sponsors.

According to Health and Human Services, roughly 85 percent of UAC sponsors lack lawful immigration status. Thanks to the Biden administration's own policies supported by Democrats for 4 years, countless smugglers, cartels, and bad actors profited from nothing less than the exploitation of children and human trafficking.

Instead of tightening safeguards as encounters surged, Democrats chose to roll back background checks and sponsor reviews, moving children out of law enforcement custody faster, regardless of risk. The consequences to innocent children harmed from years of this horrific policy choice have yet to be fully reckoned with and will certainly haunt generations of innocent victims for years to come.

What we do know is that in May 2024, the Biden administration had lost track of more than 320,000 unaccompanied alien children, placing them at heightened risk of sex trafficking, forced labor, and abuse.

Mr. Speaker, this is not compassion. This is pure negligence.

Picking up the pieces from the wreckage of the Biden-Harris immigration policies, the Trump administration has committed to locating these children and to saving lives, something that eluded Democrats for 4 long years. So far, more than 22,600 unaccompanied children have been located, and over 400 sponsors have been arrested. Tragically, 27 minors have been found dead, victims of murder, victims of suicide, victims of drug overdose. Those are not statistics. Those are lives that are forever lost to tragedy.

The Kayla Hamilton Act restores basic safeguards. It requires background checks. It seeks criminal records from home countries. It puts public safety first.

I urge my colleagues to support this rule. I urge my colleagues to support the underlying legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I think we are now approaching about year 9 of Democrats suffering from Trump derangement syndrome. No matter what is before this House, no matter what the rule before us today actually contains, my colleagues across the aisle find a way to make this about President Trump, not the substance of the legislation, not the issues before the American people, not the suffering the last 4 years have brought on them, not the costs facing families, not the failures of their own record. It is just about Trump to them.

While they are fixated on that, the American people have paid the price. In 2022, while Democrats were consumed by their latest Trump obsession, families were being crushed by the worst inflation spikes in 40 years after trillions upon trillions in Democratic spending overheated the economy.

Groceries, gas, and rent all skyrocketed. You didn't hear a peep on the other side of the aisle. Democrats didn't fix it. They didn't even acknowledge it. Then they doubled down on it and made it worse.

In 2024, with the border wide open and millions of illegal aliens pouring into our communities across the country, Democrats once again ignored the top concerns of American families.

Instead of securing the border or addressing affordability, they doubled down on the same, tired narrative claiming that President Trump was a threat to democracy. You will hear more of it today, Mr. Speaker.

The voters rejected it. They lost the electoral college, they lost the popular vote, and they lost every swing State on the table. Since then, Democrats haven't learned a thing. They have spent their time defending wasteful programs, failed policies, and bureaucratic overreach all while opposing every serious effort by President Trump and House Republicans to clean up the mess that they left behind.

Yet here we are today hearing the same hysterics. The American people have tuned it out. They know what actually matters: trying to lower costs, keeping communities safe, securing reliable energy, and restoring accountability in Washington. That is exactly what the bills under this rule are about.

While Democrats rehash old grievances and relive the same political fixation for the ninth year in a row, Republicans are focused on delivering results for working families. After 4 years of the economic mismanagement under Democratic leadership, Democrats are suddenly pretending to care about trade, tariffs, and the American economy. It is quite a performance. The American people see right through it.

For 4 years, Democrats told families not to believe their own eyes as inflation hit 40-year highs, as their grocery bills exploded, and as their energy costs soared. They brushed off concerns from workers and manufacturers who were watching their jobs disappear overseas and while Washington signed one bad trade deal after another.

They told Americans that surrendering leverage was smart trade policy even as foreign countries flooded our markets and shut their own doors for American producers.

Now President Trump is back in office and trying to right the ship. He is delivering results, and Democrats are scrambling to rewrite history.

Under President Trump's America First trade agenda, the trade deficit has narrowed to its smallest level since the mid-2020 year, down more than 35 percent over last year alone. Exports are up 6 percent year- over-year, reaching their second highest level on record. Inflation- adjusted exports of consumer goods are the largest ever. The trade deficit with China has narrowed to its second smallest since 2009. In the third quarter of 2025, real exports grew 4.1 percent annual rate while imports fell 5 percent, adding roughly 1 full percentage point to real GDP growth.

In November alone, the trade deficit was cut by more than one-half compared to last year, driven by rising tariff revenues as President Trump secured better terms for American workers, farmers, and manufacturers.

This didn't happen by accident. For decades, weak trade policies allowed foreign governments to exploit American openness while protecting their own industries.

President Trump ended that arrangement by using tariffs as leverage. He forced countries to come to the table. They have, and they are continuing to.

Since announcing his trade agenda in April, President Trump has secured new and improved trade deals with major partners covering more than one-half of the global GDP, spanning Europe, Asia, and the Americas. At the same time, companies are responding by committing trillions of dollars in new investment, bringing jobs back here at home, rebuilding supply chains, and putting American workers first again.

Mr. Speaker, shouldn't that be what we are working on here?

I could go on and on, Mr. Speaker, but today's debate is not about relitigating trade policy or listening to Democrats pretend to suddenly discover economic responsibility. Today we are focused on the six bills under this rule, bills that reflect the same commonsense approach that President Trump has applied to trade, strengthening domestic production, lowering costs, restoring reliability, and undoing the damage of the Biden years. That is the work before us today.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to open up the text of the rule before us today, and for good measure the underlying legislation as well, and hit ``control F'' on the words Affordable Care Act. They will quickly see that despite their fixation on making everything about the topic, nowhere in this rule or the underlying legislation is the Affordable Care Act, ACA subsidies, or marketplace coverage mentioned.

However, the policies that they are working, and hopefully there will be further bipartisan discussions about, were set to expire by their own hand at the end of a 5-year window because it was COVID emergency spending. I don't think I am breaking any news here, but COVID is over. Something that Democrats don't seem to want to ever end is an unlimited spigot of public money devoted to an issue.

We have to get to the core reasons why health insurance for all, not just those that are on Affordable Care Act plans, but for people in private insurance, all the public expenditures through our Medicare and Medicaid programs, why is healthcare an explosive cost year over year?

That is going to take bipartisanship and working together and putting some of these petty fights aside, because even if we extended these credits for 3 years, as they would like, it doesn't solve the problem for the millions upon millions and tens of millions of Americans who are on private pay insurance.

We have to really get serious about affordability, health insurance affordability, and the cost of delivering our healthcare in this country. Their remedy to this problem is putting a Band-Aid on a bullet hole. It is an expiration that is by their own hand and own design because it was designed for COVID-era emergency spending.

As a reminder, the measures in this rule are straightforward and common sense: strengthening energy reliability and tackling affordability in this area, streamlining permitting so that infrastructure can actually get built, restoring certainty to domestic supply chains, trusting science over ideology in wildlife management, and advancing public safety measures that protect our communities.

These bills are about lowering costs, keeping the lights on, and restoring accountability. That is the agenda before us in this rule today. That is an important agenda to the American people and the affordability issues that stand before us and our future prosperity.

Democrats want to lecture us about being serious on energy, but the American people remember exactly what 4 years of Democratic energy policy delivered. Under President Biden, Democrats drove up costs, weakened our electrical grid, and forced the premature retirement of reliable baseload power. They flooded the market with mandates and subsidies picked by Washington, not by engineers, and then acted surprised when electricity prices spiked and grid operators started warning about blackouts.

When those prices spiked, the price of everything spiked because increased electricity and energy costs drive up the price of all goods and services. Families paid more, reliability got worse, and Democrats told Americans that somehow it was all worth it.

Now that President Trump is back in office and reversing that damage, Democrats suddenly claim that these

bills are partisan not because they are extreme, but because they expose how reckless the last administration was.

President Trump and House Republicans are doing what Democrats refused to do: streamlining permitting so that projects can actually get built, restoring common sense to environmental review, and prioritizing dispatchable power sources that actually keep the lights and the heat on in this country.

The truth is, Democrats don't have a serious answer to rising energy demand, grid reliability, or affordability. Their answer is just throw up a few more windmills and all will be well with the world. We can shutter every other power plant that has proven baseline power, and the windmills and solar panels will solve all the problems.

Their solution is always the same: more mandates, more subsidies, more regulation, and hope that the grid holds together by wishes and dreams, not by science and practicality.

Republicans are offering something different: policies grounded in reliability, affordability, and domestic American production so American families aren't left paying more while China builds coal plant after coal plant month after month and laughs all the way to the bank.

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what this rule advances. The energy bills before us are commonsense measures to strengthen reliability, streamline approvals, and support American jobs as well as ensure that American families have access to affordable American power, not slogans, not lectures, not dreams and wishful thinking.

If my colleagues across the aisle are truly serious about lowering costs and securing Americans' energy future, they should stop posturing and support this rule because Americans don't need more talking points. They need the lights to stay on.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, my colleague across the aisle wants to paint these bills as giveaways, which is wild considering what Democrats themselves have already done.

Democrats passed a so-called Inflation Reduction Act, the most poorly named bill in the history of the Congress because it did nothing but skyrocket inflation. Everyone has the proof of that in their weekly grocery bills and their utility costs.

It happened on their watch. They dumped massive new spending on an overheated economy and helped drive the worst inflation in 40 years. That is just fact. That is indisputable. Despite the title, it didn't reduce any inflation, not even close.

What it did was create a massive subsidy pipeline for green energy companies, all tied to the People's Republic of China. Chinese firms, ultimately answerable to the Chinese Communist Party, rushed in to take advantage of all these credits and the programs that Democrats set up. Apparently, that part has slipped their memory.

When House Republicans tried to add basic guardrails to stop those subsidies from flowing overseas to China, Democrats objected. They objected loudly, not quietly.

When Democrats are throwing around the word ``giveaway,'' it is fair to wonder whether they have forgotten their own record or are just hoping that everyone else is focused on something else.

Democrats are perfectly willing to outsource Americans' energy future and our national security to foreign adversaries to pursue their agenda.

Republicans are doing the opposite. We are strengthening domestic production. We are securing supply chains here at home in the United States and reducing our dependence on China.

That brings us back to the rule before us today. The six bills in this rule are focusing on restoring reliability, supporting domestic production, and streamlining permitting so that projects can actually move forward and lower costs for American taxpayers.

Mr. Speaker, that is the work before the House today, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the rule before us reflects a clear choice. After years of regulatory overreach, misplaced priorities, and Washington-knows- best policymaking, this House is taking steps to restore balance, accountability, and common sense.

The legislation considered under this rule addresses real problems Americans are facing: higher energy costs, delayed infrastructure, weakened supply chains, threats to grid reliability, and failures that put public safety at risk.

These bills do not eliminate environmental protections or public input. They simply require the Federal Government to act responsibly, plan for real-world consequences, and stop using endless process as an excuse for inaction.

Republicans are focused on getting things built, keeping the lights on for Americans, keeping the heat on, protecting communities, and strengthening America's economic and national security. That is what the American people expect, and that is what this rule and the underlying legislation advances. I strongly support the rule before us today.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I remind everyone that we are at the end of this year. We are running out of time to fix the healthcare crisis that Republicans have created. Christmas break is right around the corner, and hardworking Americans are struggling. They are being crushed under the weight of rising costs.

What do our Republican friends have us voting on?

The next bill that we have up today, H.R. 1366, the so-called Mining Regulatory Clarity Act, is just a gift for folks who really ought to be on the naughty list this time of year: foreign mining companies.

I strongly oppose this bill.

According to its sponsors, it is a legislative fix to the Rosemont court decision, a court case that determined that a mining company was not allowed to dump its toxic mine waste on public lands based on an invalid mining claim.

You see, Mr. Speaker, for years, mining companies were allowed to dump their waste wherever they wanted without paying fair market value for that land, without public land managers having any real option to say no regardless of which precious public lands might be destroyed forever.

However, in the Rosemont decision, the court held that under current law, a mining claim is only valid when it actually contains valuable minerals. That makes sense. That is common sense, if we want some common sense.

However, the mining industry didn't like that. They were not happy that they could no longer dump their toxic waste on phony, invalid claims anymore.

So here we are today passing a so-called fix for the industry.

Now, let's remember that enormous benefit is stacked on another one: Mining companies don't pay back the American people a cent in royalties for the minerals that belong to the people of the United States. The antiquated Mining Act of 1872 essentially gives away America's valuable mineral resources for free, often to foreign-owned mining companies, even companies controlled by our adversaries.

Even so, the industry calls the Rosemont decision an existential threat. Give me a break.

You know what happened to the Rosemont mine after that court decision came down? The next day, the company paid for private lands for its waste disposal. The mine wasn't stopped. It is just the industry would prefer to use the public lands, your lands, and to be able to dump for free.

Industry argues that this bill would provide certainty and clarity for mining and exploration. In practice, this fix would just allow mining companies to use a different type of claim called a mill site for unlimited mine-waste dumping. They could use it for pipelines and processing whatever else they would like, again at cut-rate prices.

For the record, I have found no evidence that any mines are currently being held up because of the Rosemont decision anywhere in America. This is a solution in search of a problem.

Time and time again, Democrats have raised legitimate concerns with this legislation, and we have offered good-faith amendments to address those concerns.

I offered an amendment to strike the broad definition of operations in the bill, which effectively means that mining operations don't need a mining claim at all.

Representative Lee from Nevada offered an amendment to clarify that mining companies should only use the public lands that are actually necessary for their operations, and to make clear that nothing in the bill limits the rights to regulate mining and related activities on Federal lands.

Representative Leger Fernandez offered an amendment to exempt companies that are owned and controlled by our adversaries from these incredible benefits under this bill.

All of these amendments were very straightforward. None of the issues raised should be a surprise to the majority. They have had time to work with us, but they chose not to. They rejected all of these amendments. I guess they would rather let foreign mining companies controlled by our adversaries pillage our public lands for cheap or even for free. Noted.

Again, I strongly oppose this legislation and reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Minnesota for listing all of those States and places because it is important for the American people to know that if this becomes law, a free toxic dump site on your public lands is on its way in all of those places. That is what this is about.

One of the cynical euphemisms we keep hearing is ``regulatory certainty,'' so let's talk about what that really means.

Mining permitting has continued after the Rosemont decision. The Rosemont mine itself proceeded. It wasn't impacted. There is no legislative fix needed to this fake problem. This bill would codify only the most industry-friendly interpretations of the mining law and introduce additional uncertainty around the government's ability to enact basic commonsense regulations on mining on public lands.

To expand on that, the bill's current definition says that mining operations include: ``All functions, work, facilities, and activities in connection with the prospecting, development, extraction, and processing of mineral deposits and all uses reasonably incident thereto, including the construction and maintenance of means of access, whether the operations take place on or off the claim.''

This is sweeping. Effectively, this means that mining operations don't need a mining claim at all to conduct operations on your public lands. While this definition is currently in regulation, the Interior Department, and the leading public land law treatise have found that offsite mining activities do not currently get the same rights and priority use as mining claims. That is what is at stake in this legislation.

Permanently codifying this into law would further put mining over other uses of our public lands, doing an end run around the multiple- use balancing requirements that are foundational to public land management.

While our land managers have limited discretion right now to deny a mine on public lands, they do at least have some authority over their roads, pipelines, and toxic waste dumping. That would all be taken away by this legislation.

This is not regulatory clarity. It is regulatory charity to an industry that has already gotten 150 years of giveaways.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no,'' and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I include in the Record a letter of opposition from 189 organizations, Tribes, companies, and local elected officials.

December 17, 2025.

Dear Member of Congress: The 189 undersigned organizations,

Tribes, companies and elected officials are writing on behalf

of our millions of members and supporters to express our

strong opposition to H.R. 1366, The Mining Regulatory Clarity

Act (MRCA). The legislation includes sweeping provisions that

would weaken the already outdated 1872 Mining Law and give

even more control over our public lands to the mining

industry. We ask you to oppose The Mining Regulatory Clarity

Act.

Most mining in the United States is governed under a 150-

year-old, extremely permissive law enacted when Ulysses S.

Grant was president. The law disempowers frontline

communities, has no environmental guardrails, and doesn't

require mining companies to pay a royalty on the billions of

dollars of publicly owned minerals they extract. This law

governs mining on public lands that are currently being

dismantled by the administration and their Congressional

allies with active threats to sell off millions of acres of

our lands, roll back protections such as National Monuments

and mineral withdrawals in secret, and firing thousands of

workers whose jobs are essential for the future existence of

our public lands. Additionally, recent executive orders were

signed invoking emergency powers to increase domestic mining

and processing of minerals, including those by foreign owned

mining companies. They cover not just critical minerals, but

others like gold. The executive order explicitly calls for

agencies to prioritize mining above all other uses of public

lands, and aims to provide funding and loans for mining

projects, as well as accelerate permitting processes under

the guise of the Defense Production Act. If you combine the

antiquated mining law, the recent EO's, and the

administration's efforts to dismantle our public lands, along

with the now unpredictable compliance with the National

Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) (due to President Trump's

executive actions) communities are now more at risk from

mining harms than they were even 10 years ago.

History already paints a clear picture of the risks posed

by irresponsible, deregulated mining for critical resources

across the country. The EPA estimates that 40% of headwaters

and 50% of lakes have been contaminated by hardrock mines,

decimating

watersheds and the communities that depend on them for

freshwater, including drinking water. Recent research reveals

that the vast majority of critical mineral resources in the

United States are located within 35 miles of Native American

reservations. As demand for hardrock minerals grows

domestically and globally, it is critical that we ensure

mining laws and standards protect communities and the

environment while strengthening and securing our supply

chains. Unfortunately, the MRCA would take us backward, not

forward, and create more conflict over mines, not less.

First, the MRCA would allow mining companies to claim

indefinite numbers of millsites on public land, without

meaningful limitations, where multinational mining companies

can permanently dump toxic waste and construct infrastructure

like pipelines and roads. These millsites could block public

lands from being used for more suitable purposes, such as

renewable energy projects, watershed protection, cultural

resource access, and recreation. This provision would remove

any effective limits on millsites and eliminate the

requirement that such claims be located only on non-mineral

land, a key feature that prevents lands with valuable

minerals from being buried under waste or made inaccessible.

Second, several additional provisions contained within MRCA

would weaken, if not negate, over a century of precedent that

has limited the amount of damage to public land caused by our

permissive mining law. According to current law, operators

must first prove that there are in fact valuable minerals on

a mining claim before they gain the right to conduct large-

scale operations on those claims. Additionally, operators

cannot conduct operations outside of their claims without

obtaining further permits. MRCA could render these

requirements meaningless by codifying a regulation that

defines all activities related to mining under the term

``operations,'' even if they are not directly on a mining

claim. This could allow mining companies to build pipelines,

roads, and powerlines and conduct other activities across

public lands without ever having to get a permit for them.

The MRCA does not contain any meaningful limits to prevent

abuses of the millsite provision. It states that mining

companies may use public lands in accordance with an approved

plan of operations. But that is of little assistance given

the bill grants mining companies an unlimited, statutory

right to use those lands--a right that cannot be denied in a

mining plan of operations. The offered protections are thus

no protections against the giveaway of public lands.

Finally, MRCA includes a savings clause that states mining

companies still have to prove that there are valuable mineral

deposits on claims within lands that have been withdrawn from

mining. However, the exclusion of similar language for claims

on unwithdrawn lands could be read by a court to imply that

Congress intended to eliminate the requirement for such

checks on unwithdrawn lands, which make up the vast majority

of public lands. Altogether, these sections essentially give

mining companies a nearly unlimited right to dump waste

across an indefinite number of acres of public lands under

the proposed millsites provision.

This bill's provisions will have a devastating impact on

frontline communities, cultural resources, and sensitive

ecosystems. Instead of passing this legislation, Congress

should enact true reforms to our mining laws such as those

identified by the 2023 Interagency Working Group on Mining

Laws, Regulations, and Permitting, especially those that

would close loopholes for foreign companies, improve

environmental standards, and create competitive leasing to

balance the nation's clean energy mineral needs with other

public land uses. We urge you to oppose the passage of S. 544

& H.R. 1366, whether as a standalone bill or as a part of a

larger legislative package.

Sincerely,

1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations, 350 Bay Area

Action, 350 Hawaii, A2 (Anthropocene Alliance), Access to

Thrive, Alaska Clean Water Advocacy, Alaska Community Action

on Toxics, Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association, Alaska

Wilderness League, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Amigos

Bravos New Mexico, Appalachian Citizens' Law Center, Arizona

Faith Network, Arizona Mining Reform Coalition, Arizona Trail

Association, Arizonans for Community Choice, Basin and Range

Watch, Becky Daggett, Mayor of Flagstaff, AZ (as an

individual, Biofuelwatch, Bitterrooters for Planning.

Black Hills Clean Water Alliance, Black Hills Preservation

Project, Bold Visions Conservation, Borderlands Restoration

Network, Cabinet Resource Group, California Environmental

Voters, Californians for Western Wilderness, CalWild, Cascade

Forest Conservancy, Cascadia Wildlands, CDT Preservation

Alliance, Center for Biological Diversity, Chilkat Indian

Village, Circle Z ranch, Citizens for a Safe & Clean Lake

Superior, Citizens to Protect Smith Valley (NV), Climate and

Community Institute, Climate Justice Alliance, Coalition for

Sonoran Desert Protection, Colorado Citizens Against

ToxicWaste Inc, Concerned Citizens Retired Miners Coalition.

Conservation Northwest, Conservatives for Responsible

Stewardship, Continental Divide Trail Coalition, Corona de

Tucson Preservation Alliance, Day One, Deer Tail Scientific,

Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice Action, Earthworks,

EcoFlight, Emily Mine Information Group, Environmental

Protection Information Center--EPIC, Esker Cycles, Friends of

Santa Cruz River, Friends of Sonoita Creek, Friends of the

Amargosa Basin, Friends of the Bitterroot, Friends of the

Clearwater, Friends of the Inyo, Friends of the Kalmiopsis.

Friends of Santa Cruz River, Friends of the Sonoran Desert,

Gallatin Wildlife Association, Gila Resources Information

Project, Global Witness, Grand Canyon Trust, Grand Staircase

Escalante Partners, Great Basin Resource Watch, Great Basin

Water Network, Great Old Broads for Wilderness, GreenLatinos,

High Country Conservation Advocates, Idaho Conservation

League, Idaho Rivers United, Imperial Valley Equity and

Justice, Inclusive Development International, Indigenous

Environmental Network, Information Network for Responsible

Mining, Investor Advocates for Social Justice.

Izaak Walton League Rapid City SD Chapter, Jeff and Karen

Ives, Kalmiopsis Audubon Society, Kalmiopsis Guides

Association, Kettle Range Conservation Group, Klamath Forest

Alliance, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, League of

Conservation Voters, Living Desert Alliance, Living Rivers &

Colorado Riverkeeper, LNE Engineering and Policy, Local

Environmental Action Demanded (LEAD) Agency, Inc., Los Padres

ForestWatch, Lower San Pedro Watershed Alliance, Lynn Canal

Conservation, Madrean Archipelago Wildlife Center, Malach

Consulting, Maricopa Audubon Society, Mennonite Central

Committee U.S., Mining Impact Coalition of Wisconsin.

MiningWatch Canada, Montana Chapter Sierra Club, Montana

Environmental Information Center, Mount Shasta Bioregional

Ecology Center, Multicultural Alliance for a Safe

Environment, Native American Land Conservancy, Native Village

of Fort Yukon, Natural Resources Defense Council, Nature For

All, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, Nevada

Conservation League, New Mexico & El Paso Interfaith Power

and Light, New Mexico Environmental Law Center, Next 100

Coalition, Nicole Palese PLLC, Noowuh Knowledge Center, North

Carolina League of Conservation Voters, Northeastern

Minnesotans for Wilderness, Northern Alaska Environmental

Center, Norton Bay Watershed Council.

Oregon Natural Desert Association, Oregon Wild, Our Roots

Multi-Cultural Center, Partnership for Policy Integrity,

Patagonia Area Resource Alliance, Patagonia, Inc., Pipe Line

Awareness Network for the Northeast, Prairie Hills Audubon

Society (of Western SD), Progressive Leadership Alliance of

Nevada, Protect Thacker Pass, Protect the Kobuk, Public

Citizen, Rachel Carson Council, Responsible Jewelry

Transformative, River Alliance of Wisconsin, Rivers Without

Borders, Rock Creek Aliance, Rural Arizona Engagement, San

Juan Citizens Alliance, San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council.

San Pedro 100, San Xavier District of the Tohono O'odham

Nation, Save Lake Superior Association, Save Our Cabinets,

Save Our Sky Blue Waters, Save Our St. Vrain Valley, Inc.,

Save the Scenic Santa Ritas, Save the South Fork Salmon,

Sheep Mountain Alliance, Sierra Club, Sierra Protection

Action Network, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas Justice

Team, Sky Island Alliance, Smith River Alliance, Soda

Mountain Wilderness Council, Southeast Alaska Conservation

Council, Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary

Commission, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Southwest

Research and Information Center (SRIC), SPAN.

Sustainable Ocean Alliance, Sustainable Tucson, The

Becoming Project INC, The Calabasas Alliance, The Healthy

Environment Alliance of Utah, The Native Village of Dot Lake,

The Ocean Project, The Wilderness Society, Tri-Valley CAREs,

Tucson Bird Alliance (formerly Tucson Audubon), Turtle Island

Restoration Network, Universidad Popular, Upper Peninsula

Environmental Coalition, Uranium Watch, Washington Wild,

Water Legacy, Weber Sustainability Consulting, West Berkeley

Alliance for Clean Air and Safe Jobs, Western Shoshone

Defense Project, Western Shoshone Nation.

Western Watersheds Project, Wild Arizona, Wild Connections,

Wild Hope, Wild Horse Education, WildEarth Guardians,

Wildlands Defense, Wildlife for All, Yellow Dog Watershed

Preserve.

Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chair, the signers of this letter express their strong opposition to this bill. Specifically, they argue that it would weaken the already outdated 1872 mining law and give the mining industry even more control over our public lands.

They note that mining in the United States is already governed under a law that is 150 years old, enacted under President Ulysses S. Grant.

These organizations, Tribes, and leaders remind us that the 1872 law has no environmental guardrails, that the mining industry is already the only industry that doesn't have to pay any royalty when it extracts our minerals on public lands, and that 40 percent of headwaters and 50 percent of lakes have been polluted by mining activity.

They also raise specific concerns within the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act.

First, the bill would allow multinational companies to claim an indefinite number of mill sites to permanently dump toxic waste on our public lands for free.

Second, it could block renewable energy development, recreation, and other uses of our public lands by allowing mining companies to build roads, pipelines, and other infrastructure by right and without any permits, as long as they are connected to a plan of operation.

Finally, the bill could be read to eliminate the requirement that mining companies prove that there are even some valuable minerals to validate their claims on the vast majority of our public lands.

The letter urges us to enact real reforms to the 1872 mining law that would improve environmental safeguards for communities and ecosystems impacted by mining, give Federal land managers a say in deciding where mining is and is not appropriate, and close loopholes that allow foreign companies to exploit our public lands.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez), who has shown great leadership on this seemingly commonsense need to put some guardrails in place to make sure that foreign-owned mining companies, including those owned and controlled by our adversaries, don't have the benefit of all these lavish giveaways.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is another unnecessary giveaway to the mining industry. It lets literally anyone, including foreign mining companies controlled by our adversaries, claim as much of our Nation's public land as they want for next to nothing, extract our publicly owned minerals without paying a cent in royalties back to the American people, and then permanently bury our public lands in toxic mining waste.

Our mining laws need reform. They don't need this.

With bipartisan interest in securing our critical mineral supply chain, we actually have an opportunity to create modern mineral policies that would empower American innovators to recover the minerals we need while honoring indigenous sovereignty, protecting the environment, and making sure American workers and communities share in the benefits, as well as the American taxpayers. Instead, the majority is doubling down on the extraction above all land grab from the gold rush back when we codified this 1872 mining law.

They refuse to engage with Democrats to include even commonsense safeguards against letting foreign adversaries take our public minerals for free. They refuse to limit the industry's waste dump mill sites to only the public lands necessary for their operations. Ominously, they refuse to clarify that this bill does not affect the Federal Government's ability to regulate mining on public lands, which the unnecessary Savings Clause in this bill calls into question.

It bears repeating that the mining industry already has a sweetheart deal on our public lands. We are the only industrialized Nation that lets anyone claim whatever they want on public lands and extract public minerals for free.

This bill is no minor technical fix to overturn a court decision. It is a massive giveaway of public lands to an industry afraid that one of those many giveaways that they have had for all of this time was about to be challenged.

Mr. Speaker, I urge opposition to the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to today's rule.

While Americans are going into the holiday season struggling with rising prices and the high cost of living, with just days left before health insurance premiums are set to skyrocket for 22 million Americans, while the President is leading the country to war with Venezuela, and yet another mass shooting has claimed the lives of young Americans, Republicans are using the final legislative days of 2025 to prioritize six unserious, make-work bills.

They are using precious floor time and resources to put forward messaging bills with no chance of passing, bills that have nothing to do with the reality that most Americans are living

and the problems that they want Congress to solve.

But that is what this country has come to expect from House Republicans who have used their control of the House as a vehicle for PR stunts and to pick the pockets of working people in order to line the pockets of the wealthy and the well connected.

Under Republican control of the House, the Senate, and the White House, 2025 has been a year of chaos, controversy, and corruption in which every day brings a new self-inflicted crisis.

While most of this chaos has originated from the White House, congressional Republicans are no less responsible, for they have aided and abetted this administration's agenda at every turn. How humiliating that in recent weeks, staff at the White House have openly mocked the subservience of House Republicans.

From day one of this term, Republicans in Washington have made clear they are here to serve their donors, to serve billionaires and big business, and not the American public. They spent the first half of the year ramming through their partisan big, ugly bill which gave permanent, budget-busting tax cuts to the rich while canceling Medicaid and SNAP for millions of Americans.

They continually prioritize big business and culture wars in legislation like the bills before us in today's rule, a series of bills that put their thumb on the scale for the oil and gas industry at the expense of Americans' health and the stewardship of the environment. Republicans are deliberately choosing to raise Americans' healthcare costs because they refuse to extend the ACA tax credits.

Americans everywhere are pleading with Congress to lower the cost of living as families struggle to afford housing, healthcare, childcare, and even groceries. Trump campaigned on a promise that he would lower prices on day one, but once in office, he has put tariffs on almost every good coming into the U.S., directly raising the prices for nearly everything we buy.

Whether it is food at the grocery store, home appliances, a new car, Trump's trade wars and tariffs have made everything more expensive. These trade wars have undermined key portions of our economy. The tariffs have already cost us nearly 50,000 manufacturing jobs, and our tourism industry is suffering greatly.

Making matters worse, Congress could end the tariffs today. The House could vote today on any number of Senate-passed resolutions that would end the Trump tariffs, but Speaker Johnson has blocked every one of those bills. House Republicans have now voted on four separate occasions to block legislation that would end the Trump tariffs. They have repeatedly doubled down on that decision to keep your prices high.

But it is not just the tariffs. Just last week, House Republicans blocked bipartisan legislation that could have become law, that would have built new homes all over America, lowered rents, and made mortgages more affordable.

With healthcare, Americans are seeing the biggest increase in health insurance costs in 15 years, yet the Republican majority is actively opposing extension of the ACA tax credits that lower premiums for 22 million Americans.

While Republicans fail to act on affordability, they are also conspicuously silent on the near daily corruption emanating from this White House. Trump has pardoned hundreds of criminals convicted of serious offenses, including drug traffickers, money launderers, and fraudsters, depriving Americans of justice and restitution and enabling at least some of those pardoned to commit further crimes.

In many of these pardons, they have come at a price. Trump pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez, who is convicted of trafficking 400 tons of cocaine into the United States. Ostensibly, this pardon will influence a Presidential election in Honduras.

Trump pardoned the CEO of Binance after he made a $2 billion investment in the President's company, World Liberty Financial. Nearly a dozen well-connected individuals, many of them donors to the President's campaign or investors in his companies, have also received pardons.

Trump has also shown a curious leniency to major criminals. He pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who ran one of the biggest drug-trafficking and money-laundering operations on the deep web.

The President also dropped criminal charges against multiple MS-13 gang leaders in order to help cover up a corruption scandal for his ally, Salvadoran President Bukele.

He has directed Federal prosecutors and law enforcement officers to drop investigations of serious crimes, including drug and human trafficking, in order to focus on immigration enforcement, letting countless criminals off the hook.

Of course, we can't forget the yearslong coverup of the Epstein files. On the campaign trail, Trump and his allies swore they would release the Epstein files, but once in office, they have blocked the release for 11 months. Ultimately, it has taken an act of Congress to force the President to release those files. The deadline to release the Epstein files is this Friday, but we still haven't seen a single document from the White House or the Department of Justice. Again, all of this begs the question: What exactly is this White House trying to hide?

All this time, while Trump is pardoning drug traffickers and dropping charges against gang members and violent insurrectionists who assaulted cops, congressional Republicans have been silent. If you ask Speaker Johnson about it, as the press has, he will tell you he has no idea what you are talking about.

Republicans are silent as Trump and his White House cause crisis after crisis. Trump and Hegseth are leading us into another forever war in Venezuela. The President has called for the execution of Democratic Members of Congress. The administration has withheld FEMA funding for disaster victims but gave a $40 billion bailout to Argentinean hedge funds.

Administration officials are wasting taxpayer dollars to fly around the country for personal business and photo ops. ICE and Border Patrol have detained more than 170 American citizens, including nearly 20 children, and that total is growing by the day.

The national debt is over $2 trillion higher in just this year alone. It is all so insulting to you, to me, to every American, to see this flagrant corruption and shameful mismanagement on a daily basis. House Republicans seem to have priorities so completely at odds with the needs of the American people that they have ignored all year the kitchen-table issues that American families struggle with every single day.

Instead, they have spent their time in Washington, when they have actually come to Washington, working on industry handouts, gold-plated ballrooms, and stirring up insane culture wars.

You deserve better. America deserves better. We deserve a functioning Congress that actually works for the American people, not just the wealthy and well connected.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I think the point we are trying to make is that this shouldn't be about economic policy. The Republican leadership's refusal to address the Trump tariffs and the damage they have inflicted upon our economy and upon American families' pocketbooks should be the topic before the House instead of these makeweight bills that are never going to become law.

Mr. Speaker, at the start of 2025, the Republicans knew there were two big tax provisions due to expire at the end of this year, now, within the next 10 days. One of them was the 2017 Trump tax cuts which overwhelmingly went to the wealthiest Americans, and the second was the ACA tax credits that helped millions of Americans afford health insurance. This has been known to everybody all year.

Now, our Republican colleagues made the choice in their big, ugly bill, which they spent so much time and energy on this summer, to extend the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy, and they have also made the intentional choice to let the ACA tax credits expire. In doing so, they are causing the premiums for 22 million Americans to skyrocket. It is likely that millions of Americans will lose their health coverage this year due to our Republican colleagues' failure, refusal, in fact, to address that issue.

Mr. Speaker, when we hear our Republican colleagues talk about their healthcare bill that they are trying to bring to the floor this week, know that their legislation will not renew the ACA tax credits. It will not lower premiums, and it will not lower costs.

Mr. Speaker, 80 percent of the bill is simply new paperwork requirements for pharmacy benefit managers, and the parts of the bill that do involve healthcare costs are horrible. They basically want to sell Americans junk insurance policies, and people know about these. These are the policies that have low sticker costs but terrible coverage when you need it, Mr. Speaker.

We really just have been imploring our colleagues to come to the table to try to do what the American people need them to do so that Americans have health coverage when they need it, and we have not seen them be willing to do that.

That is why we have a discharge petition sitting there at the desk. We just need four Republicans to join all of the Democrats in the House to force a vote to extend the ACA tax credits, and we would invite them to do so.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to provide for consideration of H.R. 6074, which would extend the Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits for 3 years, through 2028.

Mr. Speaker, for months, Democrats have sounded the alarm about the expiring enhanced premiums, urging the Republican majority to join us in extending these premiums before the end of the year so that all of our constituents can get the healthcare coverage they deserve.

Millions of Americans have already received notices from their health plan that their premiums are going to skyrocket starting January 1, 2026, just a few days from now, in some cases by over $1,000 a month. The median income in my district is about $80,000 for a family of four. They can't afford an additional $12,000 a year for health insurance.

However, there are only 3 legislative days remaining to fix this problem before the health insurance costs of over 20 million Americans rise, but this Republican majority has ignored and blocked any effort to extend those credits. The majority even told their own moderates they won't get a vote on the floor to extend them.

I am happy to give them that vote right now. We can defeat the previous question, and we can consider a bill that would extend the ACA enhanced premium tax credits for 3 years.

There is no more time to waste. The deadlines are all passed. We have to act now for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment into the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Min) to discuss our proposal.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague from New York that Congress needs to get serious about affordability both of everyday products and services but also health insurance, and that is why we have offered the amendments that we have and why we have been urging our colleagues across the aisle for months to address this issue.

However, as we focus on the rule today, which does not address affordability, there are a number of issues dealing with electricity prices. American households right now are paying record-high electricity prices, prices that have been rising, and most analysts are predicting will continue to rise more in 2026.

There is only one real way to lower electricity prices. That is to build more energy in the United States. Democrats did this, made serious efforts toward this when we passed the Inflation Reduction Act. We provided a forward-looking mix of financial incentives to build more power from all sources but especially from wind and solar. Those measures have been embraced by the American people, and they have been embraced by our energy industries.

However, while our Republican colleagues say they want to lower electricity bills, they have actively torpedoed these efforts to build more domestic energy.

President Trump and congressional Republicans have rescinded nearly all the investment incentives from the IRA. As a result, we are seeing domestic power generation decreasing, household electricity costs rising, and thousands of good-paying jobs being effectively canceled.

At the same time, the big, beautiful bill gave huge handouts to the oil and gas industry. These are handouts that won't increase energy production but will simply pad the profits of Chevron and Exxon. This is the Republican energy agenda: higher prices for you, the consumer, and higher profits for the oil and gas industry.

It is an incentive that we see continued in some of the bills under consideration in this rule today, which will require that coal- generating electricity plants stay online even when they have outlived their usefulness and profitability. Meaning, once again, consumer costs go up, but the coal industry gets the benefit.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time for closing.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard some well-intentioned debate from our Republican colleague today, but the fact remains that this week is being wasted on messaging bills that will not become law.

All year, Republicans have failed to act on affordability. They failed to bring down housing costs, to control inflation at the grocery store, or to lower electricity bills. They were elected to office to tackle these problems, but for an entire year, they have sat on their hands, opting for press conferences and tweets instead of legislation and dealmaking.

Earlier this year, Republicans ended healthcare coverage for 15 million Americans with their big, ugly bill. All this year, Republicans have blocked each and every effort to renew the ACA tax credits. Now, health insurance costs are at a 15-year high, and premiums are set to skyrocket for 22 million people.

In my district and in most of America, electricity prices are through the roof. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has bent over backward for AI companies, cut billions of dollars in energy investments, and canceled major clean energy projects.

In Congress, Republicans' energy agenda continues to boost oil and gas profits but does nothing to actually lower bills.

This past weekend, America witnessed yet another mass shooting that took the lives of two and critically injured nine more. This year has seen 391 mass shootings. We have lost nearly 14,000 people to senseless gun violence. No matter how many times we see the same tragic story play out on the news, our Republican colleagues keep their heads in the sand and refuse to bring forward or endorse commonsense gun safety legislation, which the majority of Americans and law enforcement leaders support.

This term, Republicans have turned Congress into a rubberstamp for executive action. It is a major abdication of our constitutional responsibilities, and it has done irreparable damage to this institution. It is my sincere hope that 2026 brings new opportunities for bipartisan action on these pressing issues.

The American people deserve better than a President who governs by tweet and a Speaker who has neutered Congress' role in our constitutional order.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question and rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 4090, a bill that hands the mining industry, amazingly, the power to gut its own regulations while doing nothing to secure American mineral supply chains or help make life more affordable for the American people.

It is more of the same from House Republicans and this administration, more favors for their billionaire buddies, and more ways to enrich themselves all at the expense of the American people, who are struggling.

If we asked everyday Americans right now to list 100 things that you care about that you want Congress to be working on to make your life better, I promise you that giving more sweetheart deals to multinational mining corporations would not be anywhere on that list. I can think of a thousand better ways to spend our time than debating this bill on the House floor. We could be reining in the out-of-control agency ICE, which is terrorizing communities around the country and murdering people in the streets.

We should be addressing skyrocketing healthcare costs, which our Republican colleagues seem to have forgotten entirely about. We could be talking about how to lower energy prices, including the skyrocketing utility bills caused by Donald Trump's crazy war on clean energy, but no. We are back here, once again, talking about deregulation designed for and by the mining industry.

H.R. 4090 would codify parts of President Trump's executive orders on mining. I will say that we can agree on many of the bill's stated goals: creating good jobs, strengthening our supply chains, reducing the global influence of our adversaries, and safeguarding national security.

The stated goals are one thing. Then there is what actually is in the bill, what the bill does, and that is quite another thing.

We should not confuse the mining industry's best interests with the public interest. This bill would direct the Interior Secretary to take all necessary steps to expedite and approve certain priority projects with no restrictions on who operates the projects, what they mine, or where.

There is nothing to stop this administration right now from prioritizing mines owned and controlled by our foreign adversaries. That loophole, that glaring problem, that national security threat, is not corrected at all in this bill. There is nothing to require a focus on minerals actually needed for clean energy and national defense. There is nothing to prevent the administration from approving mines on sensitive public lands or even in our national parks. These are all simple safeguards that, for some reason, are not in this legislation. That is ripe for abuse and misuse of our public resources when you advance a bill like this.

In prioritizing lands for mining, the bill makes no mention of minimizing conflict with neighboring communities, like Tribes, or protecting other important natural resources and uses of public lands like logging, grazing, and recreation. The bill also looks to the mining industry itself for direction on which regulations to roll back, and again, no public input and no Tribal consultation.

My colleagues across the aisle often tout the United States' environmental and labor protections as the best in the world, but as protections are eroded in favor of polluters over people, who is to say that basic protections for drinking water and worker safety aren't the next targets?

Mr. Speaker, our environmental laws have reined in the industry's worst pollution and abuses, but regulations being successful doesn't mean that we no longer need them. Nothing in this bill guarantees that minerals mined here will stay here or benefit Americans.

Time and again, we have suggested guardrails that could be put in place, into bills like this, to make sure that foreign adversaries don't end up taking advantage of all of these corporate giveaways that our Republican friends keep putting on the table. It ensures that they don't come here and, practically for free, extract our publicly owned natural resources and take them to other parts of the world and use them in ways that are not in our interests. We keep offering these guardrails. Our Republican colleagues keep saying no.

Under the General Mining Act of 1872, anyone, including subsidiaries of foreign adversaries, can claim our publicly owned materials, mine them for free, ship them abroad into the global market, and do nothing to help the interests of the United States of America.

Time and again, we have raised this glaring vulnerability with legitimate solutions on the table to address it, and our Republican friends refuse to work with us.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose H.R. 4090, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, there we have it, and I am sure not for the last time in this conversation. The risk of terrible environmental harm by this huge corporate giveaway is nothing to worry about because we have NEPA. We have the Clean Water Act. We have the Environmental Protection Agency. We have all of these environmental safeguards, every one of which is under withering attack from the same colleagues across the aisle who are moving bills like this and from this administration.

This is across the board. There is legislation to gut all of these bedrock environmental laws. There are actions by this administration and litigation moving forward from the industry.

Mr. Speaker, it is cold comfort indeed. I am, frankly, shocked that anyone across the aisle could even say these things with a straight face and point to our bedrock environmental laws as an assurance that nothing will go wrong for the environment, our public lands, our natural resources, Tribes, and others who are worried about this corporate giveaway.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from upstate New York (Mr. Tonko).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Mrs. Grijalva).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, there they go again. For the second time, we hear references to NEPA, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the bedrock environmental laws, that they will protect us from all of these terrible scenarios that they say Democrats are raising as scare tactics.

I just can't think of anything less persuasive than hearing that kind of cold comfort from the very folks who are attacking every one of those bedrock environmental laws with other legislation and through administrative actions by this President and in the courts. It is remarkably hypocritical and certainly not very persuasive.

Now, when we think about this mining free-for-all that our Republican friends are trying to create with this legislation, we are not having this conversation in a vacuum. We have to think about who benefits.

Just 2 weeks ago, the Trump administration announced that it would invest over a billion dollars and take an equity stake in USA Rare Earth, a mining and manufacturing company. So much for concerns about socialism. Reporting uncovered that USA Rare Earth hired Cantor Fitzgerald to help with fundraising, a firm chaired by Brandon Lutnick. If that sounds familiar, it is because he is the son of Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.

In October, the Trump administration announced equity investments in the mining company Trilogy Metals, while simultaneously directing agencies to fast-track permitting for Ambler Road, the controversial project needed to access Trilogy Metals' proposed mine site. Trilogy Metals' third largest shareholder is John Alfred Paulson, a Trump mega donor and an economic adviser. His Trilogy shares increased by $70 million in value after that announcement.

It is a similar story for Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who personally sold shares worth between $50,000 and $100,000 in the mining company MP Materials following a July announcement of one of these lucrative equity deals.

The administration is making a pattern out of picking winners and losers in the mining industry, and a suspicious number of those winners have close ties to Trump officials or Trump family members. This is an incredible grift that our friends across the aisle are playing into.

These deals tie taxpayer dollars to corporate balance sheets and incentivize administration officials to prioritize individual corporate interests over the broader public good.

Earlier this week, myself, Ranking Member Robert Garcia of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Ranking Member Martin Heinrich of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources sent a joint letter to the administration, demanding answers on Trump's taxpayer-funded mining spending spree.

To date, there has been no public disclosure of procedures or safeguards in place to ensure these ownership stakes do not influence permitting decisions, regulation, enforcement, contracting decisions, or other agency decisions relating to these mining and mineral projects. Before we give this administration even more power to enrich themselves and their friends at the expense of everyday Americans, let's get some answers to these basic questions.

Now, with that, Mr. Speaker, a lot has been said about China, the boogeyman of China, our adversary on the global stage. Yet, we have a bill before us that, my guess is, the People's Republic of China would absolutely love. Here to tell us more about that is the gentlewoman from New Mexico.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, if my friend from Minnesota actually heard us say the things that he just says he heard in his own mind, I am genuinely worried that we need to get an audiologist in here. I am glad that we have a court reporter and that we have a video record because we said nothing of the kind.

My friend, Mr. Westerman, did say something very important. I don't know if this was his intent, but he sort of made one of our points for us. We cannot mine our way to security with brute force because China controls 80 percent of the world's processing power and nearly 90 percent for rare earth elements. If our only solution is to just have more and more mines and to open up this mining free-for-all in the United States, as Republicans seem singularly focused on, we are essentially giving a gift to our largest adversary.

Let me tell you what this bill does to address the lack of processing capacity here in the United States--or anywhere outside of China-- nothing, absolutely nothing. That is what it has been throughout this Congress from our friends across the aisle--crickets about addressing the real problem when it comes to our competitive threat of China on processing but a rush to open

up our public lands and gut our environmental laws for the mining interests.

Setting up a safe, environmentally sound processing industry in the United States and with our allies does have some barriers right now, but rarely is the lack of raw mine materials one of those barriers.

Take copper and lithium, for example. The Bipartisan Policy Center published a report last year that found that sourcing feedstock domestically or from free trade agreement countries was not a primary barrier to processing.

Much bigger barriers are competition for labor and a lack of price competitiveness, which are major barriers across the board. For some of the other essential minerals like cobalt, nickel, and rare earths, while feedstock is a challenge, it certainly isn't the only one. It is naive to think that fast-tracking mines alone will secure our supply chains and fix these problems.

Instead, we should support a responsible processing strategy, build a more circular economy, and innovate around low-impact mineral sources, like byproduct recovery from mine tailings and recycling, as Mr. Tonko from New York talked about a moment ago.

We need to train the highly skilled American workforce that we need to do all of these jobs. These are things that we need to be working together on. Instead, it is always a rush to open up public lands and give more corporate giveaways for mines.

It has been suggested that there is some sort of a spiteful agenda behind all this, a NIMBY interest where some States allow oil and gas extraction but they don't want it done in Minnesota and other places.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez) to speak about some of those accusations that have been made.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New Mexico.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I oppose H.R. 4090 for all the reasons that have been discussed.

This is a bill that directs the administration to prioritize and approve mines, any mines that it wants, even ones owned by foreign adversaries, giving them an expedited path to mine our publicly owned minerals and to export them, usually straight to China.

The Republicans have named it the Critical Mineral Dominance Act, but they forgot to make sure that it was America that would benefit. Democrats have tried again and again to add commonsense guardrails to stop foreign adversaries from benefiting from our

minerals. Republicans have repeatedly blocked these efforts with creative new excuses every time.

Let's drop the facade. This bill is not about American mineral dominance. It is not about critical minerals, either, because nothing in this bill limits the special treatment to strategically important minerals. Nothing in this bill would stop the administration from declaring a gold mine a priority and fast-tracking it. We have already seen them give millions of taxpayer dollars away to a gold mine in Nevada. Gold has never been critical, except when it comes to, I guess, decorating the White House.

This bill is an industry giveaway, pure and simple, and it leaves Americans footing the bill.

We have heard a lot of passionate talk from across the aisle about mining more here in America because we do it best and because we have such strong environmental and labor safeguards. However, this bill tells the Interior Department and the Forest Service to roll back those very regulations that my colleagues brag about and to go ahead and weaken pollution protections if the mining industry thinks they are too ``burdensome.''

Communities around the country know the consequences of unregulated mining all too well, especially Tribal communities who have borne much of the brunt of mining pollution: toxic waste, poisoned land, polluted water, and generations of pollution and disease.

Is this what it means to Make America Great Again? I think we can do a lot better than that. Democrats are willing to work to find responsible, strategic solutions to securing our critical mineral supply chains, but this bill takes us in the wrong direction, creating an industry-led free-for-all that allows anyone to mine our minerals, profit from them on the global market, and then leave Americans with nothing but the pollution.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1032, I call up the bill (H.R. 4090) to codify certain provisions of certain Executive Orders relating to domestic mining and hardrock mineral resources, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 4090.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4090, the Critical Mineral Dominance Act.

This legislation addresses one of the most urgent challenges facing our Nation today: our growing and unnecessary dependence on other nations for the critical minerals that drive our economy and sustain our national defense.

The United States has never been more reliant on hard rock minerals than it is today. Copper is the backbone of our electricity grid. Nickel, cobalt, and lithium go into the batteries that power our communications devices and back up critical infrastructure such as hospitals and data centers. Rare earth elements make possible the cutting-edge technologies that enable our economy to innovate and our military to keep us safe.

The global mineral race is not optional. Over the next 15 years, demand for copper and rare earth elements is expected to rise by 50 percent; cobalt, 150 percent; and lithium, up to 500 percent. Shortages of all the above could be upon us within a decade.

Yet these minerals are right here under our feet. We have the safest, most sophisticated, efficient, and environmentally friendly mining technology and workforce anywhere in the world. The United States should be the world's mineral supply chain. The only reason we are not is because of our outdated, shortsighted Federal policy that hinders domestic mining.

President Trump recognized the dangerous gap between America's mineral needs and mineral production. Upon returning to office a year ago, he signed three executive orders to help close that gap.

The first directed Federal agencies to correct or rescind regulations that unduly burden domestic mining and instructed the Secretary of the Interior to accelerate geologic mapping.

A second executive order required Federal agencies to prioritize mineral development on viable Federal lands.

The third directed Federal agencies to assess the economic costs and national security risks of our dependence on foreign minerals.

H.R. 4090, sponsored by the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber), would codify the natural resources-related provisions of these EOs and require additional reporting from the Department of the Interior.

The reports will, for the first time, reveal the true costs that mineral dependence imposes on the U.S. economy. They will clarify the scope and location of America's vast mineral deposits.

During markup, the Natural Resources Committee worked in a bipartisan manner to strengthen the bill, adopting two minority amendments that required DOI to report to Congress on barriers to byproduct mineral production on Federal lands and to examine projects with the potential to produce hard rock minerals from coal ash and coal byproducts.

Mr. Speaker, the alternative to American mineral dominance is buying foreign minerals from supply chains controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. That is where we are now: mineral dependence. Mineral dependence benefits no one except the CCP. Mineral dependence does not help the environment. It does not drive economic growth. It doesn't make us or our allies safer.

American mineral dominance will create thousands of new mining and mineral-related jobs. It will establish the United States as the hub of the world's mineral market. It will secure critical mineral access for the U.S. military and for our allies.

Mr. Speaker, we need these minerals to build a better future. Our choice is whether to lead the world in meeting that need as only we can or to cede that responsibility to corrupt regimes, systems, and foreign enemies we know will abuse it. The American people have made their choice. It is time for us to honor it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Stauber for his work on this legislation. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 4090, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources and the lead sponsor of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, there seems to be a lot of agreement on this issue. There is the fact that we need more critical minerals in the United States, and the demand for that is not going away. We need it for economic security. We need it for national security. The rub seems to be where these critical minerals and elements are going to come from. What we are promoting is that they come from America.

The other argument seems to be that we need them but not in our backyard. That has been the position of our country for far too long.

Mr. Speaker, instead of not in our backyard, it is much better in our backyard because we have better labor standards, better environmental standards, and better health and safety standards.

God has blessed our country with these deposits of minerals really from sea to shining sea. We just need to be getting them out of the ground here, creating American jobs while doing that, creating more American jobs and more wealth while we refine those ores into metals and then manufacturing from that.

That is what our vision is. We want to see Americans use American resources to promote American security and American economic growth. I wish we could all agree on that, but that is what this bill will help to promote.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, if you read the bill, there is absolutely nothing in the bill

about allowing foreign mining companies to come into the U.S. and exploit our Federal lands, to bypass all Federal regulations, and create scenarios like may have happened in some other country. Those are just scare tactics to continue this idea of not in my backyard.

We all want these things. We all recognize that we need these things. We have to have these critical minerals. We have to have these rare earth elements, but the mindset is that we will just get them from somewhere else. We will ship off our environmental issues to some other country and let them deal with it instead of dealing with them here in America, where we, again, have the most stringent rules, have the highest expectations, protect human rights, protect the environment, and promote occupational health and safety.

Show me some place in the world that does that better than we do. It is certainly not Communist China, where all of these rare earths and critical minerals are coming from right now.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, in preparing for this floor debate, I should have asked my staff to bring posters of smoke and mirrors because it would be fitting for the arguments that we are hearing that seem to try to distract us from everything but the real issue. That issue is that we are not producing the minerals and elements here in our country that we need for our economy and our defense, and China is dominating those markets.

Now, I agree with the gentlewoman from New Mexico: We should be processing these mined materials here in the United States. We have to ask ourselves the question: Why aren't we processing more minerals in the United States? Number one is that we can't get new mines. Why do we need a processing facility if we can't get the material we need to go through the processing facility?

The other one is that we can't permit a new processing facility in a timely manner and build it in a cost-competitive manner because of our overburdensome permitting and regulatory processes and laws that we have here in the United States.

This is the argument why we need permitting reform, why we need to speed up the process, and why we need to give certainty to investors that we can build here in America again.

When we talk about refining metals, let's talk about copper. In 1995, we produced three times more copper than China. Today, they are producing 10 times more copper than we are. We have two copper smelters. They have 50. It is not because we don't know how to build copper smelters, don't have copper deposits, or don't want to produce copper in the U.S. It is the fact that there have been so many obstacles and barriers put in place that it has driven that industry overseas to other places.

It is time we bring it back here and do it in a more environmentally responsible manner--again, with human rights protections, health and safety protections, environmental protections, and the standards of the United States. It is time we start doing this in our backyard and not exporting our issues to other countries while we turn a blind eye to it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, let's look at the issue at hand here. I want to address the policy issue and the weakness in the argument that we could restrict mining companies to 10 percent Chinese ownership. That is a bad policy decision.

It is a bad policy decision, Mr. Speaker, because if you are the Chinese Communist Party and see a mine is getting ready to happen in the United States, and it is going to be done by a company that is traded publicly, you could go buy 10.1 percent and stop the project. We don't need that kind of policy.

Plus, that policy doesn't apply to the jurisdiction of this bill. If a policy like that needs to be designed, then it needs to go through the Financial Services Committee.

Also, don't think, Mr. Speaker, that our opposition on this--being China, for the most part--will not play dirty. What they do is when they see any kind of mining project or processing facility considered in the United States, they dump product onto the global market, driving the price down to make the economics such that nobody would invest in that project.

Fortunately, that is being addressed. Just this week, the administration announced something called the vault, which will be a repository for critical minerals. It will be similar to our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We will have strategic critical mineral reserves.

We need to be able to produce those critical minerals here in the United States to put in that reserve, which will insulate against foreign bad actors dumping in our markets to drive the prices down to make projects not economically viable.

Again, the real issue here is that we need this material in America, sourced by American mining companies, processed in America, and going into American manufacturing. We can partner with our allies around the world to help make this happen, but when we look at where the deposits are, they are here in America. We have to produce oil and gas where the oil and gas deposits are. We have to mine copper where the copper deposits are.

Again, we are blessed to have all of those things here in our country, but we are not utilizing them. Because we are not utilizing them, we are allowing our adversaries to control the markets.

It is not just an economic issue. It is a national security issue. That is why we need legislation like this legislation. That is why we need permitting reform.

We talk about building processing facilities in America. We passed the bipartisan permitting reform bill, but, unfortunately, many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle voted against that.

The Senate is considering that now. Hopefully, the Senate will pass that bill in a bipartisan manner, like we did in the House, but with a larger bipartisan group. We can get it to the President's desk so we can create certainty, so we can start building more processing and manufacturing here in our country, and so we can utilize these abundant resources that we have.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for speakers. I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I will reiterate the fundamental fact of this debate. In the 21st century, America's economy, military, healthcare, communications systems, and transportation infrastructure depend on hardrock minerals.

There is no scenario where the United States and the rest of the world aren't competing to purchase these critical minerals. The only question is whether we are all competing for minerals mined here in the United States or in mines controlled by our foreign adversaries.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, in 2024, the United States was 100 percent net import reliant for 15 nonfuel mineral commodities. Additionally, of the 60 minerals identified as critical by USGS, the United States was 100 percent net import reliant for 12, and at least 50 percent net import reliant for an additional 30.

Mining them here is better for our economy, our national security, our allies, and the environment. H.R. 4090 will help close America's mineral production gap and begin to end our dependence on foreign minerals.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.