The Biden administration’s 100-day supply chain review shines a spotlight on the urgent need to produce more critical minerals from U.S. mines.

This review includes useful directives to expand geologic studies to identify new critical mineral deposits, evaluate existing mine wastes as valuable sources of critical minerals, and increase the nation’s mineral processing capacity. However, it fails to focus on the main reason why we are so reliant on China and other adversaries for key minerals — the glacially paced and litigious federal permitting process.

Lengthy permit appeals and costly litigation have effectively hollowed out the U.S. mining industry by substantially chilling investment in U.S. mineral exploration and development. Despite the well-documented need for domestic lithium, copper, cobalt, nickel, antimony, silver, and other minerals to support clean energy, anti-mining activists are challenging proposed projects for these minerals in Arizona, Idaho, Minnesota, and Nevada. Apparently, ideological opposition to mining trumps the administration’s decarbonization goals and subordinates the country’s need for electric vehicles and clean energy minerals.