The United States needs more minerals; Lengthy permitting process keeps them in the ground

The fragility of already vulnerable supply chains was brought to light first by the COVID-19 pandemic and then by rising geopolitical unrest precipitated largely by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. What was once a concern is now a crisis for many commodities, and especially for the 50 mineral commodities that have been deemed critical minerals by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). In addition to the aforementioned causes for supplychain disruptions that have impacted everything from toilet paper to electric vehicles (EV), the race to electrification of the transportation and energy sectors has added to the pressure. Climate-change concerns have world leaders, including those in the United States, desperately looking to slash emissions and increase production of emission-free EVs. However, the United States does not currently have the capacity to meet the demand for the minerals needed to create the batteries that power these vehicles. Not only are the minerals not being mined in the United States, the United States lacks the ability to process the minerals or to manufacture useful parts from them. A host of American politicians including U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber (R-MN), Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sen. Shelley Capito (R-WV) have introduced legislation aimed at securing a domestic supply chain of critical minerals. The recently passed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the CHIPS & Science Act and the Biden administration’s enactment of the Defense Production Act also include a number of measures aimed at securing the nation’s supply chains. Critical minerals’ supply-chain issues are extremely complicated with many factors in the mix including geopolitical, economic, workforce concerns and environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, but at the start of it all is finding and mining the material that is needed. This is where the United States is at one of its biggest disadvantages when compared to the rest of the world. On average, it takes between seven to 10 years for a mine to be permitted and allowed to move into production in the United States, and in some cases, such as the PolyMet deposit in northern Minnesota, 16 years and counting. Conversely, in Canada and Australia, nations with similar environmental and safety and health standards, the average time for a mine to be permitted is between three and five years. “The permitting process in the United States is broken,” Katie Sweeney of the National Mining Association told SME’s THRIVE Conference in September in Reno, NV. “The United States has become 100 percent reliant on foreign sources of 17 minerals and more than 50 percent reliant on 30 other minerals. It’s not that we do not have the minerals here in the United States, we are finding deposits all the time, it’s that we are not allowing mines to open.” Benchmark Minerals recently completed a study that estimates the world will need 300 to 400 new mines to meet the demand just for EV batteries. That does not include the demand for energy storage. Sweeney said the United States permitted 14 new mines in 2021 and most of those were expansions to existing mines. In 2022, just four mines have been permitted in the United States. “There does seem to be recognition that minerals are essential to the Biden administration’s goals of repairing the nation’s infrastructure and securing our clean energy future,” Sweeney said. “Early on, there was an executive order on supply chains which required a review of the vulnerabilities of critical mineral supply chains. The (Interagency Working Group on Mining Laws and Regulations) included taking a look at current capabilities in terms of domestic mining and domestic processing.” The Infrastructure Law, CHIPS & Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act combined will invest more than $135 billion to build America’s electric vehicle future, including critical minerals sourcing and processing and battery manufacturing. On Oct. 19, the White House announced $2.8 billion in grants for projects that will increase domestic mineral production and increase manufacturing of electric vehicle batteries in the United States. “We have seen a lot of incentives and money flowing for critical mineral production and processing through Department of Energy loans as well as the historic use of the Defense Production Act,” said Sweeney. “There is a lot of money out there, but is the money getting to the ground and where it needs to be? That is a question with an answer that remains to be seen.” The proposed PolyMet Mine in Minnesota could produce many minerals needed for the renewableenergy future. However, the minerals have been locked in place for 16 years during the United States’ lengthy permitting process. Critical minerals for the energy transition The move toward electrification of the energy and transportation sectors as well as the push to decarbonize has increased the demand for critical minerals. In his presentation at the THRIVE Conference, Rod Eggert, professor at the Colorado School of Mines expanded the definition of critical minerals beyond the 50 minerals on the list developed by the USGS by using a quote from Alex King, who said “What is critical depends on who you are, where you are and when you ask.” Each material has its own story, Eggert said, and criticality can be affected by supply issues, geopolitical risks, entry barriers, technology risks and other factors. The lack of new mines and the rigorous process required to put a mine in production could be one of the factors that makes a number of minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper critical to energy and national security, even if not on the list as is the case for copper. There are a number of advanced projects in the United States that have worked through part of or all of the permitting process, but have not been able to move into production for various reasons. Notably, PolyMet and Twin Metals in Minnesota, Rosemont Copper and Resolution Copper in Arizona and Pebble Mine in Alaska. Sweeney explained that one of the most arduous and time-consuming hurdles facing these projects is the inefficiencies in the permitting process. In a conversation with Mining Engineering, Sweeney said that while the process is flawed, there are ways it could be improved. She focused on a few ways that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) could be improved. “If you look at what NEPA does allow, it contemplates avoiding duplicative reviews, allowing concurrent reviews and the federal agencies being able to work off recent state analysis. These things are all allowed under NEPA guidance documents and regulations but are not happening. That’s the kind of thing that we are asking for and the kind of things that we believe would be very effective in streamlining the process,” Sweeney said. She pointed to the Department of the Interior’s report on Renewable Energy on Federal Lands from 2021. “If you look at the actions the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has taken as described in that report for the NEPA analysis you will see a lot of activity to reduce the time frames,” said Sweeney. “They created memorandums of understanding (MOU) with other federal agencies so that they could coordinate better. They established interagency coordination teams with the right kind of staff to work on environmental analysis. They helped with outreach to the Native American tribes on working through the National Historic Preservation Act consultation. And they tried to figure out how to be problem-solvers and identified a bunch of actions that will have some value. “They showed that they know how to do it when they want to.” In fact, the Permitting Action Plan introduced in May to strengthen and accelerate federal permitting and environmental reviews with a sectoral focus on critical minerals includes some of these points. “The Action Plan outlines the Administration’s strategy for ensuring that Federal environmental reviews and permitting processes are effective, efficient, and transparent, guided by the best available science to promote positive environmental and community outcomes, and shaped by early and meaningful public engagement. Taken together, these new steps will help strengthen supply chains, lower costs for families, grow our clean energy economy, revitalize communities across the country, support good-paying jobs, and deliver infrastructure investments on task, on time, and on budget without unnecessary bureaucratic delay,” the White House wrote in a Fact Sheet in May. It said it would also “Work to reform outdated permitting laws and regulations, such as the Mining Law of 1872, to establish stronger environmental, sustainability, safety, Tribal consultation, and community engagement standards.” PolyMet and Twin Metals Northern Minnesota’s Iron Range has produced iron ore for more than 130 years. Within the Iron Range there are also two deposits in the permitting process that if allowed to be mined, could produce a significant amount of the critical minerals currently in demand. The PolyMet and Twin Metals Minnesota mines are copper-nickel deposits that have been working through the United States’ rigorous and complex permitting process for years. These are just two examples of how recognition of the problem is not being met with reasonable action. The minerals have been found and identified. Extensive test work has been completed to design, build, and operate the proposed facilities to Minnesota and US environmental standards. The minerals in the deposits are crucial to the energy transition. The mine plans have been established and accepted, yet both projects currently remain stalled. The Twin Metals Mine is a proposed underground mine adjacent to Birch Lake Reservoir, near Ely. PolyMet’s proposed mine would have two parts: an openpit mine in wetlands just south of Cleveland Cliff’s open pit iron mine near Babbitt and a processing site at the former LTV taconite mining operation near Hoyt Lakes. PolyMet’s measured and indicated resources are 721 Mt (795 million st) with available metals in a mine plan of 527 kt (1.16 billion lb) of copper, 77 kt (170 million lb) of nickel, 2.8 kt (6.2 million lb) of cobalt and 76 t (2.68 million oz) of precious metals including 35,437 kg (1.25 million oz) of palladium and 29,200 kg (1.03 million oz) of silver and 11,328 kg (399 oz) platinum/gold. Twin Metals said it would be “targeting the minerals within the Maturi deposit, part of the Duluth Complex geologic formation. It’s one of the largest undeveloped deposits of these minerals in the world, with more than 4 Gt (4.4 billion st) of ore containing copper, nickel and other strategic minerals.” In January 2022, the Biden administration canceled two federal mineral leases held by Twin Metals saying the leases, “were improperly renewed in violation of applicable statutes and regulations.” The leases had been renewed by the Trump administration after the Obama administration had failed to do so. In August, Twin Metals Minnesota filed a significant lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to reclaim its federal mineral leases and reverse what it called a series of arbitrary and capricious actions by federal agencies aimed at preventing the development of its modern mining project in northern Minnesota. In a statement, Twin Metals wrote that, “Twin Metals’ federal mineral leases were illegally canceled by the Department of Interior earlier this year. In doing so, the agency contradicted the position it asserted and successfully defended in a federal court just four years ago. The lawsuit seeks to restore the leases and other rights, which will restart the environmental review process as required by law for the company’s mine plan.” “We are standing up for our right to a fair and consistent environmental review of our proposed mining project,” said Dean DeBeltz, Twin Metals’ director of operations. “Our plan is backed by decades of exploration and analysis and is rooted in the most environmentally sophisticated design, which is tailored for our project location and mineral deposit. It deserves a fair evaluation by federal regulators based on its merits.” One of the legal actions, a wetland permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was suspended following a legal challenge by the Fond du Lac Band. That permit allows the company to fill or dredge more than 900 acres of wetlands that were once part of Superior National Forest, where PolyMet plans to develop the mine pit and stockpile waste rock. The Corps held a hearing in May on whether the Band will be affected by downstream pollution from the mine. The Corps must decide whether to reinstate, revoke or modify the permit. There is no deadline for that decision according to the Minnesota Star Tribune. In a separate action, the state Supreme Court in 2021 paused PolyMet’s permit to mine, ruling that the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) must hold a hearing on the company’s plan to cap the tailings basin dams, beaches and pond bottom with a bentonite clay mixture. A hearing has been scheduled for March 2023. “There is a race to electrification and we certainly need these metals as has been seen again and again in news articles and White House critical supply reports,” Christie Kearney, vice president, environmental affairs, PolyMet Mining told Mining Engineering. “There needs to be a path through this and I think there is, but we have been working through our environmental review, permitting and litigation process for 16 years now, which is a long process.” The Rosemont Copper Project near Superior, AZ is awaiting its Environmental Impact Statement to be reissued after it was revoked in 2021. Kearney, a native of Minnesota’s Iron Range said the permitting and litigation process has dragged on for so long that some of PolyMet’s first employees have since retired and the mine has still not been put into production. “It has been a rigorous process, which is what needs to be done in Minnesota for the agencies and for the public to be comfortable with it,” said Kearney. “Clearly not everyone is comfortable with it and I don’t think we will ever have everyone totally comfortable with mining in Northern Minnesota. However, I think we have shown that we can mine these critical minerals responsibly and safely and more-so that we have a team motivated to develop and operate in an environmentally responsible and sustainable manner..” In her presentation at the THRIVE Conference, Sweeney noted that permitting delays impact the return on investment for mining companies and have caused many companies to explore for minerals in other jurisdictions. Sweeney said that in the 1990s the United States attracted about 20 percent of global exploration funds. Now that number is closer to seven percent, or about half the amount being spent on exploration in Canada and Australia. To date, PolyMet has invested about $476 million in its project. The company has invested $151 million in environmental and permitting alone. Twin Metals had invested about $550 million in the project that now has no obvious path forward. The lack of clarity and the fact that mine plans can be delayed by litigation up to six years after a federal permit has been issued has hindered the United States’ ability to build its own secure supply chain of critical minerals. “People hear the term streamlining and they think the mining industry is attempting to cut corners,” Julie Lucas, executive director of MiningMinnesota told Mining Engineering. “It’s not about cutting corners. Our goal is a predictable, science-based, transparent process that benefits not only the mining companies, but also the other involved stakeholders. The environmental review and permitting processes require significant investment, both financially and time-wise, and companies want to responsibly prepare for that. A clear route allows us to be better prepared and come to the table with what is needed.” “One of the challenges is on federal litigation, there are six years to sue on the agency decision,” said Kearney. “(PolyMet) got through litigation on our land exchange decision and when the six-year mark was coming up there were two new lawsuits on our land exchange. “It creates a lot of uncertainty when you can be sued on your federal decision six years later.” PolyMet and Twin Metals are just two examples of viable projects being held up in the complex permitting process. In Arizona, the Resolution and Rosemont Copper projects are facing similar uphill battles. Resolution Copper The Resolution Project is a proposed underground copper mine east of Phoenix, AZ, owned by Rio Tinto and BHP. Located in Arizona’s Copper Triangle, mining has taken place there for more than 100 years. The ore deposit lies nearly 2,133 m (7,000 ft) below the earth’s surface. It represents one of the most significant untapped copper deposits in the world with an estimated copper resource of 1.787 Gt (1.96 billion st) at an average grade of 1.5 percent copper. The mine has the potential to supply nearly 25 percent of U.S. copper demand. It began the permitting process in 2006 and like the PolyMet project it has seemingly come close to the finish line a number of times. Most recently, in 2021, the U.S. Forest Service published the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and 45 days later rescinded the EIS to allow for additional review and consultation. “We started during the Obama administration, continued through the Trump administration and on to the Biden administration. Whenever we have elections and administration changeover it can be challenging for a long-duration project that spans multiple government cycles such as ours,” Victoria Peacey, project director for Resolution Copper told Mining Engineering. “We have been patient and supporting the process all while working with a dozen government agencies, 11 Native American tribes and six communities that have participated in good faith for more than a decade.” A number of bills have been introduced in the U.S. Congress that could help streamline the permitting process. Resolution Copper has made a number of changes to its mine plan to preserve areas of cultural significance to the Native American tribes while also protecting campgrounds and other recreational sites. The company has conducted hundreds of consultations to create plans for a sustainable modern mine plan. “Our permitting process has been lengthy and thorough and I think that is OK,” said Peacey. “The EIS has been very robust and the Forest Service has done an amazing job in engaging stakeholders. But, I think there needs to be recognition that if the process has been done right and a majority of stakeholders have engaged in good faith that some decisions can be made.” Peacey said Resolution will continue to work toward creating a sustainable project that uses state-of-the-art technology while waiting for the EIS to be reissued. The Rosemont Copper project, owned by Hudbay Minerals, is a large copper project in the Santa Rita Mountains. Like PolyMet, it had secured its permits but in May 2022 the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a 2019 ruling by a federal judge in Tucson, AZ who faulted the U.S. Forest Service for assuming the company had valid claims to the mineral rights in the area where it would stack waste and could therefore use the land “in connection with” mining operations. The 9th Circuit said the Forest Service could still decide, or remand, that the company’s valid mineral stakes on some forest land give it the right to use additional acreage “in connection with” mining operations. Legislative effort In February 2022, the Interagency Working Group on Mining Reform was formed to bring together experts in mine permitting and environmental law to review existing mining laws, regulations and permitting processes. It was tasked with finding improvements necessary to ensure that new production meets strong environmental and community and tribal engagement standards during all stages of mine development, from initial exploration through reclamation, while improving the efficiency and outcomes of the permitting process, consistent with the Biden administration’s Fundamental Principles for Domestic Mining Reform. Any changes would need to be approved by the full U.S. Congress and President Joe Biden, Reuters reported. Additionally, in September, U.S. Rep. Stauber (MN-08), ranking member of the Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee, introduced the Permitting for Mining Needs (PERMIT-MN) Act. This legislation aims to create certainty for the mining community, limits frivolous litigation, and requires agency coordination across the federal government. “We are blessed with vast mineral wealth in northern Minnesota and across America,” Stauber said in a statement. “Our current permitting process fails to deliver our domestic resources and is abused by keep-it-in-the-ground activists who oppose mining solely on ideological grounds. The PERMIT-MN Act empowers our mining community nationwide. There is no justification to allow decades of litigation and permitting to get a legitimate mining project started.” The Permitting for Mining Needs Act is supported by the National Mining Association, the American Exploration and Mining Association and the Uranium Producers of America. Major components of the bill include: sets time limits to federal environmental reviews to create certainty on permitting time lines; limits frivolous last-second litigation; authorizes memorandums of understanding between project sponsors, states and tribes at early stages and designates a lead agency to coordinate reviews to maximize efficiency. In addition to the Permitting for Mining Needs Act, Sen. Manchin’s proposal would streamline the federal permitting process for energy projects. Manchin’s permitting overhaul would require the U.S. president to select 25 priority projects, create a timeline for environmental reviews with a twoyear target for projects that require reviews from more than one federal agency and set a statute of limitations for court challenges. Sweeney said it was unlikely the bills would get a hearing in Congress before the end of the year but that the bills are important markers on what is needed to get some of these projects moving to make the time frames more efficient. “We are not looking for any kind of environmental or health and safety shortcuts, we are merely talking about some straightforward efficiencies that are already contemplated by NEPA,” Sweeney said.

The United States needs more minerals; Lengthy permitting process keeps them in the ground

Authored by:
William Gleason

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