Recently, in Washington, D.C. the House Natural Resources Committee held a hearing to address the need for timely and responsible development of the Nation’s supplies of strategic and critical minerals to create good-paying mining jobs, boost local economies, and provide security to America’s economy.

Congress is also set to approve H.R. 761, the “National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act,” that allows the U.S. to more efficiently develop its strategic and critical minerals that are vital to America’s economic competitiveness.

SME's Critical Minerals Conference will address these themes and provide the needed science-behind-the-policy so companies, policymakers, investors and other stakeholders can make better strategic long-term business decisions.

Hosted by the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration Inc. (SME) in partnership with AusIMM, Aug. 3-5, 2014, in Denver, CO, USA. This conference follows the successful Critical Minerals 2013 in Perth, Western Australia.

Topics include:

• The U.S. economy’s requirements for raw materials have and will change over time, especially with the introduction of new products and processing technologies.

• As the global economy grows, there are increasing concerns regarding the availability and access to the raw materials that will be necessary to sustain U.S. economic growth.

As the criticality of materials shifts over time, studying the early warning signs and the underlying forces of potential material supply disruption can inform proactive policy development for emerging critical materials.

Register for the conference online. http://community.smenet.org/criticalminerals/home/